Softube has announced that Modular – their software Eurorack modular synthesizer – is now available for OS X & Windows.
Modular is a expandable software modular system, designed to emulate a hardware Eurorack modular synthesizer.
Softube combined their talents with those of Eurorack inventor Doepfer and other Euro manufacturers to develop emulations of the original hardware that they say are ‘as close to hardware as you can get.’
Here’s their official intro video:
Features:
- Modular is a cross-platform modular synthesizer plug-in standard, which features authorized emulations of modules from well known hardware Eurorack brands
- True dynamic circuit-emulation—looks, functions and sounds like its hardware counterparts
- Basic system contains six Doepfer modules (A-110-1 VCO, A-108 VCF, A-132-3 Dual VCA, A-140 ADSR, A-118 Noise/Random, A-147 VCLFO)
- Basic system also contains over 20 Utility modules (such as MIDI to CV/gate, mixers, slew, sample & hold, switches, multiples, delay, offset, sequencers, clock dividers, logic and signal tools, as well as a Polyphonic MIDI to CV/gate module).
- Additional authorized emulations from Intellijel is available as add-ons (uFold II, Korgasmatron II, Rubicon). Many more modules from other quality hardware Eurorack vendors to be released
- Simple design of your own interaction layout with the Performance modules in classic synthesizer style
- Softube Heartbeat drum channels and EQ can be used as separate modules for owners of Heartbeat
- More than 200 quality presets included covering a huge range of styles and sounds
- Can be used both as effect and instrument for your DAW and integrates beautifully with your hardware Eurorack modular
- High internal sample rate within system enables true feedback
Pricing and Availability
Modular is available now, for use with VST, VST3, Audio Units and AAX Native, for an introductory price of US $75 (normally $99), Additional modules are also available, for an additional cost.
If you’ve used Modular, leave a comment and share your thoughts on it!
Took an extra month for it to come out, took about an hour of slow license emails to work itself out and 20 minutes to see a handfull of bugs and clunky-ness. Luckily they give you 20 day trial to figure it out for yourself. Thought it might be a nice entry into modular synthesis but it looks more like a cash grab, like in- app purchases. Reaktor has a strangle hold on software modular synthesis by far and a massive user library where you can learn and download others patches to dissect and add-on to. Nice try tho but you can only get so far with the modules they have licensed and made available as of now.
It could be very good. I really like software modulars. However even at the reduced price I feel like I ought to demo it before I buy it .. and that requires me to have an iLoK. Which I do not have.
So I won’t demo it. Which means I won’t buy it.
Ilok account is free. Not going to say its the easiest things to set up but its free. Dont need a usb dongle or anything, just a license manager on your dekstop.
HW ilok is no more required. Only installed SW and crated account.
You don’t need an iLok, just an iLok account (which I believe is free). Softube gives the option to transfer the authorization to your computer instead of a usb key.
This sort of UI takes skeuomorphism to ridiculous new heights of complexity.
At the end of the day, music software should be all about doing clever and powerful things as easily as possible, not stringing imaginary patch cables across algorithmic imitations of physical objects.
Agreed, sadly marketing disagrees.
Moog Model 15 is the worst in this respect – cool look, but terrible usability.
The sad fact is that the skeumorphic UI’s sell well, because they look familiar, but they give people a lousy touchscreen experience.
wonder if third party developers can make modules for it?
they do in the real world
I have tested it – very nice sounding, patching is not intuitive and after day I am back to my Moog Mother 32 and headphones with few cables – more fun more feel.
Also I feel that patching things like Max/MSP beeps module is more fun and mostly investment into sound design skills (you can create own modules etc.).
I haven’t tested Reactor but seems to be more fun for me (same level as Max/MSP).
Lack of standalone mode is a shame. Why I have to start Nuendo (require lock key) to test few ideas?
For me nice idea but as I have learn in past “exact emulation” is weird hype for me. I usually end up on stock plugins when I do know what I want achieve or on FabFilter precision tools that on “Exact” emulation of XXXX (Please note that I am happy owner of a Softube, SoundToys, Steinberg Portico and many more plugins).
Fellow synth heads put a lot of effort into making something cool. Good for them. I wish them the best. Downloading demo now.
