UVI Falcon - the hybrid synth/sampling powerhouse gets an update

UVI Falcon – the hybrid synth/sampling powerhouse gets an update

UVI Falcon first hit the market in 2015, it’s incredibly vast sonic possibilities and insane levels of control turned heads.

The concept behind UVI Falcon is to give the user ultimate control over their sound, there are almost no limitation in terms of the sound design capabilities and the entire system is built around a very thoughtful hierarchical and almost semi-modular platform. Similar to systems like Native Instruments’ Reaktor and Kontakt, UVI Falcon offers the same level of scriptable control yet designed to be a lot more intuitive.

At the core of UVI Falcon’s beast-like engine are 15 highly-optimized oscillators designed to cover the entire spectrum of contemporary music production. The plugin includes synthesis style oscillator modules – “Analog”, “Analog Stack”, “Drum”, “FM”, “Noise”, “Organ”, “Pluck” and “Wavetable”. UVI’s IRCAM algorithm has been employed into a series of the sampling oscillators – “IRCAM Granular”, “IRCAM Multi Granular”, “IRCAM Scrub”, “IRCAM Stretch”, “Sample, “Slice” and “Stretch”. This is a HUGE variety of sound generation techniques, without even getting into the over 80 high-quality built-in effects from convolution reverbs, amp simulations, dynamics processors and analyzers.

So what’s new in v1.5?

UVI Falcon v1.5 introduces a new FM section into the Wavetable oscillator and a new Frequency Shifter effect, further bolstering the sound design capabilities. UVI have introduced the ability to scale your interface to suit your needs, whether you want just your macro parameters visible or the entire synthesizer control interface.

The new update also introduces various features to create a more fluid workflow, from the ability to tag your favourite patches and multis to new “Event” modules which alter the way layers or keygroups within the plugin deal with MIDI input – similar to Ableton’s MIDI effects or Cubase’s MIDI inserts just within the plugin!

UVI Falcon is not very cheap, however considering the sheer audio quality, amount of control and sound design capabilities, I would put this in the upper-tier of synth plugins. It retails for USD $349 (Around R4700), I would highly suggest anyone who is serious about sound design look into getting this plugin, it may well replace a few existing tools in your arsenal.