Cherry Audio has introduced Mercury-4, a new software synthesizer for Mac & Windows that’s inspired by the ‘primal poly’ sound of the Roland Jupiter-4.
Unlike the original design, though, Mercury-4 ups the polyphony to 16 voices, adds a built-in Space Echo style effect and comes with 400+ presets.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“It’s the rarest and most sonically unique of the fabled Jupiter series, and we’ve gone to great lengths to recreate the subtle (and not-so-subtle) nuance and character of this beloved classic. Every aspect of Mercury-4 has been expertly modeled upon a vintage Jupiter-4 originally owned by Greg Hawkes of the legendary 80’s new wave band The Cars.
The Jupiter-4 had its share of disadvantages, including limited patch storage, just four voices of polyphony, and boat-anchor weight. Cherry Audio’s Mercury-4 improves upon the original’s design by offering 16-voice polyphony, infinite patch storage, velocity sensitivity, MPE support, and much more. We’ve even paired it with a fantastic model of the classic Roland Space Echo tape delay!”
Features:
- “Authentically modeled” oscillator with sub-oscillator.
- All filter characteristics modeled, including powerful low-frequency resonance.
- Up to 16-voice polyphony.
- Over 300 presets, programmed by industry veterans.
- Unique arpeggio section w/tempo sync.
- Wide-range LFO modulation with “inverted” mod characteristics.
- Drift control for increased analog realism.
- Stereo ensemble effect.
- Tape echo style effect, with multiple reverb modes.
- Tempo-syncable LFO.
- Detunable unison mode.
- Single-key chord memory mode.
- Low CPU load.
- One-click UI magnification.
- MPE support.
- Full MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls.
Pricing and Availability:
Mercury-4 is available now for Mac & Windows with an intro price of $39 USD (normally $59).
Nice, although at this point it feels like they’re regurgitating the same building blocks over and over. Would like to see a reproduction of the Oscar or even their take on the PPG Wave.
https://cherryaudio.com/products
The oscillators, filters, and envelopes in our instruments are all unique and accurately model the synths they’re based on (check out the oscillators on a scope or the filters on a spectrum analyzer). Mercury-4 is an especially good example of this, because for a “standard” analog synth, almost everything about is wacky (which made it fun to create). In regards to doing later digital synths, we’re up for anything moving forward!
If all they wanted was the same number of syllables as Jupiter, why not Uranus-4, or 4-Uranus!
I watched/heard some demos on YouTube. I like it. Thumbs up.
I’m waiting for a Cherry Audio Black Friday special in which their synths are bundled together for one low low price (fingers crossed).
I bought this synth it’s there best one yet it sounds
Really good. I don’t know if sounds like a Jupiter
I never had one of those . I did have lots of other Roland
Synths and this one just has a wee bit magic.
It’s a bargain
The weird arpeggiator was enough for me to buy it. The range of it depends on which octave you use so you could hold a chord where some notes move 2 octaves and some move 3. Cool! I’m not sure the ultrafast LFO sounds quite like the original Jupiter 4 (which i was able to borrow once), but it does sound better than i expected it to in software.
and i recommend lurking around in the Night Boat (Factory 5 Voice) patch with a lil slow up arpeggio.
The Duran Duran (and Human League) patches were me. 🙂 We worked really hard to get the arpeggiator right. It has the weird range thing across the octaves, and it (sort of) plays notes in the order you press them regardless of pattern. Our super-smart programmers got it so good that I could get the tempo closely synced on the real thing and Mercury-4, and they play exactly the same notes no matter what I played.
I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!
I made a few demos for you and Dan.
Great work, Mitchelllllllllll!!!!!!!
I’m not usually a soft synth person, but I’m going to buy this. I’ve wanted that Jupiter 4 sound, but the real thing is huge, and not the most maintenance free synth in existence. I can’t fit any more large synths in my studio! If Roland had included it in their cloud, made a boutique, or Behringer did a ‘homage’, I would have considered it. I even was looking at DIY’ing one as a module, so this is welcome news for me.
Bought it. Worth every penny. Will continue to support Cherry Audio. Quality emulations, way affordable and always super easy fast installation. Two thumbs up.
I wrote them a couple of weeks ago to ask if there would be a bundle of all their synth vsts.
They said maybe later this year.
Someone mentioned aliasing with their other synths. I don’t tend to play very high notes, so I didn’t notice it. Has Cherry Audio made any progress with aliasing on this one?
Loved the happy presentation. I’m going to hum this tune all day.
Mercury-4 has a new user-selectable oversampling feature – internal processing can be up to 4x the host sample rate. (We’ll likely be adding this to our other instruments soon as well.)
WHUUUUUT!?
I worked for Roland U.S. as the the US product specialist for synthesizers when this came out.
I owned the prototype. LOVED it. It is not particularly versatile – the voicing is standard East Coast, subtractive method. Only one LFO. No effects. But I gigged with it for a couple years and was able to get exactly the sounds I wanted at the time. I regret selling it. NOW I get to have one again. Celebration time!
how does the vst sound feel to you?
Loved the presentation. I’m going to hum this tune all day.
I could not login to when booting up the synth in standalone in Windows 10. Same for the plugin which is real rubbish tbh. I wont be buying anything from them again until they fix errors like this.