OPL AUv3 FM Synth

More inventive than it looks, a very nice source of unexpected sounds.

For people who just want to load a patch from the tremendously large built-in library and integrate with a host for sequencing from another app (or playing via midi keyboard) this app would be great. Not so much for my purposes however, though I can’t fault it a great deal for this. It’s a fantastic emulation and the patches are solid and plentiful. Below I will explain why it didn’t work for me though, in case you are planning similarly: Since this is an accurate emulation of a real hardware chip using a standardized OPL fm preset format, I was counting on there being an easy method for programming, testing and storing presets within the app. My goal in buying this was to have a portable way to create and build a library of my own original patches to use with Adlib Tracker ][. This use-case has proved mostly fruitless however for the following reasons— 1. The standalone app does not properly fit an iPhone screen (iPhone X at least); the bottom row of buttons runs below the edge of the screen. 2. There is no way to save your own patches directly inside the app, only load the existing presets. 3. There is no built-in keyboard, basically it’s a plugin more than an app and relies on a host to do most useful things. 4. On an iPad 11” I wasn’t able to scale the view to fit both the complete instrument UI and the AUM virtual keyboard on-screen simultaneously, making it cumbersome to edit, play and test custom patches. (Honestly this one might be user error, please correct if I’m wrong and there’s a way to achieve this)

This is a great, straightforward 2-op FM synth, but on my 5th gen IPad mini, the UI of the AUv3 in Cubasis and AUM is tiny. It doesn’t even come close to filling up the AU window the way other instruments do. It would be nice if the dev would rework the interface for smaller IOS devices rather than simply porting the interface from the desktop version. Otherwise, I’m glad to have it on my iPad. It’s a classic!

I’ve been trying to find this “sound” on iOS for a few years. There are a lot of 8-bit/chip/lo fi apps but I never felt the sound was quite right; they didn’t sound like it did back in the day when I was kid. I have come to love OBx and in similar fashion this synth sounds just as genuine and authentic as the original synth it emulates. This devs apps deliver true, authentic sounds with plenty of parameters to manipulate. I don’t know much about the technical side of it, but if you want the best 80s synth tones, you found it.

Great work but would love a more visible preset bar. Sounds great, thank you! EDIT: Preset bar has been updated and it’s perfect.

These sounds are really great, and the ammount of presets is over the top. But because there are so many presets, it would be great to be able to recall favorites. However when changing programs up and down (+, -) there is no display telling you what preset you’re playing, and therefor no easy way to recall it later. The current preset is also not highlighted in the preset menu when browsing. This would add invaluable functionality to a very cool-sounding synth.