UNDERCOOK YOUR DANCE MUSIC

Rob Papen Soundware has just launched its new soft synth geared for electronic dance music (EDM) creatives – RAW.

Papen came up with the idea for his new soft synth, after attending the pro audio summit Dutch Dancefair, earlier this year, to do some audience demonstrations of his software. Producers Sebastian Hoff and Freek Vergoossen (a.k.a. DJ Promo and DJ Free-K) approached Papen about the creation of a new synth specifically for EDM. Papen invited the DJs to his studio to brainstorm a list of ‘must-have’ features and tools, the results of which is now available to artists.

“While I’m always seeking new directions, I noticed that I also have roadblocks to my way of thinking,” Papen said.

“Maybe this is because of my long-lasting association with classic analogue hardware synthesizers like the Minimoog and Roland Jupiter-8 that don’t have onboard effects or EQ. I can clearly remember the first synthesizers that came complete with EQ, which was weird. ‘EQ is for mixing desks,’ I thought! On the other hand, I enjoyed effects like chorus, phaser, delays, and so on when they started showing up on synths. So the moment that DJ Promo and DJ Free-K discussed this idea of synthesizers having more ‘distortion’ and EQ, my immediate thought was, ‘EQ in a synth? Mmm…’ Then I said to myself, ‘Rob, you must get past this roadblock and look into this with an open mind.”

Papen has said that due to the fact the new synth focuses on distortion, it means that it has a different signal setup, synthesiser-wise. Features include a dedicated Distortion module (with several types) on the ‘voice level’, with each voice having its own Waveshaper, Distortion and Lo Fi control, with two oscillators, a filter, and an EQ that can be assigned either pre- or post-distortion. Other effects included are, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Stereo Delay, Reverb, and an Arpeggiator. There’s also flexible X/Y fields (found in the OSC 1 and OSC 2 sections) and users can draw their own ‘waveforms’ (to be used as LFO waveforms) allowing ‘wobble’ sound movements.

Papen has also included a number of Presets created by EDM artists, such as Deathmachine, DJ Hidden, DJ Promo, DJ Thera, D-Passion, Ophidian, Mad Dog, Rob Fabrie, N-Vitral, The Playah, The Viper, Warface, and others.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

Raw is available as AAX, AU, and VST and can be purchased on the Rob Papen Soundware website (link) for a discounted price of EU€119 / US$143 until December 31st, Normally EU€149 / US$179. For Mac (32- and 64-bit Mac OS X 10.6 or higher) and PC (32- and 64-bit, Windows Vista, 7, and 8).

Excerpts from Press Release