Review: Rob Papen Predator 2
Rob Papen released a long awaited update to the world renowned Predator soft synth with Predator 2. He also released the eXplorer 4 bundle at the same time. With eXplorer 4, you get a plugin called Prisma, but we were unsuccessful in running the product when we tested it. It would not pass the AU validator tool, so we will wait for the next release to test it in full detail.
eXplorer 4 is the Rob Papen bundle, with Predator 2, Prisma, and they removed Albino 3. That is all of Rob Papen’s soft synths and effects plugins. A great deal for $499 USD, and it should be one of those bundles to seriously consider in your arsenal.
Back to the Predator 2…All I can say is WOW! I was simply amazed with some of the new features that were added to Predator 2. And I must say that the 2 synths are different in some ways, which is the reason why Rob Papen includes both Predator and Predator 2 in the eXplorer 4 bundle.
Let’s start with the Oscillators. There are 3 Oscillators, each Oscillator has support for 2 waves (quite a few waves to choose from), and there are 8 user waves you can select. There is a knob from Wave A to Wave B so you can either mix, morph, or modulate them. But it gets better. There is a mode called Inter which morphs the 2 waves where the first half of the cycle is Wave A and the second half of the cycle is Wave B if the Wave knob is in the center. You can adjust that otherwise with more of Wave A and less of Wave B or vice versa. There is also a L and U Morph, which takes partials of Wave A and Wave B (depending on the Wave knob setting) and L Morph takes the Lower partials of Wave B and the top partials of Wave A depending on where the knob is set (at 10%, 10% of the lower partials of Wave B, and 90% of the top partials of Wave A would form the new waveform.) The U wave does the opposite, where the upper partial of Wave B and the lower partials of Wave A form the new waveform. All I can say is insane! Last but not least, the modulation, Wave B is used to modulate Wave A, and it can be set to Ring, Frequency and Phase modulation. And there is an oscilloscope and wave shape visual per OSC in the bottom center.
Other stuff we are used to:
- Coarse and Fine tuning (with nice Arrow buttons for Octave adjustments for the Coarse tuning), there is a Sub OSC per main Oscillator.
- Sync (OSC 2 and/or OSC 3 can sync to OSC 1)
- Volume of each OSC.
- There is a Symmetry (Sym), Smod (Symmetry Modulation), and Speed associated to the effect of wave symmetry.
Stuff we are not used to seeing:
- Pan setting for individual Oscillators. Nice!
- Spread setting for individual Oscillators, which widens the stereo spectrum of that OSC.
- Free setting is where if unselected, each note event will reset the waveform. If Free is enabled, it acts like any analog synth where the Oscillator is constantly oscillating, and when you press a key, it does not reset the start of wave (or set the phase to 0 on a key press.) Nice to be able to turn it on or off.
Cross Modulation where OSC 2 can modulate OSC 1, or OSC 3 can modulate OSC 1 and/or OSC 2. There are various types of modulations you can apply.
Most of the cool wave shaping features reminds me of Mutable Instruments Warps or Circuit Abbey Gravity Well modules in Eurorack format.
On to Filters, there are now 3. OSC 1 and OSC 2 can be sent to Filter 1 and/or 2. The filters sound fantastic! There are the usual suspects of 12/24dB LP/HP/BP/Notch, 6/18/36dB filters, LP, HP, and there are Comb, Vocal and Formant filter as well. There is also a pre-filter distortion of Edge, Smooth and Dirty, which really makes the filter exceptional in creating sound. Filter 3 is a dedicated HP filter which can be on or off. There is a Filter Envelope (EG), a Filter LFO with Sync to DAW.
Both the OSC and Filters are in Stereo which is quite interesting in comparison to some other synths.
The other usual suspect of Amp (like VCA/DCA) with an Amp Env or Amp EG is there to make the sound complete. There is also a Play Mode which allows for Mono, Poly, Chord and Unison. Of course there are effects, one of which is a Dual 3 band EQ to tweak your sound further before you record.
What makes this one more interesting is the XY pad. Yes, sounds boring, but you can do a lot with it. Of course there is the modulation patching (20 of them as opposed to 8 in Predator) with source and destination slots with lower and upper threshold of the source, and offset and amount at the destination. You also have Dual Arps (Arp A and B) and you can do A+B for a 32 step sequence.
Last but not least, there are over 6,000 patches with this soft synth.
That is a lot to cover in less than 1000 words. So how does it sound?
Amazing! I am not a big fan of presets, but the included presets are definitely inspirational and can be a good starting point to making some nice sounds. I definitely recommend this soft synth as it can be very easy to use but very deep if you want it to be. If you happen to be a preset kind of artist, this certainly has enough to keep you busy for at least a few months. If you have Predator, you should just upgrade to Predator 2. You’ll really enjoy the new features and updates.
Cheers!
