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Love it or hate it, SubBoomBass's interace is undeniably distinctive.

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Rob Papen's first three soft synths – Albino, Blue and Predator – were of the general purpose virtual analogue variety, but the last one we looked at, RG, was decidedly different, being a sample-based "rhythm guitar synth".

Rob's latest offering, SubBoomBass, also aims to be less generic than your average VA, being billed as a "dedicated bass synth".

SubBoomBass is built on the engine of Rob's beastly Predator synth and, while it lacks some of the features of its progenitor, it has a few nifty extras to make up for it, plus an eye-popping, opinion-dividing interface (we rather like it).

Oscillators

Sound generation begins with the synth's pair of oscillators, and these are the biggest selling point of SubBoomBass. For starters, they offer 16 of the same analogue-modelled waveforms as Predator: you'll find staples like sine, saw, square and triangle, as well as combination waveforms, noise generators and some with a 'Rez' tag, which are useful for accentuating filter-work.

Further oscillator functions include tuning; free running or reset-on-note; sync; ring and frequency modulation; keyboard-tracking disable; symmetry (similar to pulse width, but can be applied to any modelled waveform); pulse-width (ie, symmetry) modulation; and a Sub-Osc knob per oscillator, to bring in a sine or square wave an octave below the note played.

"Sound generation begins with the synth's pair of oscillators, and these are the biggest selling point of SubBoomBass."

More unusual are the 39 sample-based waveforms that are unique to SBB. These have been created by pitching down samples of various instruments, mostly of the percussive variety, with sources including kick drums, toms, xylophones, congas, djembe, bass guitars, etc. You can even use the sync and ring/frequency modulation with them, for extra grind and growl.

Filter and amp sections

Following the oscillators is a simple distortion stage – you can drive the signal to warm it up, or slam it to create new timbres – then a dual-filter setup, running either in series, parallel or split mode (ie, a filter and effect for each oscillator).

The first filter has low-pass, band-pass, high-pass and notch modes in 6dB, 12dB, 18dB and 24dB flavours, as well as comb and vowel filters. It also has a dedicated envelope and LFO with various waveshapes and tempo sync – the LFO is handy for making wobbly bass noises, and the phase can be reset on each new note.

The second filter is simpler: it has low-pass and high-pass varieties in 6dB, 12dB and 24dB modes, a cutoff knob… and that's it.

The amplifier section uses the same ADSFR envelope as found in the filter and modulation sections. The F stands for Fade, and enables the user to specify that instead of holding the signal at the sustain level following the decay stage, it will instead rise to 100% (or fall to 0%) over the specified time period. Nifty!