Cherry Audio captured the spirit of the legendary Polymoog Synthesizer and developed it into an authentic emulation called Polymode for only $29
Synthesizer emulations are more popular than ever. Thanks to better computers and talented coders, current emulations of vintage synths sound very authentic and fat. They will never sound the same, but they are good affordable alternatives that bring these iconic timbres to your computers.
In the past few months, Cherry Audio has drawn attention to itself with great-sounding emulations at a very fair price. After the Juno 106 (DCO-106) and ARP 2600 (CA2600), the next legendary synthesizer has now been digitized, the popular Moog Polymoog from 1975.
Cherry Audio Polymode
Polymode is an authentic emulation of the legendary Moog Polymoog Synthesizers. It recreates in detail the unusual paraphonic architecture of the original instrument used by many artists in the past. Ultravox, Gary Numan (Cars), and others have used the original instrument in their songs. Cherry Audio has captured all the iconic functions and brought them into the future. 32-voice of polyphony, two two-oscillator ranks with simultaneously available saw and pulse waves, and accurately recreated fanous mode filters.
Besides the classic 24db ladder-style filter, the emulation adds an expanded resonators section with additional LFO, 12dB/24dB slopes, and notch modes. All this is backed into a filter system that is inspired by the legendary Polymoog. Further, it offers a much deeper modulation system with animation of almost all synthesis parameters. This can be achieved by numerous modern mod sources including velocity, press, white/pink noise, and more. Plus, you can two additional LFOs with five waveforms and tempo sync that gives you even more modulation options.
At the end of the signal chain, you have a set of great-sounding effects including an ensemble, phaser, tempo-synced echo, and reverb. The ensemble hosts a classic Solina-style tri-chorus for authentic timbres.
Polymode Stanalone & Module
Polymode is not an unknown product for Cherry Audio customers. The emulation is already available in a separate, modular version for Voltage Modular 2. Here is a nice overview of it.
The Polymode sounds great at first sight and looks beautiful. For the asking price, it’s a no-brainer deal for fans of vintage emulations.
Cherry Audio Polymode Synthesizer is available now for $29 USD for a limited time (regular $39 USD). It runs as an AU, VST, VST3, AAX plugin and standalone on PC & Mac. A free 30-day demo is available on the website. If you buy it from PB via the link below, you get AAS Objeq Delay for free. This offer is valid during the month of February 2021.
More information here: Cherry Audio
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My hats off to anyone who can turn out a playable software emulation. I still have my Polymoog which, in concept, came about when I was traveling with Bob Moog in the early 70’s and asked why he couldn’t use a divider system approach to solving the “one note at a time” limitation. I have no idea what this Polymode is but I bought it without listening to the demos since their Memorymode and Oberheim were very good. But the Cherry Audio Polymode is nothing at all like the real thing… not even close! Having said that, I think it could be if developers were willing to do some editing. I also have tried the Xils Polymoog. It has more going for it, but evidently, developers thought they could improve the Polymoog design and got sidetracked into a jumble of “features,” which is no substitute for getting it right.