China (MuseWire) – One of our favorite virtual analog synths for Windows has been updated to a new “enhanced” edition, according the publisher, SonicProjects. According to the company, “OP-X PRO-II is the new top flagship of the OP series and is the consequent continuation of the development of OP-X PRO, based on many collected wishes of our customers and too own new ideas, in order to make it the perfect dream synth. So this is the proof that your ideas and wishes are very important for us and do not end in the wastepaper!”

Some of the obvious new features include doubled polyhony, an included patch browser, an effects unit, MIDI learn and a completely new arpeggiator. But there are also a lot a lot of hidden new features that can be accessed by active GUI zones or multiple button states. This keeps the GUI clean and familiar. Once you’ve got to know these features you’ll see that despite this density the general operation is extremely intuitive and streamlined.

A bunch of new one-click quick button calibration features saves a lot of work to handle voice-based settings like tuning trimpots or pans. All of this is based on countless hours of real working experience, to give as streamlined and intuitive handling as possible. So we’re pretty sure that you will find at least one feature that always has been on top of your wishlist.

For Mac musicians, SP is working to help us, too: “For Mac users we now offer an adapted version for the free VFX application from SM Pro Audio. This makes it possible to play and use OP-X PRO-II within Intel based Macs.”

The VFX application is a stand alone VST host with a wine core that makes it possible to use compatible Windows plugins in other operating systems. Since it’s a stand-alone application you can’t use the synth directly as a plug-in in your sequencer, but using the free Cycling74 SoundFlower and the OS-X internal IAC drivers it’s easy to establish an audio/MIDI connection to your sequencer to bring the sounds of OP-X PRO-II onto your tracks. (Editor note: I will be trying to do this on my 8-core Mac very soon!)

For existing owners of any “OP” edition, there is a discounted upgrade price, and you likely already got an e-mail about it, but if not see the SP website.

Additional information, screen shots, and audio demos: http://www.sonicprojects.ch/opxpro2/description.html .

For those on Mac who may ALSO be an owner of the V-Machine hardware unit, who are intrigued by this (OP-X is Windows only, and the ONLY Oberheim emulator out there), SonicProjects have a video page showing how to run the OP VST instrument through some clever trickery on Mac:
http://www.sonicprojects.ch/vmbundle/vfxmac_videos.html .