#xils

XILS-lab updates ultimate matrix modular soft synth with welcomed fanciful features added to XILS 4 v1.5

XILS-lab updates ultimate matrix modular soft synth with welcomed fanciful features added to XILS 4 v1.5 “My favourite analogue synth is probably the VCS3, so when I heard that a company was releasing a software version I was quite cautious; today, XILS 4 is one of my favourite plug-ins! Working with it gives me the same excitement as the original hardware, plus there are lots of extra features, since it is basically two VCS3s with an interconnected sequencer. The sound is great, and it is one of the best soft synths on the market for experimenting with new ways of creating sounds!” - Jean-Michel Jarre (award-winning composer, performer, and record producer), April 2015 GRENOBLE, FRANCE: audio software company XILS-lab is proud to announce availability of XILS 4 v1.5 — a major update to its self-styled ultimate matrix modular soft synth, effectively emulating a conceptual ‘blend’ of the legendary VCS4, a ‘dual VCS3’ analogue matrix modular synthesizer prototyped by British trailblazing entity EMS (Electronic Music Studios) back in 1969 but never commercially released, with pioneering British synthesist Tim Blake’s so-called ‘Crystal Machine’ (comprising two EMS Synthi AKS analogue matrix modular synthesizers with hard sync between their oscillators, one connected to the keyboard and the other connected to the sequencer) — with welcomed additional fanciful features including a powerful preset manager in a single window and new effects with semi-modular routing, as of November 30… Historically, XILS-lab’s self-styled ultimate matrix modular soft synth creatively combines two XILS 3 soft synths; indeed, its earlier, critically-acclaimed release represents an authentic-sounding software recreation of the groundbreaking late-Sixties-vintage EMS VCS3 analogue matrix modular synthesizer, scaled up to also emulate EMS’ early-Seventies-vintage Synthi Sequencer 256, but boasting even more matrix connections than the original hardware that inspired it! In order to gain an appreciation of the sheer scope of XILS 4, understanding the origins of its smaller software sibling is in order; so let us journey, briefly, back in time, then... to 1969.

The British-built EMS VCS3 — or Electronic Music Studios Voltage Controlled Studio #3 to give it its full appellation (also affectionately known as ‘The Putney’ — after company founder Peter Zinovieff’s original pioneering electronic music studio location in the leafy London suburb — and, somewhat confusingly, ‘The Synthi’ — after its later SYNTHI VCS3 II incarnation) — made musical history upon its 1969 introduction as the first commercially portable synthesizer available anywhere in the world. Its innovative modular matrix-based patchboard dispensed with the telephone exchange-like cabling of other (much larger) modular systems in favour of making connections with (removable) coloured pins, so it could be comfortably housed in a small wooden (solid afrormosia) cabinet. Clearly distinctive in both its physics laboratory test equipment-lookalike looks and strange-sounding sound effects, the VCS3 quickly found favour with the more experimental leading lights of the day, including the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (think Dr Who), Brian Eno (with Roxy Music), Jean-Michel Jarre, and Pink Floyd, to name but a few first-generation famous users. Ultimately, thanks to Peter Zinovieff’s visionary synth wizardry, patch-building became a whole lot easier with more inputs and outputs to boot, and no more roadies (necessarily) needed! Needless to say, time and tide waits for no man (and no synth), so technology’s inexorable march onwards inevitably saw the venerable VCS3 washed away as a wave of powerful programmable American analogue polysynths took hold, opening the technological floodgates to the tsunami of more mainstream (and affordable) digital developments that ultimately changed the course of music making forever.

