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Cypher

The final synth, Cypher, is potentially the most versatile, its speciality being audio-rate modulation. It boasts three oscillators, each with a Wave knob that goes smoothly from a triangle, on through sawtooth and square, into a pulse shape – ie, narrow pulse width.

Amongst other things, it's possible to dial in hard sync as a variable amount; ring modulate consecutive oscillators; modulate the filter cutoff at audio rate; and perform 'through zero' FM, where the frequency can be modulated to a negative value, causing the waveform to be reversed.

Although FM and ring modulation are associated with hard, 'digital' sounds, Cypher can sound phat and 'analogue', too, due to such features as its dual waveshapers and twin filters (SVF or Moog-style) with routing options. Like the other synths, it has a drivable mixer section with an Analogue knob that introduces noise throughout the virtual circuitry.

"The final synth, Cypher, is potentially the most versatile, its speciality being audio-rate modulation."

In any synth, when oscillators are detuned against each other, a rhythmic beating is created by the interaction between the tones, the regularity of this beating depending on the root note – this is most often exploited in throbbing DnB bass sounds.

Using Cypher's Beat knob, you can achieve this detuned beating, but with a constant rhythm across the keyboard – it's a unique touch that shows that FXpansion has thought about the needs of its users.

For modulation, Cypher has two LFOs, three envelopes and a Ramp modulator. We're rather fond of the latter – it's a simple envelope with delay, attack and sustain stages that's also found in Amber and Strobe and is ideal for delaying the onset of LFO-based modulations like vibrato.

Other common aspects include an arpeggiator, plus glide and voicing settings (with up to 16 unison voices). There are effects versions of each synth, too, for processing your audio through their filters and effects.

Modulation

The TransMod modulation system enables you to route multiple destinations from eight sources, each with a secondary source to, err, modulate the amount of modulation. Phew.

With one of the eight TransMod slots selected, you drag the outer ring of a knob (or track of a fader) to define as many modulation connections as you like, with the ranges shown in yellow.

Most unusually, unison detune is achieved via a special modulation source that you route to the fine pitch knob of a synth, causing the pitches of the voices to 'spread out'. The upshot of this is that it can be applied to any parameter; for instance, assign it to the pan control and the voices are panned across the stereo field.

In fact, there are loads of unusual modulation sources – all we're missing are multipoint envelopes and LFOs; however, LFOs do have advanced options such as swing. You can even use a TransMod slot to 'morph' the synth's settings to match that of another patch (incidentally, there are plenty of good – if not spectacular – presets supplied).