MPowerSynth Review – Stress Tested To Find Out If It’s Worth It

Proudly called “The Modulation Heaven” by its makers, it is easier to define MPower based on its limitations, since they are so few. But is it so complex that it can only be used by producers with some serious technical know-how?

I’ve given myself the mammoth task of breaking open its complex parts, in this MPower Synth review to find out whether its user-friendly enough for beginner to intermediate-grade producers.

What Is MPowerSynth & What Does it Do?

As seen in the video above, easily move the handles with your mouse for a customised sound-shaping experience.

How Does It Sound?

Is MPowerSynth Worth It? (Quick Verdict)

Creative Features

How Many Oscillators and Sounds Come With MPowerSynth?

With over 1500 community-designed presets, post-processed to get the highest possible quality, MPowerSynth is an expansive synthesizer. The oscillators use custom waveform editing with MeldaProduction Envelope System (MES), creating a powerful and versatile oscillator section.

MPower Synth features 3 oscillators, a noise generator, 2 filters and a modular effect routed in a pipeline format.

The processing path is as follows:

All 3 oscillators are aliasing-free and have adjustable shape technology. Oscillator 1 is slightly different in comparison to the other two and includes a unison feature, which gives rise to 10 voices with subtle pitch changes and produces a wider stereo image.

Modulations present in Oscillators 2 and 3 like Frequency Modulation, Frequency Modualation (abs), Ring Modulation and Maximization require two voices in order to work. So audio from Oscillator 1 flows into Oscillators 2 and 3 to get modulated further.

Oscillators additionally include a pitch panel for changing octaves.

Activating the ‘Constant‘ switch would have the oscillator ignore the note pitch and behave as if A4=440Hz is being played each time. The pitch section includes the usual semitones and cents for creating detuned synth layers in multiple oscillators.

The Transform panel hosts some really innovative modulations with the Mode type controlling the type of transformation used on the oscillator waveform. Pulse Width Modulation, Sync, Async, Reversing and AM are commonly found in most synths of this stature.

We’ve elaborated on the ones that really catch your eyes:

Zero under, Invert, Maximize, Power and Quantize manipulate the amplitude only and, due to the discontinuities experienced, these produce fairly rich sounds, similar to Lo-Fi in some regards.

Bending and Mirroring transform the wave in a smooth and even way. The tones produced are somewhat less rich in comparison to the others. The resultant tones sound like they are experiencing phasing. A smart trick would be to automate it at a high speed, which would produce discontinuities. This process can be exploited to get a thicker and luscious tone as hinted in the manual.

Recursive works on self-projection and can get messy quite quickly. Inserting a harmonically rich and complex waveform might end up sounding like pink or white noise. With Recursive, the more simple the input, the better.

If used wisely on a pure sine wave, Recursive has the ability to produce a wide spectral waveform, which is rich in texture and we found it to be the most sonically beautiful transformation mode.

We’ve listed a sound sample of the ‘Recurse 1’ Mode under the “How does it sound?” heading.

Just How Customisable is MPowerSynth?

Along with the Advanced Settings, which have been elaborated on later. The Harmonics section is by far the most customisable parameter within MPower Synth. Allowing you to draw additional harmonics to your hearts’ content, the Harmonics section occupies the full width of the screen.

This makes it very intuitive to shape upper harmonics with the pencil tool whilst listening to your changes in real-time.

Within the Harmonics section lies the Generator button, capable of creating an endless variety of timbres. It hosts the Fundamental Frequency, Slope, Fullness and Harmonicity dials.

We found the Harmonicity dial to be really useful in less dissonant chords like a simple major triad. Major triads have more instances of the fundamental frequency. So dealing with negative values can add girth and character to the sound.

You can dial positive values on dominant or minor seventh chords to add more of the fundamental frequency. But, this feature is better suited for simpler chords.

The Slope knob which controls the shape or contour of your harmonics can be drawn by pencil in the Harmonics section. Slope chooses how much of the higher harmonics are used in relation to your original oscillator frequency.

