RAPID Review

Parawave’s Rapid is one of the less popular synths out there, it’s not used quite as often as other more popular synths, and also isn’t available from as many websites. So if you haven’t heard of this one, definitely give it a look, because it really is an interesting alternative to synths like Pigments and Equator. Rapid is a hybrid wavetable/granular/sample based synthesizer with the ability to layer up to 8 instances of its self for very intricate patches. The ability to layer isn’t often a selling point for me, from the user’s end, we can simply load up another instance of our plugin and do the layering by hand, but it honestly does come in handy for creating more complex and interesting presets.

Each layer consists of 3 oscillators, a filer, an insert effect, an effects section, modulation, and an arpeggiator. These can all be adjusted via the mixer on the master tab before being summed into a compressor. This page also hosts the preset browser and a macro system to control basic parameters across all layers. You’ll also find the keyboard range for mapping different layers across the keyboard. I wish there were a few ways to edit across layers as copying and pasting layer by layer can be somewhat tedious. I think a system for saving and loading layers could be nice as well. Rapid’s UI isn’t the best, modulation is somewhat drag and drop, there’s a lot of menus and settings everywhere, it’s not the worst either, there’s A LOT to play around with to get exactly what you want, but you might find it a bit tedious at times.

Rapid comes with a good set of assets, I know many people like to make literally everything from scratch, and at times this is nice, but it is really nice to have a decent collection of wavetables, samples, patterns, and sequences to work with as starting points. A bit of a tangent, but I do think it’s silly to do absolutely everything from scratch, assets are a much more flexible starting point for creativity than presets, you’re still doing most of the work yourself, and besides, you didn’t make the synth. Rapid gives you a lot more than most synths in this regard, hundreds of wavetables and samples to pick from, at least a hundred sequences and at least another hundred arpeggiators. Included with these assets are 10 different visual themes, but the default one is a cut above the rest with how good it looks.

OSCILLATORS:

Rapid’s oscillators are pretty cool, each one has unison up to 8 voices, and a simple bass/treble adjustment, which is nice for that extra bit of level balancing. You can load either samples or wavetables into them, and each option provides a different variety of osc effects types. With wavetables you get a variety of phase distortion and sync modes, FM/Am from other oscillators, pulse width, mirrors, chaos and a few other options. The FM is unfortunately very mild, as it doesn’t allow for very much depth, this is fine for subtle FM sounds, but falls short for more extreme settings. The sync modes sound really nice, especially the sync-bend mode, which combines hard sync with phase distortion.

With samples the effects types are far more limited, there’s FM/AM still, tube distortion and a couple others, but more excitingly, there is a granular mode. The granular mode opens up quite a few more options, replacing unison and a few other settings with more granular controls. The granular mode is pretty good, a little softer than some of my favorites, but allows for a significant amount of control. I plan to do a shootout over just the granular elements of various synths soon, and I will link that here when I do.

One feature that isn’t quite obvious is the ability to load samples in as spectral resynthesis, this setting imports and converts your sample into a few different samples mapped across the keyboard. Each resynthesizes sample is like a smear of the frequencies present in the imported audio, there’s little to no texture, and all rhythm is completely removed. It’s a strange feature that takes a minute to process, but it can lead to some surprisingly interesting results.

FILTER/ EFFECTS:

The included filter selection is somewhat lack luster, you have all the basics with a few variations and “analog” emulations, some of these will have an extra tone control which can be nice. As for the “fun” filters there’s really only comb and a couple formants, still better than nothing, but not a lot in terms of the more creative filters I tend to celebrate. Prior to voice summing into the effects section, there is one polyphonic “insert” effect, this can be placed wither before or after the filter. Here you’ll find some even simpler filters for mixing, a couple distortions, ring modulation, bit crushing, and a couple others.

