Nambu - AUv3 Plug-in Synth

I’m a huge fan of IceWorks with ‘Cassini’ being the very first iOS synth I ever bought (over a decade ago) and I still love and use it to this day (a beautifully designed synth)! Now it’s 2023 and the iceGear portfolio has expanded like a universe unto itself! Naturally I really *adore* crunchy phat FM sounds but Nambu takes FM to the next level by combining other features of synthesis and sound design with a unique approach allowing you to explore new unchartered sonic territories. The design is lush (as always) and it’s feature rich; yet intuitive to understand and explore. It also runs on Apple Silicon too! I’ve been teasing some wild experimental sounds out of Nambu as it’s capable of generating a wide gamut of sonic nuances, shapes and textures (in addition to more classic forms like bass, pads and leads)… a very cool modern FM synth!

This synthesizer fuses FM, traditional Subtractive, and non traditional synthesis elements into a infinitely connectable and expressive melting put of genius and inspiration. If you love synthesis but need to go beyond the traditional in a highly expressive manner, then this is a go-to synth of pure beauty. It is so well though out and highly flexible. I would definitely recommend checking out Jakob Ham’s feature overview and feature tutorial by searching YouTube for ‘my Nambu one synth app Jakob Haq’

Not an expert on synths, being a self-dubbed ‘Mr Preset’ but have quite a few iOS/iPad OS Synths, and once owned a ‘real’ Jupiter 6 by Roland. Some features I explored, like the delay effect built-in, have ‘pop-up’ dialogue boxes where you can refine subtleties, and the Developer was responsive when I asked why the echo disappeared as I went up the scale. It’s because there is an adjustment knob in the dialogue for HPF ie High Pass Filter, deliberately to give you control over this. So although there were adjustments to be made in order to sort presentational issues of the fascia on the 12.9” iPad Pro M1 screen of mine, the Dev was already fixing them even as I emailed. ‘Iceworks’ have a solid track record of step-by-step synth creation, and solid AUv3 designs. I already owned ‘La Grange’ and it’s clear that Iceworks have cherry-picked features from several synths certainly La Grange, and parachuted them into this new bigger project. The Sequencer/Arpeggiator, is very good and Iceworks were one of the first synth makers I noticed, to make separate, the business of the Arp pattern from the sound/voice/patch. With some synths, it’s still bound up and invisibly locked together. I call it ‘the peg board’ because it reminds me of that ‘Battleship’ game or something. There’s accenting of the notes in the sequence, you can make them hard-truncate, or chop-off at the end of one particular note being struck, and so on. All I can do is give a flavour here. The actual sounds are really good, and you can alter the audio waveform with the visual window giving such impressively clear indication of what you’ve done…well, there’a lot here and I didn’t even mention the matrix which I partially grasp now, and in any event of course, have just had a stab at and tweaked and gotten sounds I like from, despite not having done my full homework on that. Have at it, it’s good, and it’s incredibly well thought-through, and has this solid Audio Unit pedigree of previous synth builds behind it. I no longer own an individual hardware synth, because unless I could buy some exceptional model, nothing is good enough to beat the software and a powerful Apple Silicon iPad for me anyway - I sold one of those little synths because I couldn’t see any way it surpassed the good stuff on the app store that my GarageBand or Cubasis could run. Take care all.

This has quickly become one of my favorite synthesizers, not just on IOS but in general. Seriously, not even hardware matches what this can do. The fact that it’s usable on Mac makes it even better. The only sad part is that my desktop daw of choice (Bitwig) doesn’t support Audio Units. I’d genuinely pay $150 for a VST version. This synth is so good, I might even start using Logic more, just to use it on my Mac. Bravo to the dev, you deserve much more recognition.

These guys have created many beautiful sound generators in iOS but with Nambu they broke the mold. This was the best synth to come out of 2022 and second place wasn’t even close. This FM monster is so versatile and smart that you CAN produce any sound that your brain can think up. And it does it with a beautiful GUI that melds capability with intuitive ease. Really, there are simply not enough superlatives to appropriately describe this beautiful beast!

Thanks Iceworks for such a brilliant synth. The amount of features packed into Nambu is mindblowing. The only thing I can think of to add is more nature sounds for the textures. I would like to ask you Iceworks to make a granular synth for your next project. Please consider this and thank you for making Nambu.

First off pay no attention to the immature people giving bad reviews for features they can’t be bothered to go through the settings to find, and when responded to with an extremely polite reply clarifying the situation they can’t even bother to change their review. This world has no shortage of idiots. The review complaining about presets is just as bad, if you have no creativity then why aren’t you just using samples? Besides soon enough there will be TONS of presets available to download. This synth is really going to take off. I’m going to donate any good presets I come up with to the author no one should have to endure that kind of abuse, and he did it gracefully. Hats off to iceWorks. This synth is clearly a labor of love, and the design is top notch. Everything is just right. I’ve been waiting on a synth like this ever since I got into FM. But this isn’t just an FM synth it’s so much more. From the envelopes to the modulation options, the expressive possibilities, it’s all PERFECT! You can even set velocity sensitivity for each envelope stage!!! For FM that is a huge boost to expressiveness. There are so many things to love about this synth it’s unreal. Everything on it is well thought out and really shows not only the developer’s programming skills but more importantly their design skills… it takes an extreme amount of skill and experience to make something like this. The choice of waveforms and shaping options alone is enough for me to fall in love and that’s only the tip of the iceberg! Not to mention it’s very nice to look at, if you’re going to be spending thousands of hours looking at a synthesizer then it helps for it to be easy on the eyes! I don’t just mean it’s pretty, which it is, but it’s designed in such a way that it won’t wear out your eyes, every thing is clear, nothing is contrasting horribly or too bright or dark, it’s easy to quickly tell what’s going on in the patch, everything is logically laid out. If you’re into sound design DO NOT pass this one up. I can’t gush about this thing enough so I’m going to just quit here for not and come back after a hundred or so more hours when I can really comment on it’s sonic characteristics. ENJOY!!!!

Been looking for a synth with auv3 support that’s as capable for complex sound design as Nave or Abletons operator and this is it. I can pretty much design whatever I need. The multi stage envelopes and modulation options are fluid and vastly deep. Get this instrument if your more into production then just beat making.

Make your own! Another beautiful iceWorks creation thx !

For the price, the number of presets is pathetic. No arp group of presets, really? No really amazing presets, just basic beginner stuff. Not enough content is included at this price point.