The same goes with Fullness… The higher you dial, the more the harmonics; the richer the sound. The same thing can be drawn by adding more intricate higher harmonics using the pencil.

Dialing in Harmonize for the second time here creates additional higher harmonics from the existing ones. This is especially useful to modify lush dirty dissonant timbres into similarly lush, but more harmonic or musically pleasant timbres. This can help your lead tones growl better in more aggressive forms of dance music like Trap, Harcore or Electro.

Automate your parameters in the Harmonics section to create movement and drama to your lead lines.

All these functions come in handy while adding girth and character to your initial oscillator tones. For example, a Dubstep bass line might take a lot of thickening before you get a sound that can carry your track.

These are the times that the Harmonics section becomes priceless. Without tweaking your original oscillator settings, you can do quite a bit of post-processing here to give it that mojo it might be lacking.

You can hear how the harmonics thicken the texture in the Lead sound sample under “How does it sound?” We added 255 additional harmonics to our DRY Piano Lead tone.

How comprehensive is the ‘Sample Analyser’ section?

As our favourite section in MPower Synth, the Sample Analyser is an exciting and fun way to try to imitate a sound you’re inspired by. Say you like the texture on a bass you hear and want to make something similar without copying it completely.

A good way to do that would be to run the wave file through the sample Analyser.

The analyzer reads your sample, selects a preferred position in the sample, and analyses one period of your wave. You can see how one instance of your selected period looks visually in the Period window. MPower then adds a series of upper Harmonics that mimic your original bass sound and chugs out a new series of harmonics on top of the original sound.

This gives it an extremely lush sound that many other synths can’t compete with.

You can hear the lushness in tone when a Piano Lead sound is run through the Sample Analyser under “How does it sound?

What is the ‘Advanced Settings’ all about?

There are two separate sections called ‘Advanced Settings’. One works on the global level and one works inside the oscillator’s shape sculpting engine.

Global Advanced Settings

Global Advanced Settings hosts the Velocity Shape modifier which uses the envelope graph. The envelope graph is by far, one of MPower Synth’s most lethal weapons.

Envelope graph gives you a highly sophisticated way to edit and create any kind of shape you want. An envelope has an unlimited number of points, connected by several types of curves with adjustable curvature. On top of that, the surroundings of each point can also be automatically smoothed using the smoothness control.

These are made possible with a horizontal pull rod and a central dot (on the arc) which help to draw shapes along the XY axis. You can additionally draw envelope shapes in freely, using the draw mode.

Oscillator Advanced Settings

The Oscillator Advanced Settings is the more potent of the two, which lends tremendous possibilities for modifying your original waveform.

The Custom Sample section hosts parameters of the custom sample that you can load and mix with third-party sources. Being smarter than most, MPower uses the custom sample as one particular period of the waveform. It can be used for creative effects and it can be used to import a custom waveform.

The Shape Transformation graph lets you perform arbitrary modifications of the graph shape. Basically, this graph lets you modify the shape “in time”. The Y axis represents the position in the source signal related to the position in the target signal.

The Amplitude Transformation graph lets you perform arbitrary modification of the graph amplitude. Basically, this graph lets you modify the shape’s level and vertical axis. The X-axis represents the original values, the Y-axis defines the resulting values. 

What does the Polyphonic Arpeggiator sound like?

The Polyphonic Arpeggiator could’ve been released as a separate instrument by itself it’s so good. But it should be noted that some restrictions still exist within the design that stop the arpeggiator from reaching its full potential.

This arpeggiator is based on a Sequencer Matrix, which enables generators in each step, these help to determine which notes are played, how long they are played, and more. An arp setup helps to create guitar-like arpeggio patterns in a synthesizer, which is pretty cool.

The Sequencer Matrix controls the pitch of the note in each step of the arpeggiator. In polyphonic mode you can enable more than one generator in each step, meaning you can write chord progressions in the arp.

You can create movement in your chord progressions by playing the notes in different orders. Up plays the chord from the lowest note to the highest and Down, plays it from the highest note downwards.

Adding a single dissonant note to your chords can create interest or make your listeners focus on a specific bar in your progression. To do this, try out the +Semitones panel. Try adding a note on the 2nd or 4th beat to highlight upbeats.

