Rob Papen has released the eXplorer-7 Bundle, a collection of Rob Papen plug-ins that simultaneously release RoCoder and Predator-3. The bundle includes DelSane, which is an award-winning synthesizer with a unique oscillator section that will give you never before heard sounds in your productions.

Rob Papen’s eXplorer-7 is a revolutionary sound design tool that will change the way you think about creating musical scores.

Papens’ new product has been influenced by his extensive experience in filmmaking and scoring for feature films, television shows as well as video games. The seventh installment in eXplorer-7 is released with inspirational content for the adventurer who strives to be their best.

All of these plug-ins are now available to mix and match in your DAW, with the creative potential for an infinite number of unique sounds at every turn.

RoCoder is a musical muscular vocoder virtual effect that takes vocal samples from any source material but processes them through distortive electronics; it’s like having your own trippy robot singer on stage next door! Next up? Predator 3 – if you love what this instrument does already then get excited because its successor DelSane will blow everyone away when released later this year…

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eXplorer-7 is a must for all music producers and DJs alike. It has 27 virtual instrument plug-ins that you can use to make your own sound! You also get a free PRISMA plugin so even if Rob Papen’s products weren’t enough, there will always be more options with this bundle.

eXPLORER 7 shall provide endless hours of creative inspiration when it comes to crafting tunes on the fly or DJing out at parties – whether solo or as partied up duo; its functionality allows access into every possible aspect needed while not slowing down production speeds Djs’ needs: everything from synth beds+ambient pads.

Virtual effect plug-ins new to eXplorer-7 well worth mentioning include the simultaneously released RoCoder. His name is Rob Papen, and this leads me back into time with its vocoding concept!

What does a vocoder do?

The vocoder was developed as a means for synthesizing human speech by Bell Labs’ Homer Dudley, and it’s still used today. This machine translates the vocal output of one speaker into another using psychoacoustic filters that analyze how humans naturally sound when they speak in order to produce an artificial version with similar proportions between frequency ranges like those heard on recording devices or broadcasts produced at different times but which are edited together so they all match up seamlessly (i e., sync).

The vocoder is an electronic circuit that converts human speech into a string of signals. The original purpose for this device was in telecommunications, but it can also be used to modulate sounds like instruments or noise-making them sound more interesting while playing music on guitar without being heard by others around you!

A vocoder is an electronic device that can put the voice of one person into that many different voices. This has been used in popular music videos to make singers sound robotic or like insects, but it’s also being explored by artists who want their recordings analyzed for emotional content without having anyone there when you listen! Think Teutonic techno-pop trailblazers Kraftwerk’s 1978 classic cut ‘The Robots’ (from The Man Machine album) and ‘Autobahn’ (a surprise international hit as a radio edit of the title track from the 1974 album).

Rob Papen has created a new and creative vocoder with RoCoder! Alongside a 32-band vocoder, it includes an additional Additive MODE that provides the user with more creative ability. It also has Noise mode which can be used to generate randomly generated sounds like white noise or pink muzak; one of its dedicated tools is Tuned Comb Mode where you will hear artificial choirs singing in perfect harmony as you play different notes on your keyboard.

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What is the difference between a talkbox and vocoder?

The vocoder is an electronic device that makes the human voice sound like another instrument by deconstructing and reconstructing it electronically. The talkbox makes instruments act in much the same way, but rather than directing notes through tubes or boxes they instead direct sounds into singers’ mouths who then become sound chambers for these various effects to occur with synthesizing new styles of music not otherwise possible.

How do you use vocoder?

For example, you can use the vocoder with another synthesizer such as Kontakt, Omnisphere, Serum or Massive to add some effects and transform your sound. You can also use it in conjunction with an audio effect like delay or reverb for a very unique tone coloration that cannot be achieved otherwise. Another fantastic thing about this plugin is that you can use it with your microphone to vocode yourself, and then apply effects over the result. This will result in some very interesting transformations of your voice.

You can now generate sounds that were never thought of before with this new model. The Vocoder MODE lets anyone create their own unique and creative melodies in addition to the top-tier sound effects we’ve all grown accustomed to!

Pricing and Availability

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eXplorer 7 is available at a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) of €499.00 EUR/$499.00 USD from authorized Rob Papen dealers worldwide or as a download directly from Rob Papen

Owners of earlier eXplorer editions can upgrade to Explorer 7 for €99.00 EUR/$99.00 USD, while other options for upgrading to eXplorer 7 are also available to owners of other Rob Papen products.

