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Trilian patches can be built from one or two layers.

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• Review

Released in 2003, Trilogy was a respected bass instrument offering a good selection of synth, electric and acoustic basses, with its sibling Atmosphere being similarly famed for lush synth pads and the like.

Things move on, however, as demonstrated by Atmosphere's 2008 sequel Omnisphere - as well as a huge library of brand new sound content, this debuted the company's own sample/synthesis backbone, dubbed the Steam Engine.

Now we have the second Steam-powered instrument, Trilian, arriving to supersede Trilogy. The library is 34GB in size, and the meat of it comprises the new instruments: acoustic bass with four separate mic/pickup channels, six electric basses (including Music Man five-string, Fender Precision, Fender Jazz and Chapman Stick) and numerous synth sources, including the Yamaha CS-80, Moog Taurus, Dave Smith Tetra and ARP 2600. You also get everything from Trilogy (remastered) and, as a bonus, an enhanced version of the Bass Legends library.

Trilian's new library is not only very detailed but also sports features such as automatic legato, round robin variations, multisampled dynamic slides, phase-locked amp/DI mixing and two modes, Live and Stack, for coping with multiple articulations. Clearly, realistic bass is fundamental to Trilian's remit.

In detail

The Steam Engine offers a multitimbral structure with eight dual-layer parts, 33 effects and the ability to integrate streaming sample playback with synthesis techniques - Trilian sports FM capabilities, but it lacks the full-on DSP synth oscillators, waveshaping and granular synthesis of Omnisphere. However, the 19 stereo filter types with twin filters per layer, multipoint looping envelopes and six LFOs (with nine waveform options) mean that Trilian is still very much a synthesis heavyweight.

Totally new for Trilian are the 4-pole Juicy and Power filters with oscillating resonance. Add in the synth modulation options (26 mod sources and 47 targets), the Flex-Mod system for on-the-fly setup and the option to modulate over 200 effect parameters, and you begin to appreciate just how mighty the Steam Engine is.

All this power may sound daunting, but Trilian is actually very simple to use. Patches are built from one or two layers, each consisting of a 'soundsource' (essentially a multisampled polyphonic oscillator). Layers include the typical synth-esque trimmings (modulation, LFOs, envelopes and filters), as well as insert effects and arpeggiator options.

Up to eight patches can be layered in a multi, with individual level, panning, MIDI channel and auxiliary effects. For navigation, each layer has four tabbed screens (Main, Edit, FX and Arp), plus some deeper, complex pages accessed with the Zoom icon, such as the modulation matrix.

The multi view also has four screens (Mixer, FX, Live and Stack) but is a simpler affair. However, there's nothing to stop you sticking to the Main screen with its patch-specific 'custom controls'.