Rapid’s effects section makes up for the lack of interesting options in the filter section, there’s seven slots which can load one of over 20 different effects. Most of these are classics we all know and love from different synths, flangers, chorus, delay, reverb EQ etc. There’s a wide variety of distortions and shapers to chose from, but one in particular is worth mentioning here. The Multiband Saturator is a four band distortion effect with 15 distortions to pick from per band, each band boasts a drive depth and a secondary parameter. Every parameter can be modulated, including crossover frequencies. I really enjoy setting bands to either bit reduction ring modulation or even comb filters for a variety of creative effects.

Another favorite of mine is the Chorus X, which is a much more powerful chorus effect than most, similar to Vital’s chorus effect. There’s a lot of control over where each voice is laid out in the delay range, and you can even freeze this chorus to create interesting resonators. There’s a nifty tape stop effect and trance gate, as well as a glitching effect which uses one of the sequence modulators to create buffer skips, stutters, and other glitched effects. Finally if you feel like you need to add additional effects, you can use the “send” module to utilize another layer as an effects layer.

MODULATION/ ARPEGGIATOR:

As for modulation, it’s mostly basic, you get a classic modulation matrix, which is very very basic. There’s four envelopes and four LFOs. THe envelopes can go super long, there’s a decent amount of control over the slopes and even the ability to delay the envelope. The LFOs can blend between two shapes and have a few shaping controls which allow you to create some interesting curves. Things get interesting on the four sequence pages, which aren’t quite as powerful as MSEGs, but allow you to draw out much more complex shapes and patterns. You get 32 steps per sequence with the ability to draw in one of 20 shapes per step. Unlike most shape sequencers this one gives you the option to not only adjust the height of the left side of the step, but the right side as well, giving you far more control over where each step ends, or if they are inverted. It’s worth mentioning these allow for polymetric patterns and even have the ability to modulate the loop start point of each sequence.

Finally there is an arpeggiator per layer, This arpeggiator is rather deep with the ability to write out full sequences. Steps can be any length and again you can create polymetric sequences by layering arpeggiators on different layers. You can even load in midi files if you want to get wild with things, but I’ve yet to really try this mode. It’d be nice if there was a bit of probability in the arpeggiator, but there is at least a random note select mode for picking with played note is applied to the next step of the arp.

One neat hidden modulator is the flip flops, these will increment between values per keypress, the regular flip flip is simply on/off, but 1/2 and 1/3 step options will step between 3 and 4 states each time a key is activated. Combining these can be a fun way to make sounds that change every time you hit a new note. I like to apply these to LFO speed for drastically changing motion.

I find the magic of rapid really comes into play when you layer up different sounds and have them play out in patterns or fade into one another. There’s a lot you can do on any given layer already, but I tend to enjoy making arp sequences than rotate through layers to generate percussive evolving loops. The variety of interesting effects means there’s always something new to try sound design-wise. I also tnd to enjoy stacking granular sounds that fade in and out in different patterns for long evolving soundscapes. I’ve yet to really dig into this, but you can use rapid as an effects unit. It’s a bit clumsy in this mode, as it’s still the same synth UI, but considering you have 7 effects per 8 layers, and interesting modulation sources, it becomes quite the competent multi-effects unit. I find it is also a very competent glitching tool, the included glitch effect and the multiband saturator really let you do a lot, I’ve created some incredibly fun glitch generators by layering several methods and patterns.

Rapid fits into a category of synths that I like to call “Swiss army” synths, or power synths. They are almost always hybrid, with at least wavetable or granular and some other options, They always have at least two oscilators, a deep modulation system, deep effects system and are a mostly fixed format, not nearly as complex or reconfigurable as a full modular synth. Some other synths that fall into this category are Pigments, and Equator, they are great synths for experimenting and exploring, they usually are a bit of a “jack of all trades” not always specializing in each feature present. I don’t think everyone needs all of these, as they have a lot of crossover between them, but if you don’t have any yet, Rapid is worth taking a look at. These synths compliment more focussed specialized synths like Vital and Serum very well, while not being quite as overwhelming as say Phase Plant or VCV Rack. If you want to work with several layers and sequence stacking, this is a synth worth looking at.

FACTORY Review

SCULPTURE Review