Alphatron was inspired by the idea of creating a synthesizer for bass & high sequences which can serve as an
companion to Avatar ST synthesizer’s pads, athmos and soundscapes. Alphatron is not just a simple VA synthesizer instead in using a 3rd oscillator with digital waves of single cycle type it does offer a lot more variation.
Thus it can do pretty good analogstyle sounds reminding of the old Moog and Prophet days but also merge this with the digital realm in various ways to achieve sounds far beyond.
Also this 3rd oscillator serves as sync master for oscillator 2 thus offering much more sonic flavours. Amplitude Modulation has got it’s dedicated adjustable output and uses oscillator 2 as main source being modulated either by osc. 1 or 3. Oscillator 1 is a polywave oscillator with up to 5 additional waves, so you might have something like Super Saw(tm), Super Pulse, Super Ramp etc.
Another big highlight of Alphatron is the versatile step sequencer with 8 + 4 pattern slots which can be selected at realtime for instant pattern switching. Setting Note Seq to off it can serve as stepmodulator. The Gate length can be modulated by sources. Two playmodes: normal with adjustable number of steps or Step Variation which is in fact aonther 16 step sequencer to set different number of steps to be played in succession. Loops can be set to repeat up to 4 times, and two alternating semitone offsets can be set e.g. for
each 2nd, 3rd or 4th loop. There are 8 pattern slots per patch and 4 global pattern slots which can be used for
instant pattern changes. Current pattern can be copied and pasted to a selectable slot, with the global slots
even among patches.
Main features (based on Pro version):
# 1 VA Oscillator with up to 6 poly waves for Saw, Ramp, Sine, Tri, and Pulse
# 1 VA Oscillator with single waves as above plus white and pink noise, Sync slave
# 1 Sample Osccillator with fairly typical digital waves (single cycle type) with different hamonic content, Sync master
# 1 Amplitude Modulation with dedicated output
# 1 24 dB resonant Low Pass filter with dedicated ADSR EG, 4 mixable mod sources
# 1 VCA EG (Note: Both EG have 3 modes: exponential, reverse exponential, and linear; and optional control for Attack and Decay by velocity)
# 1 Booster or Enciter selectable
# 1 Mystify with three selctable types (Brite, Soft, Dark)
# 1 bpm synced Delay with adjustable Offset controlled manually or by modsource, Pan
# 1 Bass Boost
# 1 Pan for undelayed signal
# 1 small Reverb for adding some nice flavour
# 1 Saturator
# 1 main Volume
# 3 x LFO, 1 x Duo LFO (with two waves and phase control for 2nd wave), 1 x S&H
# 1 Pitch LFO with option to speed up or down the LFO speed
# 16 Step Seqencer (with Shuffle) for notes and velocity plus mute buttons for each step.
# incl 8 pattern slots per patch and 4 global pattern slots for instant changes
# 3 Wheels
# Aftertouch as selectable modsource
# 8 Lazy buttons
# 8 GUI variants selectable
# 128 patches
Major differences of Basic Free (less features):
Basic Free: only 64 patches, no Lazy buttons, only 4 Seq Pattern per patch & 2 global Seq Pattern, 2 voices, no selectable GUI (instead there is a choice of four different dll to download), no patch select on GUI, but a silly scroller reminder not to forget to support the developer.