Spectral and granular engines, a sampler, a nine-slot effect rack and the Stream cloud library: what Minimal Audio's first synth Current offers psytrance producers.
Minimal Audio is known for some of the more unusual effect plugins on the market, so its first synth, Current, caused quite a stir when it was announced. It combines several sound sources, a large effect suite and a cloud-connected content platform in one virtual instrument. Current is sold rent-to-own for $15/month or $120/year.
At the core is a spectral oscillator that analyses and resynthesises sound in real time. You control which harmonics are focused or swept, a window setting sets how fast the analysis runs, and output filter settings determine the type of spectral synthesis.
A range of modes gives the oscillator very different characters, from analog-style tones to bowed strings and basses. The filter section offers more than 50 filter types, including morphing filters, and an FM/AM section adds a full set of modulation options.
Current covers everything you would expect from a modern software synth, plus a few extras of its own. The sub oscillator produces a square wave one octave below OSC 1, which is handy for adding weight to basses and leads without extra layers.
The granular engine can reshape an audio sample completely. You set the number, position and size of the grains, and they can be arranged rhythmically, played in reverse, looped and pitched up or down. Playback speed is adjustable too, from slow drones to pumping, dynamic textures. That makes it a strong tool for ambient music and sound design, and for the atmospheric layers and effects that psytrance thrives on.
The sampler offers advanced time-stretching algorithms for reshaping samples. It is tied into Stream, Minimal Audio's cloud-based library of samples, loops, wavetables and presets. Stream is updated regularly, and you can browse and load the additional content directly inside the instrument.
Current includes a full suite of Minimal Audio effects, among them Rift Distortion, Cluster Delay, Morph EQ, Fuse Compressor and Flex Chorus. The effect rack has nine slots: you can arrange the effects in any order and save the chain as a rack preset, with more effects announced to come.
The effects and synth parameters are controlled by a modulation system with envelopes, LFOs and macros. On the MIDI side there is an arpeggiator and a chord generator for building melodic patterns and progressions.
With spectral, granular and sample-based sound sources, a sub oscillator, morphing filters and a strong effect rack, Current is a very powerful and versatile synth. It suits electronic music in general and psytrance production in particular, from rolling basses to complex effect sounds. The rent-to-own model and the Stream library make it easy to get started and keep finding new material.
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