Sonic State Studio / Virtual/Soft synths /
 U&I Softwares Metasynth At a Glance  
Picture needed
arrowReleased:  arrowVersion: 2.50
arrowRated: Not Reviewedarrow Add review:  (0)
arrow Virtual/Soft synths LinksarrowSubmit a link
arrowSoftware: Win XP, Mac, OSX,
Dr. Bob Seiple writes:
Metasynth is a complex of synthesizers, which uses pictures you color onto a palette called the image synth. This picture is kinda analagous to a controller. It determines the way a waveform, a granulated synth, an FM synth or a sampled set of intsruments play. Each pixel acts as a recorder and an oscillator. The horizontal axis of the image synth relates to pitch (or frequency); the higher on the Y axis you place a figure, the higher the pitch. The X axis serves the temporal dimension of your soundscape. In this way, you build presets. Presets can be short, or up to about 2 min in duration.

Presets can be filtered and the nature of the filter is highly variable. Presets can be stretched, compressed, rebuilt, sliced and diced, morphed into and thru one another and are subject to an excellent selection of effects. Because the stereo field is determined by color, you can scatter notes into tne field.

The number of functions in this package is wild. And you can be precise, composing or arranging complex orchestral pieces or more forceful, but equally as wild electronic music. You can also be intuitive in your approach. You can gain full control over formants, replicating the sound of some musician you love,( I have heard folks do Jeff Beck and Joseph Zawinal as well as silken and golden sounds). I have produced over 200 drum and percussion presets. Some are beyond any I have heard.

You can, of course, carefully control tempo and key. As well, there is a large library of scales or you can design your own. Along these lines, you can analyze harmonics with a fast Fourier transform.

this is a great synth. It does what Buchla described as necessary for getting away from narrow, circumscribed synth design (being stuck in 12tone keyboard land).

You can construct your presets into song tracks, using Metatrack. Sorta like Acid and Sound Forge--but with Metasynth, your creative palette is deep and wondrous compared to Sound Forge.

Good Points
Possibly the most exciting sound-sculpting tool on the market. Certainly a big Bang for your buck. It had me entranced for almost three months. I have to say that I have not used it much lately. I think I am wary of not being able to get out this time! Also to my eye, a very elegantly modeled softsynth, not only nice to look at but well organized. And this is good, because Metasynth is very, very deep. Very strong support system. Edward at U&I answers questions quickly. They listen! I purchased an iBook just to run these softwares and I am happy I did. I have Q, Marimba Lumina RM!X, AN!X, Nord Mod, etc. Yet, Metasynth could become the backbone of my compositional studio.
Bad Points
Not really a performance synth, altho, of course, you can set up presets to be triggered in performance. Metatrack is not quite up to Acid Pro standard. But close. To use MIDI, you must go thru Xx, and this program is not as stable as I would like...I have had it lock-up a few times. I run these programs with 128 of RAM this is bare. Got to get some more.
 

 U&I Softwares Metasynth Specifications:

Digital IOs:

EQ:
endless possibilities
Dynamics:
same
Filetypes supported:
aiff /sound design
Hardware supported:
MIDI thru Xx
Upgrades/Extras:
Xx/Metatrack/Artmatic

 Metasynth Links


Try the Virtual/Soft synths links page for more..