Changing the Length of a chord note can also create rhythmic interest. Try shortening a note’s length by 75% to give importance to the upcoming note. If you’re feeling lucky try changing the Probability percentage to create something new.

If you feel like you want more control over your chord, try placing a specific note on each alphabet A, B, C, D, E. The alphabets lock the note information and the Arpeggiator begins to work like a traditional Step Sequencer. Even octave information is ignored. So your notes are truly locked in place.

Divided into 6 broad sections, the nuances of the arpeggiator can be modified by altering the matrixes.

Working with the Global length parameter, the Length Matrix lets you adjust the length of each note; Probability Matrix lets you adjust the probability that a note in the step will be played; Velocity Matrix controls the velocity of the notes in each step and Octave matrix lets you transpose all of the notes in each step by a certain number of octaves.

The drawback of the matrix system is that the settings impact all the notes involved. So if you are using the polyphonic mode, you are stuck with a single type of modification.

A way to disengage the matrix would’ve opened up a whole world of possibilities.

In the Gif below, you can see how multiple ideas can be tested on the arpeggiator at a brisk pace. This is especially useful when you’re short of inspiration.

What is The Modulation & Routing Capability Like?

The Modulator is quite powerful and allows you to change parameters automatically depending on various inputs. You can use this to add movement to your sound, follow the pitch of the input, or even respond to some plugins differently for louder sections.

MPower hosts 8 standard flexible modulators and intricate AHDSR envelopes for all main sections such as Global, Filter, Noise Generator, and the Oscillator. These include Attack and Release stage transition points (Smoothness).

The modulator edit window has two parts: on the left side, you can configure the mode of the modulator or the way the modulator works. On the right side, there is a list of parameters to modulate. A modulator can control all automatable parameters.

Advanced detector settings additionally provide some extraordinary features, such as psycho-acoustic pre-filtering, which forces the modulator to detect loudness instead of raw input levels, custom input signal pre-filtering using a fully featured 6-band equalizer, and custom attack and release shapes.

What About Filtering?

MPower boasts of a staggering collection of Filter options. You’ll be spoilt for choices with 100+ filters that can be applied in the dual voice filter section.

With DAHDSR (Delay-Attack-Hold-Decay-Sustain-Release) envelopes on both filters, it might take a while before you understand how to use it. We recommend working on the presets until you get a grasp of them.

The most interesting features here are the ‘By Velocity’ and the ‘By Note’ panels.

The By Note panel controls the basic parameters depending on which note is pressed. This means you can apply different values to individual voices, which are controlled by a note press.

With Comb, Formant, BComb, Diffuser, and Polymorph, along with the usual Low Pass, High Pass, and Band Pass Filters, you can do pretty much anything you need in the filtering section to modify your oscillator tones and create unique, intriguing sounds.

How About FX?

Designed like a traditional patch-bay in an analogue studio environment, the FX section in MPower is like a producer’s candy shop!

With building blocks and modular cell matrixes supporting 10 standard FX families like EQ, Stereo, Delay, Spectral, Special, Synthesis, Dynamics and Distortion, these effects sound as good as they look!

With 6 rows and 16 columns, you can drag and drop in the effect you desire anywhere within the cellular matrix. All you have to do is link the input to the first effect to start the chain. The effects that follow can be linked to the first one. If this doesn’t satisfy you, simply select the Modular32 under the modular section to create 3 more rows of linking effects.

With so many FX chains and multiple possibilities, this might make it overwhelming to commit to a certain set of effects. Especially if you’re working on a film score or a primary melody, and you’ve nailed your mood! We would recommend working with the powerful FX flow instead of adding multiple effects.

Changing the order of the FX can produce subtle changes without drastically changing the mood of your patch. You might be surprised to have come up with 7-8 different variations of a theme in no time. The ease and speed at which you can get these variations done is staggering!

Once in a while, we stumble across a feature that is so intuitive, that there is almost no need to learn it. One feature is the Material select.

