Delivering some big news to unwrap for Christmas, GForce has announced its new soft synth, AXXESS. This is an emulation of a 1975 vintage synth, with 21st century extras, and very much the younger sibling of the company's award-winning Oddity 3.
Vintage Synth describes the original 1975 ARP AXXE as 'a budget-proof version of the popular Odyssey' which we'll lazily agree with, because it could be seen as a single-oscillator version of that instrument.
Of course, GForce's new version adds some solid, modern extras, all while retaining the original's sonic character, a new/old balance the company has so brilliantly achieved with products like the award-winning Oddity 3 and Minimonsta2.
Like the ARP Odyssey - and you really must forgive the constant comparisons - the AXXE sound is bold and larger than you might think, equally at home on massive basses as it is tearing leads.
The original synth boasted a simple but classic oscillator/filter/amplifier left-to-right signal flow, and AXXESS retains that, but extra features mean you can either enjoy that original sound, or take it into completely new realms should you wish.
This is largely thanks to GForce's X-Modifier technology, which adds dedicated LFOs and ADSRs to most of the synth's parameters. This huge extra modulation potential means that "AXXESS is the AXXE sound on steroids", according to GForce, but the extras don't end there.
Other new features include a sub-oscillator, an arpeggiator and a 16-step sequencer (see screen above) plus effects in the form of distortion, stereo delay and reverb. There's a Vintage knob to bring in more of the classic analogue imperfections we used to moan about back in the day, and a Pan Spread option for extra wide sounds.
There are 350 presets included, said to be ideal for synth-pop, dance, hip-hop, cinematic and prog rock, and programmed by the likes of Zardonic, GEOsynths, Christian Laffitte, Richard Veenstra and Ramon Kerstens (K/V).
AXXESS has a very reasonable price tag of £66 +tax, with an even more decent intro price of £33 + tax. It's available in standalone, AU, AAX, VST and VST3 formats, and you can get more info from the GForce website..
