IK Multimedia Syntronik Review – A Synthesizer Workstation For Studio & Live Musicians

• HARPY 2600 is based on the ARP 2600 semi-modular Synthesizer from the 70s/80s. It includes over 900 MB of sample content (over 1000 samples) and offers musicians 94 ready-to-use instruments. In my opinion is the sound quality of these instrument high but I’m personally miss the charm and the character of the ARP 2600. The presets are not perfect for my taste and are not on the same level as the Minimood, Galaxy or SAM. I’m missing here in the library the moment where I say: this is a classical ARP 2600 sound. Nonetheless the sound quality is high, doesn’t sound cheap but they need a bit more of authenticity.
• J-60 represents the iconic analog polyphonic Synthesizer Roland Juno-60. It comes with over 800 MB of sample content (over 2000 samples) and 78 ready-to-play instruments. The sound designer made here an excellent job and created great sounding presets. Most of the included patches sound fat and have the typical lush Juno-60 character. Above all, the good interplay of the emulated Roland filters and the ensemble chorus make the sounds very authentic. If you search pad sounds, the J-60 is the perfect choice.

• J-8 The Roland analog polyphonic Synthesizer Jupiter series (4 – 6 – 8) is covered by the J-8 that includes over 2.5 GB of sample content (over 3000 samples) and 116 ready-to-use instruments. Same as the J-60 library, the sound quality is great. They created excellent sounds here that covers nicely the character of this iconic polyphonic Synthesizer. Like in the J-60, most of the included patches sounds great and have the typical lush Jupiter sound. Also here is the good interplay of the emulated Roland filters and the new ensemble chorus responsible for the great quality of the patches. Most known sounds can be found in the J-8 library.
• String Box offers a collection of classic string machines including the ARP String Ensemble, Elka Rhapsody, Hohner String Performer, Roland RS-505 and RS-09. All these string machines are summarised inside a over 1 GB big sample library with 110 instrument presets. In my opinion, musicians get here a nice and well-sounding selection of classic string machine sounds.

• V-80 The Syntronik V-80 summarise in over 1.5 GB, different sampled sounds (102 instruments presets) from the classic Yamaha CS-80, GX-1 and CS-01 Synthesizer. In my view, the quality of this sounds are high, very playable and authentic. Unfortunately, some of the presets miss the best known analog character of the legendary instrument CS-80. You can hear that this is the CS-80 but in my opinion the sound designers could make even better sounds here that will do better justice for this instrument. Nonetheless, the included presets are nice and works nicely with any kind of synth music.

Due to time constraints, there is no extra sound demo video for the last 5 Syntronik sound libraries

• Noir captures in 125 instruments the unique sound of the Moog Multimoog, Micromoog and Prodigy. The sound of the over 2.5 GB big library could convince in the test. The authentic designed presets sound very good and can show their strength especially in the area of bass and lead sounds like the real vintage synths.
• OXa What the name already suggest, OXa is based on Tom Oberheim’s amazing OB-X and OB-Xa analog polyphonic Synthesizer’s from 1979. Same as the Noir, the sound quality is great and can convince me with his authenticity. Above all, the very beautiful and deep pad sounds can completely convince me during several tests.
• Polymorph is based on the rare Moog Polymoog, Opus 3, Rogue and Relistic Concertmate MG-1 and comes with 86 ready-to-use instrument presets. To be honest, I don’t have a lot experience with these special Moog products but the sound quality can convince me again. The library captures nicely this special phaser like character but also offers musicians complete different sound timbres difficult to reproduce with the original instruments

• Pro-V Under the Pro-V library hide a sound collection sampled from the Sequential Circuit’s Prophet-5 and Prophet 10 analog polyphonic Synthesizer. As with the other library, the Pro-V can also convince with a very good and realistic sound. Especially, the Pro-V can especially shine in the wide selection of lead and pad sounds. The sound designers made here an excellent job and designed 87 instruments that are super usable in different music production (rock, pop, electronics…)
• T-03 Syntronik’s T-03 is nothing else than a sound library that is based on the legendary TB-303 bass-line Synthesizer. It includes 9 GB of content that is backed in 223 ready-to-use instruments. Although the sound quality is always very good here, I don’t like a lot the library. First, Syntronik has not a classic TB-303 sequencer that can sequence the sound as nicely as the original. This missing here. Also Syntronik doesn’t contain an emulation of the 303 filter. Both hardware features are super important to make the sound very authentic. Big praise to the developers of Audio Realism who managed to do that in their excellent emulation. But there is hope for the library! If you have a TB-303 similar sequencer in your DAW (Max for Live), you can use those sounds very well.