Fortunately for some, what goes around often comes around; today those strange sounds are sought after again and new VCS3s are available to custom order from a former EMS employee — albeit at a premium price tag with a predictably distant delivery date; mere musical mortals, meanwhile, have XILS-lab to thank for its cost-conscious and award-winning XILS 3 soft synth successfully taking the emulated essence of the late-Sixties-vintage VCS3 and associated early-Seventies-vintage Synthi Sequencer 256, transporting them to modern-day DAW-driven workflow with all the recallable benefits that brings with it. It is little wonder that XILS 3 proved popular with both first-time buyers beginning an intriguingly in-depth journey into the wonderful world of modular synthesis and also seasoned synthesists, such as renowned sound designer Richard Devine and original VCS3 aficionado Tim Blake (Hawkwind), as well as Peter Zinovieff himself, who kindly commented, “A great step forward!” Fast-forwarding to today, thanks to constructive conversations with both Peter Zinovieff about EMS’ fabled fusion of two VCS3s to produce the prototyped VCS4 and pioneering British synthesist Tim Blake about his so-called ‘Crystal Machine’ (comprising two EMS Synthi AKS analogue matrix modular synthesizers, with hard sync between their oscillators, one connected to the keyboard and the other connected to the sequencer), which resulted in XILS-lab’s self-styled XILS 4 ultimate matrix modular soft synth — subsequently reaping the benefits of a high-profile namecheck by French electronic music pioneer par excellence Jean-Michel Jarre as one of his favourite plug-ins, XILS 4 v1.5 takes that conceptual ‘blend’ to its current contemporary conclusion, courtesy of the New Preset Manager (NPM) being implemented alongside an additional natural-sounding reverb, new effects with semi-modular routing, second independent keyboard, and self-explanatory BAL L-R (balance between left and right synthesizer module) knob.

Needless to say, that NPM implementation is a major step forward in the evolution of XILS 4, allowing users to easily and speedily perform different tasks with welcomed visual feedback — for example, locate and load the most suitable preset in seconds via a multi-criteria search engine, save/save as presets with (user-generated) tags, batch-tag multiple selections of presets, export/import multiple selections of presets, and select view (such as showing only favourite presets or hiding unwanted presets). In adding a natural-sounding reverb to XILS 4 v1.5, XILS-lab also took the opportunity to totally revamp its Effects Block, so users can now route any effect in any order, and also choose to process only the left or right synthesizer module with any available effect; in short, while previous versions offered only one instance of fixed effect routing, now dozens of possibilities are available — adding reverb on the chorus (or vice versa) or processing the left synthesizer module with reverb and the right synthesizer module with delay and phaser, for example. Elsewhere, the second keyboard opens up XILS 4 to the possibilities of split patches or layering the two synth engines to only one part of the keyboard.

Accomplished additions apart, XILS 4’s (online-viewable) full feature list is impressive as it comes — cue 12 aliasing-free oscillators, grouped in six pairs across two synthesizer modules, with wave shaping and hard sync, plus two additional noise generators, and two (virtual) analogue multimode filters, each with non-linear and zero-delay behaviour and three different (12/18/24 dB) modes... just for starters. Simply said, those already fanciful features really represent only the tip of the inspirational iceberg, so-to-speak... just ask Jean-Michel Jarre about its pin matrix magic, for what it’s worth! With up to 1,140 simultaneous connections per patch, perhaps it is all the more understandable that he said, “... it is one of the best soft synths on the market for experimenting with new ways of creating sounds!” XILS 4 v1.5 is available to purchase as a USB eLicenser or iLok (1 and 2 dongle hardware or software) protected plug-in at an introductory promo price of €99.00 EUR until December 10, 2018 — rising thereafter to an MSRP of €179.00 EUR — from XILS-lab here: https://www.xils-lab.com/products/xils-4-p-148.html (Note that XILS 4 v1.5 is free for owners of all earlier versions of XILS 4.) XILS 4 v1.5 can be directly downloaded as a multi-format (AAX, AU, RTAS, VST), 32- and 64-bit soft synth and virtual effects plug-in for Mac (OS X 10.7 and later) and Windows (XP, 7, 8, 10) from here: https://www.xils-lab.com/products/xils-4-p-148/download.html

XILS-lab Update Poly M to 1.1 while adding NKS Support 

XILS-lab is proud to announce availability of PolyM 1.1.0 — updating its critically-acclaimed, authentic-sounding software recreation of a pioneering polyphonic analogue synthesizer manufactured between 1975 and 1980 (based on divide-down oscillator technology similar to electronic organs and string synthesizers of the time), and arguably made most famous by British ‘new waver’ Gary Numan, notably seen as well as heard when ‘driving’ over an endless ‘synthscape' in the trailblazing promo video for his 1979 chart-topping ‘Cars’ single; someone since observed that career-defining song’s parent album, The Pleasure Principal, “...is almost an album-length advert for the Polymoog...” — with welcomed additions including a new preset manager and an ability to run as an effects plug-in, plus compatibility with Native Instruments’ Native Kontrol Standard (NKS®), as of October 2…

