At the 2017 NAMM Show, Media Overkill (aka MOK) introduced a a new synth, Waverazor, and a new type of synthesis.
Waverazor is described as ‘a futuristic synth that slices waveforms into aggressive new sounds.’ It’s based on a patent-pending oscillator design that slices individual waveforms into up to 16 slices, and then lets you modulate each of the slices individually.
In the video, MOK co-founder Taiho Yamada gives an overview of Waverazor and its new oscillator type, and demonstrates some of the possibilities of the software synth.
Media Overkill was founded by industry veterans Rob Rampley, Taiho Yamada and Chris Compton. The founders have been involved in the creation of synths like the M-Audio Venom, Alesis Andromeda and more.
MOK also has shared this demo of their oscillator design:
Pricing and Availability
Waverazor is still under development and details are still to come at the MOK site. It’s expected to be released March 1st, 2017, priced at US $75.
I love new synthesis Ideas, Trying to wrap my head around this one, kinda like a Re-Additive synth?
I have to say that that’s the worst sounding softsynth I’ve heard in a long time. What a POS.
Really?
Absolutely.
Wait&try… Genius people always were underestimated. For me Taiho Yamada is modern genius… And yes, I love his Venom concept and I have this synth. Probably will buy Waverazor.
He’s demoing raw oscillator waveforms – it’s going to sound harsh. Pair this with a nice filter and it’ll do wonders I bet. Very unique – love it! Definitely going to try it out.
3 filters in series or parallel he said even. It’s going to be Fine. lol
I hate to say the word ‘presets’, but the demo really needs to show the variety of sounds you can get from this thing, rather than focus on a single harsh-sounding tone. It looks like there are a huge number of possibilities here, but none on display to wow anybody with. It is definitely not a ‘me too’ synth and is a sound designer’s dream. Amaze us!
Native Instruments have a plugin called Razor !
I dislike harsh noisy sounds like this.
Give me warm creamy analog any day.
Or warm creamy digital for that matter.
It just an arpeggiator for a wave form. Unfortunately unless your at very high frequencies or low step ranges you will hear the stepping.
Nice if you like to torture your ears.
New ideas are great, but man, that does has a pretty rough sound at least with the demos he was doing. Will be interesting to see what can be done with it as it develops further.
Sounds very harsh and unmusical to my ears, but I can see this really shine in SFX production for movie or tv. Reminds me a lot of the drone sounds in Oblivion.
I like it a lot already!
Great! Looks and sounds like basically just a more finely controlled waveshaper. To the “it’s unmusical” substractive synthesis people, dudes, you do know you can put a filter behind it, right? Also this is a better demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TztXMs3zd0
Yeah we know it has filters, he mentioned it in the NAMM demo.
The demo you linked to is much better and shows what it does and why it is cool and useful.
Agreed, much better demo video. Now I can see myself using it for some stuff. It kinda reminds me of Sugar Bytes’ Cyclop even.
That video shows more clearly the way it can isolate and create patterned movement in parts of the spectrum.
Surely talking about pitch doesn’t make sense at a sub cycle level if the whole cycle length of the wave is maintained?
Don`t MOK me! jokes aside i think with this you can create some awesome percussion and drone music. Basically any type of music. I think this video is only the tip of the iceberg. And for those that find it unmusical. well music is a very relative term since it is a taste question. An “orthodox” classical music hyper fan or musician would-could say that Techno (one example) is not real music (as if Techno is one specific thing… but whatever, just an example) . Same can be applied in various directions and genres. But describing something as non musical because it doesn`t sound like the “right way music should sound like” is a bit restraining. Music cannot be restrained in descriptions. Only contained in feelings
I like it. There is more to life than supersaws and “warm creamy analog.”
Always good to find original ideas brought to the VST scene. Looks like something I would see on a digital modular too ( they have many weird things there too).
It sounds like a kind of granular synthesis. I don’t think it is difficult to chop up samples and achieve harsh or “aggressive” sounds with a digital synth– especially in this granular method.
For people who want ever more bite, there’s a place for this. But this is the kind of synth that you go to for a wide variety of sounds. You go to this for that one that cuts through. Not my cup of lemon juice.
A new method of sound synthesis: “patent-pending”. This is overkill.
I think this tone generator should be named “Flatulator.”
This looks pretty interesting.
Lots of possibilities.
With all the flexibility of this oscillator I hope it has Oscillator Feedback.
I would be interested to try it but it seems like it could easily fall int the – so customizable that it all sounds like crap territory. It seems like if you took time to make a more evolving tone you could do cool stuff with it.
i think its a good idea. could use some refinement sot sure. an “easy” and “advanced” mode would be helpful. one could get lost doing sound design and forget to make music. i’d like to hear a proper demo with filters applied. this thing could become really popular for hard electronic music if done right.
Having had hands-on for a few days now, Waverazor has amazing potential. The team at MOK are doing a bang up job of not just releasing a new GUI with the same old sounds and parameters that we’ve all become accustomed to. Waverazor sounds pretty damn good and I’ve barely scratched the surface. The GUI is intuitive to navigate and the timbres are very warm and thick sounding. The waveform editor is top-notch and unlike anything else (this is not typical wavetable synthesis). They are having an introductory sale and will release a parameter editor version within the next few months. Do yourself a favor and at least check out the demo! Low CPU usage, enough tweakability to see what it can do. (no, I’m not affiliated with MOK, just a fan of their work!).