By selecting naturally occurring materials like wood, glass, bamboo, wool, etc. we can modify how the signal would sound while passing through an imaginary amp cabinet made of that material.

These materials can then be used alongside the Textile materials to absorb some of the frequencies going through your pretend cabinet made of Wood or whatever you choose. By increasing the Absorption percentage, you essentially make this more apparent and the effect stronger.

The material categories involve Wood, Bamboo, Steel, Glass, Paper, Plastic, Leather and Textile. As discussed earlier, this a potent tool in film scoring and mood-based production projects. Running a theme or melody through glass might give an eerie sensation while running the same through wood or leather might help calm that feeling down.

We’ve attached a GIF so you can quickly gauge the potential of the material select feature.

What About Utility and Live Playability?

The utility and live playability in MPower is decent. Other than the Time graph button and Miultiparameters, the rest are things you would find on any other synth in the market. Though there are some small details that might be useful.

For example, it might be visually distracting to have the meter displayed in a screen loaded with 5-6 windows. The Pause button can be used here to stop the meter from processing, opening a pop-up window helps bring up the metering in a small window. This can be used to check the clipping on a certain track while compressing it for instance.

The metering display can also behave either like a standard level indicator or, in time graph mode, to show one or more values in time.

Time graph button switches between the metering view and the time graphs. The metering view provides an immediate view of the current values including a text representation.

The time graphs provide the same information over a period of time.

Multiparameters in MPower can also speed up your workflow significantly and even perform automatic tasks (often useful when performing live). Essentially a multiparameter is a controller which controls other parameters, in fact, an unlimited number of them.

Each parameter has limits and a transformation curve for more advanced processing. By manually moving the multiparameter or automating or modulating it, you can control all of the connected parameters – they’re kind of like macros.

The Technical Stuff

How can you use MPower’s Upsampling feature efficiently in a computer with moderate specs?

A high-quality upsampling algorithm is applied in MPower which works in this fashion:
First the audio material is upsampled to a higher sampling rate using a very complicated filter. It is then processed by the plugin.

Further filtering is performed in order to remove any frequencies above the ‘Nyquist rate’ to prevent aliasing from occurring, and then the audio gets downsampled to the original sampling rate. This allows MPower to sound pristine, clear and incredible.

It must be mentioned that the point of upsampling is not to remove harmonics, but to reduce or attenuate the harmonics. It’s just that it’s not possible to reproduce such high-fidelity content within the sampling rate. MPower claim to add harmonics later to compensate for it and make the sound richer.

Beware that upsampling creates some artifacts of its own and for some algorithms processing at higher sampling rates, it can actually lower the audio quality, or at least change the sound character.

At the end of the day, let your ears guide you. Only use upsampling if you can hear a significant difference. The manual recommends us to work in 96kHz, which a lot of users might not be able to. It’s better to use upsampling only while dealing with heavily distorted material.

How Hard is All The Modulation on The CPU?

MPowerSynth is very well optimised and will be fine running on most powerful systems. However, if you have a lower-end or older PC/Macbook, you might run into some problems running it.

You gotta have juicy power to run a power synth!

A GIF of the 53-track Logic Pro X project used for the stress test is attached below.

What Does My System Need To Run it?

Whether PC or Mac, you’re going to need a fairly decent system to run MPower. From our stress test, we found these to be a minimum requirement to make full use of MPower’s potential. MPower recommended using VST3 specifically on either Mac or PC.

How Easy is The User Interface To Grasp?

MPowerSynth does provide resizing options. But, in order to use some of the advanced settings, one must keep multiple windows open at the same time. This is due to the fact that the parameter being modified needs to be monitored in real-time.

During our stress tests, we noticed that the plugin remains stable even if 5-6 windows are being modified at the same time. So stability is not the issue here. But from a user’s perspective, it will get tiring after a few hours if you’re working on anything less than a 25-inch screen.

We stress tested it on a 19-inch Dell monitor connected to a Mac Mini, and we wish we had two monitors side by side to make full use of this expansive synth engine. It’s a shame as we see the potential at hand.