PolyM first put in an appearance last year, when XILS-lab clearly considered those oft-overlooked Polymoog presets to be well worth revisiting, recreating an ‘unlimited’ polyphony polysynth that was recognisably revolutionary upon its initial release and making it fit for today’s creative computer-based music-makers with a state-of-the-art software makeover. Making that happen took two years — such was the complexity of its inspirational hardware predecessor. PolyM palpably didn’t disappoint, deftly reproducing yesteryear’s divide-down technology with two TOD (Top Octave Divider) oscillators — one for the sawtooth wave and another for the square, slightly detuned for a phenomenal phasing effect (when running independently in FREE mode), yet taking the concept further forward by adding polyphonic pulse width modulation. Meanwhile, in LOCK mode, those two TOD oscillators are almost locked in phase, producing PM (Phase Modulation) instead of FM (Frequency Modulation) when the square wave oscillator is modulated in pitch. The two TODs can also be modulated — tempo-sync-able — in pitch by an LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator), while the square wave oscillator has it own pulse width modulation by a tempo-sync-able LFO. Alongside a distinctive envelope generator, this represents the musical heart and soul of PolyM, pushing that revolutionary polysynth sound kicking and screaming into the future!

Further features of note include: 71 emulated chips, offering mixer, VCA (Voltage-Controlled Amplifier), envelope, 12dB filter, and pulse width modulation for each of the available notes; stunning-sounding 24dB ladder filter (using XILS-lab’s critically-acclaimed zero-delay algorithm); nine dedicated acoustic filters — STRING, PIANO, ORGAN, HARPS, FUNK, CLAV, VIBES, BRASS, and VOX — carefully recreated from the original (model 203a); RESONATORS filter bank with three parametric (6dB and 12dB) filters matching the original; three vintage — DEL. (delay), PHAS. (phaser), and REV. (reverb) — effects (with adjustable settings from within an Advanced Settings Panel alongside nine modulation slots for furthering sound design possibilities well beyond the scope of the original hardware); and more.

Today, thanks to the PolyM 1.1.0 update, there’s even more to (literally) make a song and dance about. As such, the NPM (New Preset Manager), a newly-integrated, single-window affair allowing users to easily and speedily perform different tasks with welcomed visual feedback — for example, locate and load the best fitting preset in seconds courtesy of a multi-criteria search engine, save/save as presets with (user-generated) tags, batch-tag multiple selections of presets, export/import multiple selections of presets, and select view (such as showing only favourite presets) — represents a major step in PolyM’s evolution; by that same token, those acoustic filters and RESONATORS, as well as the three vintage-sounding effects, are also available to work with other sound sources when running PolyM purely as an effects plug- in proffering plentiful possibilities for modulation; meanwhile, support for Native Instruments’ NKS® extended plug-in format for all virtual instrument developers delivers intuitive and seamless interaction with the German giant’s cutting-edge KOMPLETE KONTROL S-Series keyboards and MASCHINE hardware.

Helpfully, there are now over 300 professionally-programmed presets available as creative kickstarters in PolyM; parameters are all MIDI- controllable, combining to musically position this soft synth par excellence as an innovative instrument of its time while retaining a certain pioneering polyphonic analogue synthesizer’s coveted performance properties of the past. Put it this way: while what the deceased Austrian neurologist (and founder of psychoanalysis) Sigmund Freud would have made of this polysynth hommage is obviously open to speculation, surely the still active Gary Numan should approve... as will anyone’s bank balance by paying (comparatively) so little for so much playing pleasure. Thanks to its welcomed 1.1.0 additions, PolyM pushes beyond the pleasure principal in both senses, so anyone wishing to sonically travel back to the future should seriously consider adding it to their soft synth arsenal — all the more so at an attractive (albeit time-limited) introductory promo price representing a welcomed 40% saving. Best be quick, though — time waits for no man... or woman (or child)!

https://www.xils-lab.com/products/polym-p-160.html