![]() Make a synth too simple and it will be frustrating and ultimately won’t get used but to hit the sweet spot between features which will actually get used in people’s music and avoiding the clutter of seldom, or never, used features a line has to be drawn. With any software synth the decision has to made about where to stop when adding features. I used to teach synthesis and would never have used Vacuum for introducing synths. By comparison SynthCell is clean and uncluttered. ![]() Vacuum is an analogue style subtractive synth but its a character instrument with a rather busy and slightly quirky UI. Looking at the bundled instruments which ship with Pro Tools SynthCell clearly plugs a gap in the offering. It’s a very conventional synth and I suspect this is a conscious decision. It’s a two oscillator affair with the expected complement of filter types, a couple of envelopes, an LFO and an arpeggiator. It’s designed to be intuitive to use and has very nearly all of its parameters visible in the UI without menu-diving or tab switching. SynthCell is a straight ahead subtractive synth. The Export functions go beyond just MIDI, once samples have been stacked, manipulated and tweaked using the built in effects, they can be exported as a set of one-shots for use elsewhere so if you prefer to use drum samples as audio clips in the timeline GrooveCell still has relevance to you. Maybe in an update but for now MIDI can be exported and dragged and dropped in to Pro Tools. So useful is the sequencer that I’d have liked to have seen a way of using it to drive control sequences to other instruments. The 32 step, 16 track drum machine style sequencer offers the kind of randomisation and humanise functionality you’d expect and with its emphasis on speed and simplicity it looks like an excellent addition to all three tiers of Pro Tools. It features extensive editing capabilities with amp and pitch envelopes, send effects and multi-out capability for feeding the Pro Tools Mixer. GrooveCell features drag and drop simplicity for loading up to three samples to any of its 16 pads, drum ‘modes’ add the colour of classic drum machines like the SP1200 to samples. Structure Free provides basic sampling but has no drum machine features and Boom! ships with a small library of sounds but has no facility to host custom samples. GrooveCell is the kind of simple to use, fast to operate drum machine sampler which has always been missing from Pro Tools. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of wish the Mac versions had the same $5-a-month subscription pricing.In what might be a nod to the very first days of Digidesign as a manufacturer of aftermarket drum machine sounds, GrooveCell is a drum machine instrument. If you don’t commit for a full year, Premiere is $31.49 a month! Apple’s pricing presents a low barrier to entry for newcomers and makes for a reasonable “upcharge” for those who already have the Mac apps and just need to get a little work done on the go from time to time. Some companies ( looking at you Adobe) have subscription prices for professional creative apps that do more to keep the plebeians out than welcome them in. There’s a case to be made for hefty one-time-purchase pricing on professional software, but an equally good argument for affordable subscription pricing that democratizes access to these tools. If you’re a student working on a project, or just building a special video for the company retreat, the idea that you can pay just $5 to use a serious professional tool for a month and then cancel is a huge boon. ![]() ![]() You would need to subscribe for four years to equal the $200 price of Logic Pro for Mac or six years to match Final Cut Pro’s price. Each of these apps is $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year, with a one-month free trial.
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