Xils Lab

[Roxine Denison]

inOctober 2010's SOS, I reviewed the original PolyKB soft synth from XILS Lab in France. This modelled analogue instrument was intended to recreate the rare, early '80s PolyKobol, created by French company RSF, and I complimented its sound and versatility, but also noted some bugs and unfinished ideas. Now here we are, less than a year later, and the company have released PolyKB II, which claims to address many of the points I raised, as well as enhancing numerous features and adding new ones. The excellent oscillators and filter have survived unmolested, but much of the rest of PolyKB has been improved, including the modulation matrices, X/Y and spatial modulators, arpeggiator, sequencer, the effects section, and the user interface. If you didn't see the original review, by the way, my comments will make more sense if you read it first, at /sos/oct10/articles/xils-lab-polykb.htm

Moving on, let's turn to the Modulations section in the centre of the panel. If you look at the switches here, you'll see that red/green 'LED' pairs have replaced the single on/off indicators of PolyKB. Press a button once to link a source to a destination and the red light comes on; the source is now connected with negative polarity. Press it again, the green light comes on and it's connected with positive polarity. While I would have reversed the order (positive first and then negative) I'm not going to criticise, because this answers one of my major concerns regarding the original PolyKB: that velocity sensitivity could only be applied positively, so, for example, a higher velocity meant that, while your filter cutoff frequency went up, your contour times were extended and the response slowed down.

The most creative enhancements to the modulation facilities lie in the 'Programmation' section that houses the X/Y modulation, spatial modulation, sequencer and arpeggiator. In my original review, I commented that it would be great if the voice positions in the X/Y modulation page (now called PolyMYX) could themselves be the destinations of other modulators, and that they needed to be bipolar (a position one side or the other of an axis could increase the value of one parameter while decreasing the value of another). Well... the bad news is that the positions are still not destinations; the good is that they are now bipolar, as are the positions in the renamed DynaMYX spatial modulation window.

There are two new, spatial modulation modes in DynaMYX: Aquarium and Magnet. When the first of these is chosen, the voices swim around in the 'room', while the second causes them to respond as if they are all attracted to or repelled from one another. You can control the amount and speed of movement in either mode, as well as the degree of phase shift that occurs as the voices move about in the virtual space. However, the propagation delays, reverberation and pitch shifting that would occur in a real space are not calculated, no doubt because to do so for multiple voices in real time would require significantly more computing power than even the fastest CPUs can yet provide.

The arpeggiator has had its bugs ironed out and has been enhanced, boasting its own programming window. This adds the option to choose an octave range, a poly mode, swing, chord arpeggiation and more. It's now a powerful system with many more creative possibilities than before. Likewise, the sequencer has been enhanced with improved controls and a larger display that appears in the centre of the GUI if you click on the magnifying-glass icon. You can use the arpeggiator and sequencer together to create some fascinating, complex patterns, but you'll have to work at this to create useful results, or be lucky enough to stumble across something musically meaningful.

PolyKB II feels more polished than its predecessor. Numerous niggles have been corrected, and serious imperfections such as the omission in the key tracking (which previously affected only the Attack stages of the envelopes) have been corrected, making it a much better synth than before.

Of course, it's not perfect, and I'm mildly disappointed by the lack of a unison detune knob, and concerned by an occasional propensity for inserting small glitches at the starts or ends of notes, especially when the system is stressed by the use of unison and the X/Y effects pages. There are also small graphical anomalies when the larger sequencer window is displayed. But notwithstanding this, it has become a very fine soft-synth, warm and engaging, and it simply sounds nicer than most of its competitors.

XILS Lab have released two libraries of sounds to complement PolyKB II. Bag 1 ($23) concentrates on exotic pads and effects, and provides an interesting opportunity for users to see how things can do things to other things within PolyKB II. Bag 2 ($28) offers more patches and a wider palette of slightly more conservative, and therefore more immediately useful, sounds. If you're looking for something to get you started or are stuck in a bit of a rut, these may be worth trying.

I liked PolyKB very much. I like PolyKB II even more. If you're looking for a soft synth that emulates a vintage analogue synth but goes a step (or three) further, try the free demo version. I'll be very surprised if you don't like it too.

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Hi guyz , xils Lab released an update for its poly KB III , a welcomed one specially for the resize and this beautyfull gui , but the beauty is it's ability to deliver one of the best analog soudnin the box !! Its simple architecture combined with some unique mod tools makes it hard to beat !! A pure beauty that i wanted absolutly to share iwth you guyz .... grab a coffee and chill me !!

I updated a couple of days ago and the GIU is much better now. I have not used the synth much since buying it last year when it was on sale. I am sure the old GIU was a factor. (Along with getting into Pigments absorbing my sound creation time.)

By the way guyz i'm thin king about getting a controller for soft synth , the cobalt 8 M i tried it , nice synth , nothing special exept the osc that are superb , but knbs are shitv .... but endless and midi cc ...so a nice option ...

In case anyone else was wondering what happened to the AnalogVille bank created by Laurent Bourgeon (Lotuzia), Xils-lab have just made it available again on their website and it's on sale like just about everything else.

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