Zyklop Review
IMPORTANT
Before we begin this review, it is important for me to clarify something, I now work for Dawesome. I did write this review prior to beginning work with Dawesome (besides preset design, and I did have early access to it, in addition to receiving it for free (like the majority of the plugins I review). From here out, my reviews of Dawesome plugins will be far more clinical and straight forward, there’s no need for me to criticize them because I can direct my ideas towards Peter himself, and praise will be awkward from this position. So in the future my Dawesome reviews will read more like a list of features that I personally enjoy. This will not affect any of my other reviews and as I mentioned already, this one was written before I began working for Dawesome
-thank you for understanding, if you have any concern feel free to email or contact me directly.
Zyklop is a free synthesizer based on the Dawesome synth Myth, it is a stripped down version with only one Iris, one effects lane and limited modulation. Zyklop contains all the same Iris modes and transformers, and presets from Zyklop can be loaded into Myth if you ever want to expand upon them. In Zyklop, You can ofcourse read my review of Myth here, but I’ll still provide a brief synopsis of Zyklop. Zyklop is a semi modular synthesizer, it contains a core “Iris” oscillator, which can resynthesize any sample and transform it using the various shapes and colors below. In addition to this Iris oscillator, you can load various modules or blocks to process your sound even further.
Each section is limited to only three modules with the exception of ARP which contains a fixed set of 4 arp modules. The module selection is also reduced, down to about half the previous module selection. Many great modules are still available in Zyklop, including Orbit, Comb, Sweet, Wave, and Resonator. For those unfamiliar with Myth, Resonator allows you to import any sample, and use it as a resonant body, it can even be keytracked, so it’s not just the Iris that can import samples. Finally the modulation section allows for only three envelopes and three LFOs.
There’s not a whole lot else for me to say about Zyklop that I haven’t already mentioned in my Myth review. Of course, the big “selling” point to Zyklop is that it is free, perhaps “selling point” isn’t the correct wording here. Zyklop does contain all original presets which can be imported into Myth, so if anything, for existing Myth users, this is at least a free expansion to your current library. And for those who don’t already own Myth, or fans of free synths in general, Zyklop is a nice addition to a growing collection of incredible free music software tools.
You can pick up Zyklop free here: https://www.dawesomemusic.com/plugins/zyklop/