Novation Peak

Un ottimo sintetizzatore il cui punto di forza maggiore è la versatilità : da bassi rotondi a pad complessi, passando per lead taglienti con ottima emulazione di sintesi analogica
Grazie alla sua versatilità lo considero uno strumento adatto sia a svariati generi musicali sia al sound design.
Ha una notevole immediatezza di utilizzo grazie ai molti controlli sul pannello e si riescono a fare suoni con timbri abbastanza complessi senza necessariamente entrare nei menu.
Grazie anche alla parte di effetti già dalla macchina non ho mai trovato difficoltà a posizionare i suoni nel mix, mentre Il filtro e i 3 stadi di distorsione lo fanno urlare forte e permettono sonorità molto aggressive.
Malgrado gli oscillatori posizionati sulle forme d'onda classiche, quando usati totalmente dry, non diano eccessive soddisfazioni , si possono ottenere buone emulazioni delle caratteristiche di instabilità e imperfezione del suono analogico utilizzando le funzioni Drift e Diverge sugli oscillatori e Filter diverge sul filtro.
Le wavetable sono molte e con l'ultimo aggiornamento se ne possono caricare altre 10 completamente custom (creabili con l'editor all'interno del software Components) aumentando molto le possibilità creative.
La gestione dei preset è un altro punto di forza, Grazie a Components si salvano e creano interi banchi di patch con facilità.
Gli unici contro sono appunto gli oscillatori che nelle forme d'onda classiche e dry a mio personale avviso non sono molto caratteristici, ma si ovvia facilmente a questa leggera mancanza con la sezione di filtro ,distorsioni e effetti.
Sarebbe stato bello avere input stereo per processare sorgenti esterne col filtro analogico
Lo consiglio a chi piace la sintesi wavetable e Fm e a chi vuole una macchina versatile per creare varie tipologie di suoni. Lo considero un fratello maggiore di Serum Vst , un po piu limitato, forse, ma con un suono decisamente piu caratteristico.

I had to think long and hard, and read alot on the internet, before purchasing this one as there is no way to try it out beforehand where I live.

The reasons why I give it only 5 stars is because it deserves nothing less. I've had to send couple of emails to Novation regarding couple of things, and they always replied within 48 hours with very helpful information.

I had to choose between PEAK and DSI Rev2 due to my budget, and I'm very happy I didn't go for Rev2. The main reason? The VCF and audiorate modulation. Yes, alot of audiorate modulation in a poly synth! The FM is gorgeous, FM-ing the filter for some extra dirt is wonderful, and the FX are almost way too good to run PEAK through anything else. Oh, the ringmode is ace too! Plenty of clang! The oscillators are deep and moving, not sterile under any circumstances. Not that Rev2 isint perfectly good synthesizer too, but having 4 lfos with no delay/fade in/fade out is kind of weird, and I'd rather have 2x full featured lfos than 4x with less options.

The online community around the PEAK is also good and growing too so you won't be alone facing your problems, find the facebook group, alot of friendly people to help you out.

One last thing, i've not ran into any serious bugs yet, and that alone is very valuable as many hardware users should know. If you need a flexible sound designing polysynth with beautiful VCF, give PEAK a change. Seriously, that VCF is amazing.

I absolutely love this synth. For those worried it's too digital or VST-like, don't be. Accounting for the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, foldover distortion from overtones, and complex harmonics from modulation, 192 kilohertz would be plenty for accurate sampling. This synth's oscillators are sampled at 12.5 times that at 24 megahertz. Aliasing just isn't a concern here. They're digital, but extremely smooth.

Being digital, the oscillators stay perfectly in-tune, but with voice diverge (basically pitch-drift) and filter-diverge settings, you can do convincing classic patches as well, particularly brass and keys.

The analog filter is extremely smooth and the resonance can cut through the mix, but doesn't sound particularly aggressive. The filter overdrive can help bring out some harmonics, but mostly it does light saturation. The distortion actually sounds more like an overdrive to me. I usually mix filter overdrive and distortion together if I want a gritty sound.

The chorus and delay are fine but nothing to write home about. The reverb, though, is absolutely gorgeous. It's got a lush, airy quality that fits nicely in a mix, so much so that I wish there was an external-in jack so I could route other audio through it.

I first thought the animate buttons were a gimmick, but I use them pretty often for adding accents to notes (animate = level or distortion) or manually rhythmic-gating effects like reverb.

My only gripe is that I wish I could upload more than 10 wavetables to it, or delete some of the factory ones I don't use as much.

All-in-all, it's an extremely versatile synth, and the one I reach for first 90% of the time when making music.