As a 30-something iOS music maker, the prospect of an 80’s/90’s focussed digital synth for iPad is right up my street. The fact that it comes from the same folks who put together the incredible Synth One is the icing on the cake.
Having said that, I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t particularly hyped up for the release of Digital D1, concluding that with AudioKit having released such a fully featured and great sounding app with their previous release (and for free), that there couldn’t be any new ground for them to cover.
I couldn’t have been more wrong…
Taking its queues from classic digital synths like the D-50, JD-990, 01/W and Wavestation, the D1 packs a huge feature set into its surprisingly svelt 150MB download.
Here’s the full list:
- 64-voice Hybrid Digital Poly Synthesis.
- Full 1 Gigabyte of original samples recorded from analog & fm synths over 30+ years old.
- Space-saving Compression. The whole app is under 150mb
- Dual layers per voice. Keyboard splits. Velocity Scaling.
- Vintage-style Arp/Step Sequencer
- Dual Independent per-Layer filters
- 3 LFOs. LFOs can modify other LFOs
- Per-voice harmonic key tracked Envelope filters
- Gorgeous 64-voice, Beautiful iPad Synth
- Each voice is composed of Two layers. Each layer has:
+ Option of Virtual Analog or PCM Synthesis
+ Per-voice Harmonic Envelope Filters
+ Dedicated Sample-set and Note-range
+ ADSR amp envelope
+ Dedicated Stereo Filter (Low/High/Band-Pass)
+ Level and Pan controls
+ MIDI velocity scaling controls
- Three (3) independent LFOs
+ LFO routings include: Filter cutoff, Resonance, Pan, Layer Mix, Detune, Distortion, Chorus Depth, Flanger Depth, and more
+ LFO has selectable sine/square/ramp up/ramp down, rate and depth controls
+ LFOs can modify other LFOs
- Ableton Link
- Audiobus 3 & Inter-app Audio (IAA)
- App uses less than 150mb of disk space!
- Optionally Tempo-sync’d effect knobs and LFOs
- Layers are combined with a “layer mix” control (can be linked to mod wheel)
- Stereo PCM with velocity layers, using near-lossless compression
- Selectable play modes: polyphonic, mono and mono+legato
- Adjustable pitch-glide rate for mono+legato
Retro Modern
There’s a couple of things that Digital D1 does that really sets it apart from any other iOS synth out there.
Its architecture is based around two layers per voice (there are 64 of them in total), with options for PCM or analogue synthesis and dual filters for each layer. For many sounds you can affect the different layers in real time with the Mod wheel. For example, start with an Electric Piano sound, and slowly bring in Strings with your MIDI controller, or the on screen representation.
It’s also incredibly easy to use.
Finding your way around Digital D1’s UI is straightforward. If you’ve taken AudioKit’s previous release Synth One for a spin, you’ll feel right at home with D1’s interface. There are five ‘control’ screens to work with, allowing you to either adjust your chosen patch’s sound in broader strokes in the ‘main’ tab, or you can fine tune your sound in the LFO, Layer and FX tabs.
It’s impossible to describe how good this thing sounds – you really need to hear it for yourself.
To that end, here is a couple of demos that the folks at AudioKit have put together to give you a taste of what Digital D1 can do.
Killer Presets
While there is scope to fine tune Digital D1’s sounds to your heart’s content, it would be silly to overlook the 300+ presets available here. AudioKit have once again enlisted some of the iOS music making scene’s brightest and best to create a frankly astounding collection of presets.
Brice Beasley, Matthew Fecher (director of product at AudioKit), Red Sky Lullaby, Jakob Haq, Dean Daughters (Electronisounds), Sound of Izrael and AfroDJMac have all lent their sonic know-how to Digital D1’s presets.
At the moment you’ll be using Digital D1 either as a standalone App or integrating it with your GarageBand projects via IAA (or AudioBus if that’s your jam). I have it on good authority that the app will be usable as a full screen AUv3 plugin in GarageBand in December 2018/January 2019, so look out for that.
AudiKit’s Digital D1 is a phenomenal synth that somehow manages to strike a perfect balance between ease of use and top tier sound quality. Go grab it now – you won’t be disappointed.