RoCoder is available at a MAP of €49.00 EUR/$49.00 USD from authorized Rob Papen dealers worldwide or as a download directly from Rob Papen

BLADE-2 Released

Rob Papen sharpens soft synth breakthrough by bringing boosted BLADE-2 to existing bundle owners and the wider world beyond.

BLADE-2 — boosting its unique BLADE soft synth with excellent features making it a dream synth for synth lovers who like to think out of the box while working in the box, and available at no extra cost to existing owners of the company’s expansive eXplorer-6 and sure-fire SoundDesign-X bundles.

When the original BLADE was released back in 2012, it had a unique concept — controlling the waveform harmonics (HARMOLATOR) using its recordable XY PAD, which was a very different approach to additive synthesis, and remains so to this day. Indeed, it was the first Rob Papen soft synth to include this feature, facilitating flexible sound editing, recording, and tempo-based playback. Put it this way: when putting this extraordinary combination into action, BLADE users can creatively generate very different tones — far from the sound of the subtractive synthesis crowd, and even those of other additive synthesizers.

But BLADE-2 takes a good thing and makes it even better by expanding upon that now-established — albeit still unique — concept with fresh ideas and features, bolstered by an all-new, clear-cut GUI (Graphical User Interface) fit for a new generation of synthesists and those familiar with the original BLADE alike. After all, eight years is a long time in an increasingly fast-paced — and arguably overcrowded — world of often short-lived software synthesizers!

So — GUI notwithstanding — what’s new in BLADE-2? Actually, as that all-new, clear-cut GUI clearly shows, as an additive oscillator with 96 partials, the HARMOLATOR continues to play a central role in making BLADE-2 what it is. Just like BLADE before it, global controls — Base, Range, Symmetry, Timbre, Timbre Type (16 types), Timbre Waves, Even/Odd, Ripple, Ripple Width, Harmonic, Harmonic Volume, and Harmonic Shift — are used to alter the general additive spectrum, rather than using sine waves of different frequencies to create more complex waves, so making it easier to create interesting sounds. Saying that, while benefitting from a visual makeover, the XY pad now includes far more features and freedom with which to control the HARMOLATOR, including an ability to control all other BLADE-2 parameters! Added alongside the HARMOLATOR mode is an ADDITIVE mode, enabling mixing or morphing between four additive waveforms using the XY pad. Pushing the boundaries of sound sculpting still further, users of course can also create and edit their own additive waveforms by altering the partial volumes, phase, and tuning, or even change the waveform per partial.

BLADE-2 benefits from a new OSCILLATOR section based around a virtual analogue oscillator with selectable Sine, Saw, Square or Triangle waveform and much more besides, including a UNISON mode — plays up to four unison voices for each note played — to expand the soft synth’s sound creation options, alongside an added NOISE section with the option of using ‘tuned’ noise.

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Needless to say, the pre-filter DISTORTION section with 20 different distortion types found in BLADE boldly make their presence felt in BLADE-2, but the FILTER section itself has been boosted to include no fewer than 36 different filter types alongside more visual enhancements, such as a graphical envelope (though this can be changed to more conventional onscreen dials via the ‘Control Menu’).

Meanwhile, the middle section of the BLADE-2 GUI offers multiple pages, including the enhanced XY pad page and also an updated ARP (arpeggiator) page with a number of cool new features — controlling the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ position of the XY pad inside each step, for example, while RATCHETING per step is also perfectly possible in various modes. Making a welcomed reappearance from BLADE is its HARMMOD page allowing a direct modulation connection to the HARMOLATOR, helpfully allowing users to skip the MOD (modulation) page altogether when quickly connecting, say, VELOCITY to an ENV (envelope) or an LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator), or other controllers like the Mod Wheel, while the MOD (modulation) page itself includes extra envelopes, LFOs, and a MODULATION MATRIX, as well as an ADVANCED mode. Noticeably new to BLADE-2 is its WAV page, enabling users to analyse an audio sample into a static user wave, which can be used in the HARMOLATOR or ADDITIVE sections; when added to the ADDITIVE section, users are able to edit this user wave again. Arranging how the BLADE-2 synth engine plays comes courtesy of the PLAY MODE page — Poly, Mono, Legato, and Arp modes are accessible from here — where there are also some cool CHORD memory features, such as STRUM speed.

Synthesizers — software-based or otherwise — can benefit from fantastic effects and a Rob Papen software synthesizer would not be complete without a fantastic effects section of its own. Of course, BLADE-2 is no exception to this unwritten rule with no fewer than three onboard effects units — FX1, FX2, and FX3 — to its notable name, each offering a choice of 30 top-notch effects with much in the way of behavioural flexibility. For instance, BLADE-2 users can control all effect parameters by MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) or its own MODULATION MATRIX.