I’ve got a wife and four kids… Just like ampsims give me 75% or more of the sound of amps I can never afford, this will allow me to stop trolling muffwiggler and thinking of eurorack gear I can’t afford and mess around a bit for $75… no brainer for me, personally…
I suggest looking into reaktor, more bang for a few more bucks. Standalone. Add the possibility of designing your own modules or grabbing ones someone else designed. I havent stopped using it since I purchased it. Just found the Midi to Cv poly module, now im cooking with uranium!
Sounds like a great idea. The add on modules are a bit expensive though. I can see the real cost of this thing adding up really quick as you buy all the new ‘must have’ modules. At that point you are tied to software that you are hoping will be supported going ahead into the future. This isnt like Reason or Reaktor Blocks where there is a huge user base, which is more than slightly worrying. There had better be a lot more Doepfer modules in the pipeline for me to consider this one. Kudos for the developers though. I hope it takes off.
WOW. What a clunky fucking mess :/
Managed to launch it but crashed Cubase repeatedly. Not even a can of Raid could kill the amount of bugs running in this thing. I know companies have to meet sale quotas but seriously, Softube… WTF? You should be ashamed of yourselves.
This was going to be my first foray into purchasing software from Softube but no thanks. I’ll give my money to developers who actually take pride in what they do.
I have been anxiously awaiting this software since I first learned about it. I installed the plugin and started using the DEMO license with Ableton Live 9 Lite. I started playing with it and before I knew it, I had blown two and a half hours on it. I love the sounds it makes. I am a Reason user, so I fumbled around a bit with Ableton, but the Softube Modular was intuitive and modeled much of the real world stuff I have learned (without owning any hardware modules…yet).
I have never used Reaktor, so I can’t compare. But I have used Thor in Reason, and I like the wide open nature of Softube Modular. There are some Rack Extnesions for Reason that emulate modular components, but I didn’t get the same joy using those as I did this new plugin.
I wrote a review on my blog about it, if anyone is interested…
https://cerkit.com/2016/06/20/softube-modular-daw-plugin-review/
I had been looking forward to this since it was first shown at Superbooth, but now with it out I’m no longer interested for two big reasons. First is cost, while $75 introductory pricing might look appealing, this only comes with 6 Doepfer modules and then some generic Softube gear. Look at the Intellijel modules for an idea of where things are headed – while these are on sale the average price of a modular piece is $32 each or $42 each when not on sale. I have over 300 Blocks (free modular pieces) in Reaktor. In Softube’s model this would cost me between $9,600 and $12,600 to collect the equivalent pieces to do the same as my Reaktor gear, why not just buy hardware at that point?
My second complaint is iLok. If Xferrecords, Sugarbytes, U-He, Arturia, Accsone, Roli, FabFilter, Blue Cat, Plogue, Glitchmachines, DiscoDSP, ImageLine, FXpansion, FutureAudio, Cableguys, Tokyo Dawn, Xils-Lab, and iZotope can all trust me to own their software, not inconvenience me with cumbersome anti-piracy measures, and release updates for years while operating their company…..then I want the same from Softube.
If you’re going to meticulously model the sound of Doepfer modules, at least start by pronouncing his name right. Argh!
Everything I’ve tried by Softube has been garbage.
This could be somewhat better but I think it’s likely more style than substance. I guess it could be a good tool to ‘learn’ modular in a format that emulates the real thing but Reaktor is where you’ll find the actual benefits of using the software paradigm over hardware.
anybody know where you can buy a 104HP x 9U monitor?
This is a fascinating social experiment. If people accept this software to be “as good as the real thing”, then it proves software’s case. It only took a skueomorph to move those users over to a new way of thinking. In other words, it was never about the sound quality, it was always about the form factor. Then we can drop the emulation of the real world and get on with making truly modern interfaces that are far superior to patching virtual cables, and keep the same sound quality.
I have tried the software on a Mac running Cubase. It has worked flawlessly. I also have a hardware modular and own Reaktor, a fantastic program.
In my opinion it´s not a either-or discussion. I think Modular has it´s place. There`s a lot of talk about the number of modules. You get a decent amount of modules with the basic pack in my opinion, and the Softube modules do what they´re supposed to do. You can do subtractive, FM, AM, additive etc, and you have sequencers, logic modules, S/H, slews etc. (The only functionality I miss is a good high pass filter.) I prefer to build my own patches from basic blocks, more than using complex modules with many functions, so I am quite happy with this. As with Reaktor you can have as many modules as your CPU can stand, so you can build very complex patches if you feel like it. The interface is tried and tested, although you don´t get the physical feeling of a knob, as with Reaktor. The sound quality is in my opinon very good.
