Image Line Software, makers of Fruity Loops, the PC sequencer-DAW nobody admits to using (but would surprise you if you saw how many studios run it) has rolled out a new additive-synthesis instrumet, Morphine. Identifiably "Fruity" by its orange-on-dark-gray GUI, Morphine promises a host of cool features and pleasing sound as evidenced by demo clips from the Morphine web page. From Image Line:

"The development of Morphine was a long, stressful process - it took thousands of man-hours work, but it was worth it," said Maxx Claster, the developer of Morphine. "Now we have a powerful additive synthesizer with a tightly optimized, high-quality sound engine, great resynthesis features and a logical user-friendly interface."

Breaking the Myth of Additive Synthesis

Additive synthesis has long been considered complicated and difficult to implement, but Morphine sweeps aside these perceptions. In many ways, Morphine can be compared to a multi-sampler that plays 'synthetic' samples. Morphine can capture the harmonic variations of any sound, as a series of snapshots or breakpoints, and 'plays' by interpolating a series of breakpoints in real-time. Users also have the freedom to program the breakpoints manually. Additive synthesis in Morphine seems simple and, in fact, it really is.

High quality sound

Morphine's pristine and detailed sound is guaranteed by the *128 harmonic oscillator engine, *optimized for fast amplitude and frequency modulation across an unlimited number of harmonic snapshots per spectrum.

Just like the original Effects

Morphine incorporates several built-in effects including Portamento, Distortion, Chorus, Stereo Delay, Reverb and 8-band Graphic Equalization, for creating a perfectly customized sound.

Presets

Complex evolving pads, deep basses, acoustic instruments, synthetic leads and keyboards -everything is possible with Morphine, which ships with *290 high-quality factory sounds*, covering a broad range of music styles.

Key features:

• High-quality sound engine optimized for low CPU usage with fast amplitude and frequency modulation response
• 4 independent "generators" per voice
• Keyboard layering with 128 unique keyboard zones
• Unlimited number of harmonic "snapshots" (breakpoints) per spectrum
• Amplitude, detune, and panning control for all harmonics
• Filtering and velocity response for each Generator source
• Highly CPU optimized, accurate resynthesis, allowing emulation of audio samples with high precision
• Manual override options for the resynthesis process to achieve accurate emulations
• Ability to import wave shapes from audio files
• Variable-time control for spectra, mix/morph envelopes (can also be linked to key number, velocity or any other controller)
• 4 PWM filters (spectral emulation of comb filtering, unison or pulse-width)
• Additional generator that allows any noise sample audio file to be mixed with the synthesized sound, complete with filtering
• A morphing path, which morphs harmonics in real-time, controlled internally or from external modulation source(s)
• A morphing square, which mixes the 4 generator sources in a single, convenient interface
• Four multipoint (EG) envelopes, which can be routed to various internal Morphine controls
• 1 to 32 note polyphony, user-selectable
• ADSR master envelope
• Adjustable velocity response
• Up to 5 in-built simultaneous effects: Chorus, Delay, Reverb, Equalizer, Distortion
• Attractive, user-friendly interface, developed through thousands of man-hours of testing and development
• 290 high-quality factory sounds
• Available in VSTi, Audio Units and Standalone versions

System requirements

Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, OS X 10.4 Processor: Minimum 2GHz Intel Pentium III compatible with SSE support, G4 PowerPC on Macintosh with full Altivec support.

RAM: 512 MB

Hard disk space: 130 MB

Price and availability

Until the end of July 2007, Morphine is available for USD $99. Regular retail pricing will be USD $159.

Morphine can be ordered from FL Studio Web shop