Aalto is a semi-modular software synthesizer with an innovative, customizable user interface, distinctive sounds and charming personality. The Aalto sound engine allows you to create sounds that have been difficult or impossible to make with other software synthesizers until now. Aalto’s heart is a sophisticated oscillator inspired by Buchla hardware, with FM, timbres and waveform controls that deliver a wide range of expressive sounds. These sounds are uniquely malleable and lively, in part because they are made by dynamic computation rather than static waves.
Each voice has a separate built-in sequencer, independently controlled by speed and offset, which make it easy to create evolving chaotic textures. Each voice also includes a vactrol emulated bass gate module. Aligning vactrol slows down the response to incoming signals through a complex nonlinear filter. You can adjust the response of vactrol to be immediate or strong.
Next to the bass gate is a waveguide / delay module with a wave shaper and a peak equalizer built into the feedback loop. Because it has such a short and controllable delay time, unlike typical analog delay, it can be used as an additional oscillator.
Subjectively speaking, Aalto can produce a wide variety of sounds, from lush to sharp, including some very complex, but not too fat in the mix. Aalto’s sounds are not overblown or limited, they are wide, open and natural. We hope our approach will appeal to experienced sound engineers who have their favorite equalizers and limiters. And for those just getting into synthesis, Aalto is an accurate and honest learning tool.