Blamsoft has released Viking Synth – a software synth inspired by the Moog Voyager monophonic analog synthesizer.
Viking Synth is an Audio Unit Extension Instrument that works as a plug-in inside host apps. It is compatible with GarageBand, Cubasis, MTS, and AUM.
Viking Synth has three continuously variable wave oscillators, two ladder filters with a Dual Lowpass or Highpass/Lowpass configuration, a multi-wave LFO, and two modulation busses.
According to Blamsoft, Viking Synth uses the same algorithms as the Viking Synth Rack Extension for Propellerhead Reason, so you get a ‘desktop quality plug-in at an iOS friendly price’.
Here’s a video intro:
Viking Synth comes with 178 presets in the categories Bass, Bright Lead, Electro Bass, FX, Percussive Lead, and Soft Lead. Note that Cubasis and MTS do not currently support Audio Unit presets. Presets work perfectly with GarageBand and AUM.
Here’s a comparison between Viking and a Voyager:
Viking Synth is available for US $4.99 in the App Store.
Not sure yet about this “plug-in only” format for AUs on iPad now. I would have greatly preferred this come with its own keyboard.
I really don’t understand why so many people have to say their plug-in sounds like a certain hardware synth. They don’t. Arturia has come pretty close with a few of theirs. Not so much that they sound exact, but they really captured “the vibe” of those instruments. Don’t get me wrong, this thing sound just fine, but it just sounds like another iPad program, it sounds nothing like the Voyager that I am staring at.
i agree. arturia definitely gets the sonic aura of those synths down. also native instruments really do a great job. outside of those few mentions there is nothing that deserves the appropriation of a name. they are often not, if ever, bad synths. but to say they are clones of something else is setting yourself up for disappointment. having said that. maybe there are more people who have not had enough time personally with these popularly cloned instruments to differentiate them. and that is what becomes the target market .
That’s strange, because it sounds pretty close to the developers Voyager…
The first part with no filter modding sounded pretty close. But this is yet another example illustrating how impossible it is to properly emulate the Moog ladder filter in software. The filter demos sound absolutely nothing like the filter on my Voyager XL.
This reminds me of all of those TB-303 emulation videos i’ve sat through over the years… all promise, and no payoff.
Love it, could you please build a polyphonic version of this please? Great sound
I’ve got the Reason version of this and it sounds fantastic. It’s a very capable synth and it’s easy to get lovely thick moog tones out of it.
If someone had a budget and enough curiosity it might be possible design some research study both to quantify the actual differences between these emulations and their originals, and also to see if people can hear the difference.
It would be useful to know what the emulations do well, and where they might fall short. I’m especially curious about things like extreme filter settings, and very fast envelope decays, and fast LFO settings.
There are a couple of basic patch examples comparing Viking with the hardware. While there are some differences, would you notice them in a mix?
https://soundcloud.com/blamsoft/viking-listening-test
Tom/Daniel
Thanks for the feedback. I added the demo to the post.
FYI – using multiple user names from the same IP address increases the likelihood that the comment system will flag your comment as spam or for moderation. Using a consistent identify will minimize the likelihood of this happening.
Sorry for that and thanks for letting me know, you’re free to change the name on these two posts, should you wish.
Would buy if standalone.
love that company name
by the ways they also have a bunch effects also released
ATTENTION when making demo videos, how about opening with what it sounds like, then talk,
So many do that, talk for 5 minutes then start making sound
yea, no shit…we can READ all that crap – if I don’t hear tones in the first 5 seconds it’s GOODBYE~!
No idea what it does or doesn’t sound like but it sounds real good.
Agree that it would be great if there were available as a standalone vs AU only. That’s also lower the OS requirement to 8 at least.
Bit of a warning – Viking doesn’t play nice with Cubasis, i.e; you can’t access any presets.
Works ok with other AU hosts though, so it could be down to Cubasis fault…
I have loads of problems with Cubasis and plugins such as Crystalline. So I suspect the fault lies with Cubasis
How difficult is it to port iOS audio untis to OS X? I often wonder why this doesn’t happen more often.
Hey there, I just downloaded the Viking app on my iPad but the app only seems to contain a manual for the app, and no synth content, as in there is no synthesiser. Has anyone else experienced this?
I am quite confused so I would really appreciate getting your input!
Thanks so much!
Is this synth mono,? if it is monophonic, then this is serious problem as U will never understand developers making mono synths in 2016, it lok like an excellent synth, just hope it is poly. Otherwise no way I buy this.