Rob Papen Go2 Synthesizer is the goto virtual synth for the rest of us
Rob Papen’s virtual synthesizers and effects tend to be on the detailed and complex side of things. That’s why people who know what they’re doing really like his stuff. Newbies, less so. So he’s decided to address this with a simpler, beginner friendly synth called Go2. Although it’s good enough for everybody.
Go2
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this looks just as complex as most VSTi’s out there. And you’d probably be right, but by Papen standards it’s a basic as they come. The idea is to have all the controls present on the GUI and nothing hidden in pages or extra tabs – that’s great, that’s really all we ever want.
The sound comes from an oscillator connected to an XY pad that lets you morph between different waveforms. A two waveform sub oscillator keeps the bass fruity while a “spread” knob expands the single oscillator into two with detuning.. The XY pad can be setup in all sorts of modulating modes and gravity fed spinning shapes. It can also be routed out to other sections of Go2.
The filter section contains a multi-mode filter and separate high-pass filter along with a dedicated envelope. An amplifier section brings distortion. A single LFO and envelope round off the modulation tools while a matrix let’s you route everything to everything else.
Go2 can handle up to 16 voices of polyphony and also has mono, legato and arpeggiator modes. You can also change the unison mode, portamento and pitch bend range. Unison contains a whole bunch of ready made and very useful chord options.
Arpeggiate chords
At the bottom is an arpeggiator/sequencer so that you can work up patterns and tunes directly within the synth. This also brings in the unison chord idea so you can actually program chords into each step rather than single notes – nice!
At the effects end you have chorus, phaser and delay/reverb.
What a great little synth. Don’t know why Rob thinks this is for beginners, it’s completely decent for everyone to use. But certainly it is easier to navigate and get into than most of his instruments.
Go2 is available now for $49 for PC and Mac VST/AU/AAX. Go and get it.
More information
- Rob Papen website.
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