Miclop Mother Source: reinvent sounds in this source swapping Halion synth
With a bedrock of 130 source sounds you can build anything you want in this Mother Source mother of a software synth built for Halion, Halion Sonic the free Halion Sonic SE.
Mother Source
Don’t watch the trailer – it looks fabulous but it sounds really underwhelming for the first half (like they’re building to something awesome but it goes on for far too long) and when it comes it’s so generic that it sounds like any other EDM orientated software synth.
Instead, check out the Demo Presets video (below) that gives you a much better idea of what it’s all about. Not sure that you get the dancing robot in the GUI though.
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The idea is that Miclop has sourced 130 individual sounds to use as the basis of a 2 layer synthesizer that’s full of synth tools like filters, modulation and so on. They’ve then created 200 presets that let you swap through the 130 sound sources generating more and different tones as you go. I think they want us to believe this is revolutionary when I’m pretty sure this is how most samplers and synthesizer work. However, Miclop has done all the hard work for us which leaves us the room to experiment and enjoy manipulating the result.
Each of the two has its own modulation, effects and a chord editor to add harmony, unison or octaves. There are 6 envelopes, 1 step modulator and an LFO with loads of preset ways of applying them. Or you can visit the modulation matrix and get busy routing. And at the end of the chain is a whole bunch of effects ready to polish, move and drown your sound to the level you require.
It has a complex multimode filter with lots of options including multiple drive models for adding edge and distortion to your sounds.
The inbuilt arpeggiator and sequencer come with a whole host of phrases and melodic or percussive possibilities.
The GUI is parameter-heavy with a lot of opportunities for sound sculpting and mixing between layers. Everything animates really nicely in response to modulation.
HALion
Mother Source runs in Steinberg’s HALion software, either the full, Sonice or the free Sonic SE version and so is VST, AU and AAX compatible. It’s on an introductory price of €49.
Miclop seems to be the same people who launched the Ctrl X virtual synth and hardware controller system on Kickstarter backed in 2018. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very successful. It’s good to see them trying a more familiar angle with a sample-based software synthesizer.
More information
- Miclop website.
Video
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