I am from Sweden, but otherwise not affiliated with Softube. 🙂
@orebronerd : If there’s a facility to add the oscillator mix phase inverted to the filter output, them you get a hipass filter.
Well I downloaded and tried modular. This thing sounds fantastic. I compared it to Reaktor blocks. I think Modular does seem to sound better to me. I would prefer to think of them both as two different synths though. The Doepfer modules are simply gorgeous sounding. I can’t wait to see more of these come out (reasonable prices of course). I am not as pleased with the Intelligel modules yet. I wonder if they were all written in house by Softube and modeled the same way? They don’t seem to be as responsive or do as much to the sound as the doepfer ones. I plan on looking up some Youtube videos on the Intelligel stuff to see if I can compare what the hardware sounds like to the emulated ones. If nothing more was added, this would be worth the money is in my opinion because there is plenty of fun to be had with what is in the basic package. I don’t relish the idea of buying hundreds of dollars of add on modules at $25 – $50 a pop (a la pokemon gotta havem all) but I can see getting a few that I like especially if they are on sale at some point. The key thing for me was the sound. This thing delivers that in spades, just gorgeous. I have a Doepfer Dark Energy with the Curtis chip and sound wise (no filter) the emulated A-110 module is super close the my hardware (A-100). I have other Softube software and I can tell you that they make quality good sounding stuff for the most part. There are some quirky things about there software but nothing that takes away from the experience really. Things like no preset managers. They rely on your DAW facilities to handle that. This has been a complaint in some other threads but mostly by folks who were not familiar with this way of accessing presets. They also distribute their software (all of it) in a monolithic bundle. You have to install all of their software even if you only own 1 thing. After that they want you to use their install manager if you get more stuff or need to do updates. This takes up about 1.5GB on your disk. The good news is that you can put it anywhere you want but the VST’s (or what ever format you use) is the only thing that goes into your VST folder. In the end I am very happy with modular and look forward to many hours of great fun with it. BTW, I am using Bitwig 1.3.9 and FL Studio 12 on Win 7 x64 and I have not experienced any bugs or crashes yet in 3 or 4 hours I have been using it so far.
a little heavy on the CPU, but sounds great!
Been playing with the demo, and while I like it, I’m not a fan of the skueomorphic interface. I have the Korg iMS20, and dragging a patch cable across a small patch panel isn’t a problem, dragging wires across multiple modules gets cluttered very quickly. Also not a fan of being nickeled and dimed to death buying modules.
I checked out Reaktor 6, and it happened to be on sale for $99. I had already played around with the free version of NI Komplete and was impressed with Reaktor, so I went ahead and bought it. Really like it a lot, but what a CPU hog! I’m running an Intel i7 with 16 GB of RAM, and I’m seeing 40-45% utilization on some of the bigger patches.
I also like the connection interface. It’s pretty much Labview for synthesizers, which makes it familiar for me, and being able to develop my own and download blocks made by others makes Reaktor 6 the winner for me. I could see having both, but I doubt I’d be buying more than a handful of modules.
If you’re a Seaboard user, don’t buy this. Don’t.
I bought Modular specifically because they touted their support for the Seaboard Rise controller, which I own and love. However, the entire experience sucked from the get-go. The installation was a nightmare that involved downloading some other piece of software I don’t want so that I could THEN download Modular, and when I got it installed I was even more disappointed. The preset browser for Modular doesn’t work at all in Bitwig, which is an issue for Rise users because that’s the DAW it actually ships with, and arguably the one most suited to production using MPE.
So Modular, despite being advertised to work with Seaboard, doesn’t work correctly in the DAW that the Seaboard SHIPS WITH. Bit of an issue. And when I wrote to Softube to say that their software wasn’t working and ask for a refund (literally ten minutes after finally getting it to install), they took a MONTH to tell me that I couldn’t get a refund because they just don’t do that. So I waited a month to be told that I’m out $100 for software I can’t even use in my preferred DAW. One of the worst software purchases I have ever made, hands down.
I’m sorry to hear about the problems you had – but I thank you for sharing. Figuring out how to do MPE from my Linnstrument and my ROLI 25/49 to my Eurorack rig is an ongoing project of mine. I know that there is some kind of “Seaboard module” in Softube, but after reading your experience, I’m dropping it from consideration.
(Now I’m hoping to find someone with experience with the Polyend module).