U-he Repro-5 Review – A Synthesizer Plugin That Feels Like A Real Instrument

SYNTH ANATOMY uses affiliation & partner programs (big red buttons) to finance a part of the activity. If you use these, you support the website. Thanks! 

6 High-Quality Effects

In addition to the modifiable blocks, the Repro-5 also has 6 interesting effects. These are above all effects that harmoize very well with the engine and which would be used in reality with the hardware Synthesizer: stereo distortion, tape saturation, delay, EQ, reverb & sonic conditioner. The latter one can be used not only to enhance the sound quality of the synth but also as sound design tool. It can make the sound fatter, louder but also more smooth and gentle.

The visual integration of the effects has been solved very nicely. They are located in an open interface under the keyboard. Clever is that you can change the signal path of the individual effects in a modular way. So you can use every effect very variable. In the test, the effects convinced me. Sound Designers with an urge for the extreme (Richard Devine…) will probably not satisfy with the selection but the 6 effects round off the Repro-5 concept very nicely. They will tune the sound and give the synth a little extra in the end.

Everything About MIDI & Integration

Repro-5 can also score with a great integration in addition to its excellent sound. MIDI Learn is fully supported here and it’s available in a separate interface page. Parameters of MIDI controllers can be here quickly connected to the plugin in seconds. Also it includes MIDI Program changes for quick changes.

It also takes into account users of the Native Instruments Komplete keyboards and Maschine. It supports the NKS format and let you control it directly from this controllers.

MCORE & CPU Consumption

Is the CPU consumption already a running gag at U-he plugins? Maybe! With HIVE, Urs Heckmann showed that he also develops instruments that consume less. With the Repro-1 and Repro-5 he shows again that he prefer the other heavy side. One thing must be known before this point. The test was done on a relatively old MacBook Pro from 2012 (i7 with 2.6 GHz, 8 GB…) and can thus deviate strongly from other tests. Before working with Repro-5, I recommend pressing the MCORE button, which enables the multi-core support.

Without it, Repro-5 reached a value of 40% – 60% for many patches. If you activate this one, the CPU utilisation is between 5% and 25%, which is in my opinion okay. Especially for fat pad sounds with modulation and effects, the CPU bar raise quite a lot.  It is certainly too high but if you want to use such plugins, you should know that.

Sound Quality

Before buying a Synthesizer, whether hardware or software, the question of sound quality is one of the most important. Emulations have second important question: how close is this to the original. Although I have no Prophet 5 in my small studio (but would be nice), I can say from my experience that the sound character of the Repro-5 comes extremely close to the original.

If you compare the Arturia Prophet-V or the very old NI Pro-53 Synthesizer from 2004 with the Repro-5, then according to my, the latter plays in a different league. The Prophet-V also has a very nice and authentic sound, but it lacks the extra that Repro-5 has. The sound coming from this plugin just sounds nice and fat. It’s like putting a topping on a muffin. To use this sound, you have to accept the somewhat higher CPU load compared to the other available Prophet 5 emulations.

If you are looking for the well-known Prophet 5 sounds that were used earlier in best-known songs, this is certainly the right plugin for you. But also new, funky and extraordinary sounds are designable here. This is possible above all through audio rate modulations, the simple modulation matrix or the very good 6 audio effects. From vintage, modern to experimental sounds, the Repro-5 can do a lot.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*