An ability to dive deep, sound editing-wise, with BLADE-2 is a given — hardly surprising since company founder Rob Papen is a self-confessed synth freak and world-renowned sound designer, but those wishing to edit a sound without going too deep can quickly turn to its EASY mode. Maintains Rob Papen himself: “By changing a group of parameters there, you’ll find some superb variations and totally new sounds, so don’t forget to save your cool new sound!”

Scratching the surface or diving deep, Rob Papen itself has certainly succeeded in sharpening its soft synth breakthrough by bringing a boosted BLADE-2 to the wider world for anyone to creatively play with to their (musical) heart’s content!

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Pricing and Availability

A 16-voice software synthesizer, BLADE-2 is available as a 64-bit AAX-, AU-, and VST-compatible virtual instrument plug-in for Mac (OS X 10.9 – macOS 10.15) and as a 32- and 64-bit VST-compatible virtual instrument plug-in for PC (Windows 7/8/10) — with 64-bit AAX compatibility available for PT 12 or higher (PC) — at a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) of €99.00 EUR/$99.00 USD from authorised Rob Papen dealers worldwide or as a download directly from Rob Papen itself.

BLADE-2 is included in the latest version of the eXplorer 6 bundle and SoundDesign-X bundle, while owners of the original BLADE can crossgrade to BLADE-2 for €39.00 EUR/$39.00 USD.

A 30-day demo version of BLADE-2 with only one introductory sound bank and all bank and preset loading/saving functionality duly disabled is available.

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Rob Papen Releases Punch-2 & Quad Significant Updates

QUAD Update

Rob Papen released a new update for Quad adding NI NKS support, over 80 new presets, and as you can see in the image below it now also includes a ‘waveform’ display in the XY fields. Rob Papen has also increased the number of slots to 16 in the Modulation matrix! This provides you with double the parameter routing options for your sounds.

QUAD was the first-ever Rack Extension synthesizer built from the ground up for Reason by the Rob Papen team and is now also available as VST/AU/AAX plugin. 

The sonic palette is huge, through the vast modulation possibilities that QUAD has to offer. 
The sound sculpting tools start in each Oscillator and are the Phase Distortion and WaveShaper.
These tools are brought to life by 2 XY-Pads in each Oscillator, which can be moved through an extensive modulation matrix. 
QUAD’s Oscillators are complemented by two top-notch analog-modeled Filters, which have different routing options, an arpeggiator, and two high-quality effects processors. 

Punch-2 Update

As you can see in the image below, Punch-2 now offers color pads! In the new update released today 28th of May, Rob Papen has added this cool new feature and even include new fresh presets created by JoMal.

Using a combination of drum synthesis/samples and the built-in pattern sequencer to trigger beats already made Punch a unique drum machine and loved by many upon its first release!.  

Now, by adding even more drum synthesis models, and introducing a totally new main screen which allows you to quickly create new drum kits, Punch-2 continues its legacy to be a cutting edge drum machine… but with lots of extra added punch! 

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Things do not stop there though, the interface and the synthesis sound options have been expanded greatly! Punch-2 now allows you to import your own REX files and samples to turn into your own loops. You can map out REX files or sample slices to individual pads and combine these creatively with the sounds & pattern sequencer found inside Punch-2! Further editing of  REX files or Sliced pads is also possible, using filters, envelopes…routing into one of the 4 FX modules. And yes, you can even use granular synthesis on the REX and Slice pads! 

Feature-wise there is almost too much to mention here! For instance, there is a full new ‘Master’ section with EQ, Compressor, Limiter, Stereo/mono split filter, and layout mixer.

Last but not least, Punch-2 also comes with a vast amount of included sounds, ready to groove into your music and productions!

Punch-2 New Features

• olor scheme options for the pads. Please watch the video here
• Tuned menu box added to several User Models.
• New presets created by JoMal
  Bank [ 05 JoMal 03 ] 3 new presets (AboutFace / Breathe / Cajmere)
  Bank [ 06 Trap 01 ] 15 new JoMal presets

How To Obtain The unch-2 or QUAD Update

• Please log in to robpapen.com and visit ‘My Products’. 
• Below the product registration, you will find the latest installer for Quad. 
• Download the latest version for your system and run the installer to update. 
  Note: As with all installations please close your music host software before running the installer.
• NI NKS users: please download the NKS installer. 
  Rescan the library/plug-ins (preferences menu) to access Quad inside your NKS device.