Then there’s a powerful arpeggiator that can be free-running or tempo-synced and applied independently to both layers for maximum flexibility. Each layer also has a drift control for oscillators and filter frequencies to add to the authentic analogue character and slight imperfection of the sound, should you wish to add it. Portamento and Glissando modes let you achieve soaring sweeps, while monophonic Unison Solo and powerful polyphonic Unison Share modes bring a rich and wide sound to proceedings. The synthesis sections include a powerful multimode filter, two tempo-syncable LFOs, VCA and envelope sections, but it’s the performance controls that help take things to the next level. It sounds simply huge, thanks in part to the reproduction of the original’s advanced VCO-2 to VCO-1 FM cross-modulation which helps to create a harder and more urgent edge to the sounds. While some analogue synths can suffer from a predominance of slightly vanilla tones, the Mercury-6 comes out all guns blazing. A Utility menu allows you to swap, copy or reset layers or copy effects banks between layers. Then, in the Panel section you can choose whether the instrument displays the controls for the lower or upper voices and also solo either layer – handy for hearing more clearly the changes you are making. There’s Whole, where the whole keyboard plays the upper layer only, Layer where upper and lower voices are stacked across the whole keyboard, and Split where you can specify the split point for separating lower and upper voices. The instrument can be placed into several modes, managed in the Key and Panel Mode sections. Each voice has two VCOs with combined waveform capabilities: triangle, ramp sawtooth, noise, and square or variable pulse. While the original could have a tendency to run out of notes with its 6-voice polyphony, here Cherry has not only upped this to 16 voices but added an entirely new second layer with a further 16. Like the hardware on which it is based, the Mercury-6 is among the more approachable (virtual) analogue synths, with parameters pretty much all laid out and barely any menu-diving to be done. It should be noted that overall the synth is quite resource-light and kind to your CPU. Over 500 presets are supplied, sorted by category and up to 4x oversampling quality is available. Cherry’s familiar wrapper format is present, including the toolbar of various options – such as the ability to zoom the interface in or out to suit your screen size, a Focus mode to zoom and make the interface scrollable, and a popout MIDI assignment window for managing controller assignments, with virtually every parameter assignable via a right-click. Coming in all major plugin formats as well as a standalone version, it weighs in at a tiny 20MB and will run on 64-bit versions of MacOS 10.13 and Windows 7 or higher. The Cherry Audio Mercury-6 carries neither the price tag nor the physical heft of the original, but significantly expands its capabilities. READ MORE: RØDE NT1 5th Generation review: RØDE’s flagship large diaphragm condenser microphone now boasts innovative USB and DSP technology.Though expensive at the time, it found its way onto countless records by the likes of Orbital, The Prodigy, Vangelis, The Chemical Brothers and many more. It also introduced a true multimode filter and was one of the first synths to support MIDI and a split keyboard mode. With a noticeably rougher edge than the flagship Jupiter-8 that came before it, the Jupiter-6 was billed as a more affordable alternative. Cherry Audio’s first release of 2023 is a recreation of the legendary Roland Jupiter-6 analogue polysynth, first released in 1983.
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