Manufacturer: Cherry Audio
Doc Joe
Sep 1, 23
Another terrific product... but a little tough on CPU
I spent an afternoon messing with Harmonia and just as I hoped, it is a cracking little tool for sound design. Creating new and widely complex sounds is both fast and easy - almost intuitive. I've already got a dozen really interesting leads and a few bases built from zero state. So full marks there! It also has an unusual 'crisp and light' (it that the correct phrase?) character that reminds me of the late 80's digital synths. Yet I was also able to get some stunningly wide and grunty bass from it. Hint: check out Bass Cave preset! Woooohhhh!
Whenever CA releases a synth, I just *have to have* (which is most of them), the first thing I do after installing the VST I then fire up a DAW project and run as many concurrent versions of the synth until my system starts to crackle. With many of CA's synths, I get 7-9 before my poor PC starts to stutter. However, Harmonia seems to be a bit more CPU-hungry, with a max of five running smoothly. All tests are done on 1x quality. I found that Harmonia has a lot of 10-voice poly presets that really push things. Turning down the poly count when not needed dramatically improves things.