Let’s get right into it.
In the world of synth plugins, it usually takes a lot to stand out from the crowd.
In my opinion, Firebird+ offers much more than a “me too” synth instrument.
What is Firebird?
It’s a nice little synth with big sound and an innovative engine
It uses Harmonic Content Morphing (HCM) as it’s synthesis type, and it’s pretty cool.
What this does is allow the sound oscillators to evolve over time, like real sounds do.
They analyzed and took “snapshots” of various synth sounds and natural sounds to create the “morph tables”.
These tables are what you load in the oscillator positions. The thing about it is, each morph table has 256 “snapshots” in it, so 256 locations for the sound to be altered.
It may sound complex but it’s not, thanks to the easy interface they put on there. Everything is a drop down or knob turn away, and it allows for quick tweaking and experimentation.
They also let you set the sound quality, from low to ultra, as well as the number of voices, to match the power of your cpu.
In the demo, I used it on a medium setting with 12 voice, since I was using the screen recording software at the same time. It sounded great and I didn’t get any glitches at all.
Quick Specs
- Content: 437 high quality presets
- Format: windows vst
- Price: $79
How does it sound?
I love the sound. I was quite blown away by the tone of this instrument.
It really puts me in the mind of a waldorf crossed with an access virus, that has a fetish for the nord lead!
To my ears, it’s really a virtual analog sound in line with those types of synths as opposed to a straight up analog like a Moog.
When I came across this synth, I was fresh off my trip to NAMM where I had been playing with the nord, the blofeld, and the virus, as well as the moogs and dave smith instruments.
So when I heard it, I had a lot of references still clear in my head to compare with, this synth stood up very well and curbed my gear lust quite a bit.
The sounds, mixed with the fx and the tweakable parameters make this one great sounding synth monster.
You can get deep, lush, harsh, or even natural…thanks to the HCM synthesis.
What’s the final verdict?
Get it, the price is right and the sound is very nice.
It’s a very flexible synth, and can become a true workhorse with little effort.
The ease with which you can tweak and create your sounds is genius, I love how they took something so complex as HCM and made it simple.
It’s not an analog recreation in my eyes, but it stands side by side with some of the best virtual analog instruments around.
It even reminds me a little bit of the novation supernova rack I used to have…the sounds is right.
I definitely give this a 5 out of 5 subs, the value and features are just too good.
Download the demo and listen to it, play it, you’ll see what I mean.
There’s also tons of 3rd party preset libraries available for this monster, making it even more expandable and inspiring.
Go on over to Tone2.com and check it out.
let me know what you think
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Nice one
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saintjoe Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
thanks for checkin it out!
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yeah tone 2 yeah i got the gladiator it’s alright,but the firebird is way better i wish they had it for mac cause i would have went for the firebird over the gladiator hands down lol! timberland used it for one of rhianna’s song…
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saintjoe Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:24 pm
You like firebird better? I would have thought gladiator would be a step up lol, either way, I LOVE firebird man, it’s a great sounding synth.
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meconeproductions Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
yeah i agree lol!
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saintjoe Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:24 am
no doubt!
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tiight shit man, the sounds are very powerful from wut I can hear just off the video. I can only imagine how it all sounds live. Definitely something worth investing in…
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saintjoe Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
yeah man, it’s a little beast dude, really nice sound to it, easily one of my favorite synths man.
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sounds really good man. i gotta get this one.
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saintjoe Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
it’s really a great synth yo, real talk!
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iam on it sj thanks you da man
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saintjoe Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:24 am
no doubt fam, lemme know what you think yo! I love it.
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Yo man, this synth has some good sounds, I like the bas moogy
Thanks Yo.
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saintjoe Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:21 am
cool yo, thanks for checkin it out.
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this synth sounds like no other in my large arsenal of softsynths its trully hands down one of the best sounding sytnhs for the money.they have a package for $129 im on it thnx joe
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saintjoe Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I agree it definitely has it’s own sound, I have to peep some of the expansions for it. I was amazed at such a value priced synth sounding so good. I have tons of plugins like you, and this one still stood out in the crowd.
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Sounds pretty cool, seems like a good price compared to what else is out there right now.
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saintjoe Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
most definitely yo, thanks for checkin it out.
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hot could you run it with machine if ya then how
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saintjoe Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 8:33 am
it’s a vst so you’d need a vst host, maschine doesn’t host vst plugins…yet lol.
if you load it in your host and load maschine in the same host then yah you could use it with maschine
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I read a review of this a while back, but this is my first time hearing it, sounds very nice. I may pick it up at that price. Saintjoe do you have Sylenth or Z3ta+ ?
They are both similar in sonic character and overall quality to this.
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saintjoe Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Nah bro I don’t have those ones yet, I’ve heard good things about them though. I’ve played with the demo of Sylenth, it was pretty cool but didn’t blow me away.
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Great PC Plug…need for MAC…That LACK their of is WACK SON!!!!!! Otherwise, the sound is great. Later Joe!!!
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saintjoe Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Hahahah I know right? lol…
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Guess I can go with the GLADIATOR 2…just saw that…kool.
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saintjoe Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 9:50 am
I’m gonna do a review on that one too.
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yea this is classic but u should really chek out gladiator boss its even better
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saintjoe Reply:
March 17th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I just installed Gladiator yesterday
Will be checkin it out.
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This review sold me on Firebird & I picked up the Firebird+ bundle today. This is one amazing sounding synth. The expansion banks sound great. I also downloaded their demo of Filterbank 3 and it compliments Firebird very nicely. I’m going have to pick that up as well now.
Keep up the good work!
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saintjoe Reply:
April 29th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
@awol9000, no doubt! they are definitely a dope company, Firebird+ is a STEAL at this price lol.
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