The available modulations are immediate and immediately satisfying. Lethal is a rompler, but it provides enough control to morph the sounds considerably. This will probably extend the sonic palette considerably, and if there’s enough demand, could take Lethal in new directions within or beyond dance music. Lethal Audio has not released any expansions as of yet (the product only came out a few weeks ago at the time of writing), but there is an incentive to pick it up anyway: early buyers get all expansions until June 30th, 2017 for no additional cost.
It’s easy enough to just browse until one finds what they’re looking for, but it’d be better to have more descriptive names than “Reese Bass 009.” Thankfully, the patch browser includes the option to mark sounds as favorites, which helps alleviate the preset naming issue. The specific preset names within a category are very nondescript, though, which can make it more difficult to find a specific patch. The presets are categorized by type and load quickly. It would be handy for the Lethal Audio team to include some kind of global lock parameter for the master volume.īrowsing Lethal’s library is painless. The levels are high enough that polyphonic playing is almost guaranteed to clip until one turns down either the synth volume or their DAW fader.
The presets do, however, suffer from a common problem for software synths… they’re too loud. The tailored frequency response also means that the sounds sit well in the mix. The hi-fi character comes from a combination of a well-balanced frequency response with nice extension in the highs and lows, punchy transients, and an appropriately wide yet natural stereo image. Sounds Aboundĭespite the wide range of available sounds, the instrument tends to have a certain sheen that can be described as “modern” or “hi-fi” out of the box – though this can be altered with the on-board effects. This abundance of presets brings a range of characteristics – Lethal can do pretty and atmospheric as well as aggressive and energetic sounds. For the most part, these are synth patches. Lethal ships with a core library of 3,000 instruments spread over 13 patch categories and 5GB of data.
Sleek, straightforward, and oriented towards the dance floor, it promises “a whole new world of sound” to the modern producer. Lethal is the flagship rompler from newcomers Lethal Audio.