My Five Favorite Soft Synths
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

3. Steinberg Xphraze

The ancestry of Xphraze goes straight back to the Korg Wavestation, which pioneered the concept of wave sequencing. The idea is simple, but powerful: rather than choose a single waveform for an oscillator, as in most synths, you can design a rhythmic sequence of waves, which will cycle as each note plays. Not surprisingly, Xphraze is ideal for keyboardists who want to play show-stopping grooves by holding down one finger. The groove can include not only drum hits but percolating bass or lead lines.

Another point of commonality between the Wavestation and Xphraze are two-dimensional vector envelopes, which let you dynamically crossfade the sounds coming from the four oscillators. But there the resemblance stops. Xphraze goes far past the Wavestation in having resonant filters and multidimensional sequences in which not only the waveforms themselves but up to six different types of modulation can be sequenced. Real-time interactive features let you switch among up to four wave sequences for each oscillator. And in Xphraze you can use your own keyboard layouts of user samples rather than rely on the factory soundset.

I’ve always felt that Xphraze was one of those “under the radar” plugins. But German developers Wizoo, who created Xphraze for Steinberg, aim to change that with the recent release of five dance mix-ready Xpansion sound libraries, each containing dozens of sounds and several megabytes of audio.

Curiously enough, Korg itself recently released the original Wavestation in software form as part of the Korg Legacy Collection. The new Wavestation is 100 percent authentic, complete with all of the original waveforms and factory patches, and most of the quirky limitations. Unfortunately, the software Wavestation is available only as part of the rather pricey Legacy Collection. Unless you’re craving that early ’80s vintage sound, Xphraze would be a better investment for wave sequencing.

The main panel of Xphraze includes a patch browser (lower left), graphically editable envelopes, and a whole slew of wave sequences (center).

Xphraze provides graphic editing of a vector envelope (upper left), a separate effect processor for each of its four stereo outputs, and an interface for importing user samples.