Dawesome KONTRAST Sets Wavetable Synthesis in Motion: Is it a Serum Killer?
Wave goodbye to boring wavetables.
Nonlinear scanning turns Dawesome KONTRAST’s wavetables into terrains to explore. And of course, since it’s Dawesome, this new soft synth sounds incredible.
Dawesome KONTRAST
Last we heard from developer Dawesome, he was re-imaginging resynthesis with Myth and turning wavetables into distortion with Hate. Now he’s back with a new plugin released by umbrella company Tracktion, and it’s similarly groundbreaking – and similarly amazing sounding.
Dawesome KONTRAST is a wavetable synthesizer – but before you click back to one of your other 15 open tabs, you may want to keep reading, as this is not your uncle’s wavetable instrument. Being a Dawesome effort, there’s a lot more going on.
Dawesome KONTRAST: Nonlinear Scanning
The big selling point for Dawesome KONTRAST is the nonlinear scanning of the wavetables. Where most wavetable synths move through the wavetable (usually a string of single-cycle waveforms laid end to end) in a one-dimensional fashion, back and forth, KONTRAST (by contrast) gives you much more control over the playhead path.
“Instead of slicing wavetables with a single straight line,” says the press release, “KONTRAST lets you use any shape you want – circles, curves, spirals, even chaotic squiggles. The result: sounds that feel alive, breathing, unpredictable in all the right ways.”
To do this, you have a number of different controls that affect the playhead path, allowing you to change position and size, and the amount of circular movement. You can create spirals, flower shapes, and irregular shapes for the playhead to move around on, and even jump erratically to different places on the table.
If this reminds you of Conductive Labs’ Terrain Synth, it did me as well. Indeed, the Dawesome KONTRAST press materials say that you can turn “sound into terrain.”
Along with the playhead path parameters, you also get the usual complement of features like two oscillators, a filter, envelopes, LFOs, and effects.
Dawesome KONTRAST: Pricing and Availability
KONTRAST looks like another winner from Dawesome. The new wavetable scanning features are sure to be a lot of fun to play with, and given the developer’s track record, it’s no surprise that it sounds amazing in the demo videos.
Dawesome KONTRAST is available now at an introductory price of $89 / €89 with a regular price of $149 / €149. It comes in VST3 and AU formats for Windows and Mac. The company offers a 90-day free trial period.
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