But, producers working on the go on their laptops or working on smaller-sized monitors will find it difficult to use.

There are also some pretty cool skin customisation features.

MPower can mimic classic vintage gear if you are working on old-school rock music, or look like a digital VST if you are working on more recent music. You can also opt for knobs in place buttons or sliders if that suits you.

How Versatile is MPowerSynth?

Though it may sound to be vast and all-encompassing, MPower is surprisingly not gritty enough for believable sounding analogue sounds. The noise generators and the harmonics do a fabulous job at creating lush textures, but they happen to be too pristine to mimic analogue tones.

Great for modern electronic productions ranging from IDM to Dubstep to Trap to Lo-Fi to Electro, MPower can easily do the ambient, the psychedelic and everything in between.

If you’re not too picky about getting analogue tones out of your synth, MPower could easily be that workstation synthesiser that you’ve been looking for!

How Does MPowerSynth Stand Up To The Competition?

MPower Synth, Omnisphere, and Falcon are all heavyweights in their own right. Deciding between these synthesisers is quite challenging as all of them are comprehensive and extensive in their own unique ways.

Omnisphere is fantastic for its huge 70GB sound library and vast selection of character-filled, gritty waveforms. There are also more sound design possibilities with the multiple instances and mixing windows that Omnisphere provides. In general, we found it more user-friendly too, but at the expense of the intricate editing possibilities MPower provides.

Falcon is more for technical people, offering a scripting mode that allows you to trigger different events, including a vast range of modulation options, a huge sound bank and more. We personally found Falcon to be the most limitless power synth.

However, the interface and features make it insanely difficult to understand and it can give you a bit of a headache trying to use it.

MPowerSynth was the best in terms of modulation possibility & arpeggiation. It produced the best sounding, clean, lush, wide patches out of them all. It’s a little harder to get to grips with than Omnisphere and doesn’t include the sound bank, but it’s also half the price of both Falcon and Omnisphere.

And, arguably, it offers the same possibilities in terms of professional sound and patches.

Where MPower might lack in terms of library size as compared to Falcon or Omnisphere, it sure makes up in its ability to allow you to draw and customise parameters to your heart’s content.

If you’re serious about learning your synth thoroughly, MPower is sure to get your money’s worth in the long-run with its limitless customisation possibilities.

How Good Is MPowerSynth for Film Scoring?

There is also a world of presets that sound film-ready. And alongside that, there is amazing capability in the arpeggiator, which can be used for interesting, unique melodies, as well as a plethora of FX and sound design tools.

It doesn’t have the same vast library of quality sounds that something like Omnisphere has, so you won’t find ethnic drums or world instruments in MPower. MPower seems more suited to sound design for electronic elements.

If you’re a film composer, then there is surely enough ammo here to cover most if not all of your sound design needs.

Things We’d Like To See in Updates

With Melda Productions’ 41st update with Version 16.0 released lately, it’s hard to complain about updates with MPower Synth since it’s clearly an extremely proactive company. But, we thought we would add our two cents to the list which we would like to see in the future.

Material Select:

It would be great to see material select leak out from the FX section into the other parts of the synth too. Although a great feature within the FX section, we feel Melda have just touched the tip of the iceberg with this one.

It would be great to see the advanced section in the oscillator have an option to pass a waveform through glass and leather and the rest. Or have it as an option within the advanced sampler to have our samples run through the materials for added character.

Dedicated Pop-Out Help Option:

With a synth so ginormous, it is unfair on a recent buyer to have to figure everything out on his/her own or wish to stumble upon it. The manual is limited if not frugal in terms of available information. A good example would be Logic Pro X’s ‘Question Mark’ which points to a quick help on hovering over a parameter. MPower does something similar with the F1 button. But, it’s still quite primitive and should surely be developed.

LFO:

There isn’t a section dedicated to LFO yet. Though Globally active, it doesn’t catch our eyes while working. You might end up avoiding it owing to its lack of presence amidst all these parameters. Maybe a dedicated and visible knob under each section might help.

The Verdict – Is MPowerSynth Worth It?

Short answer is yes. MPowerSynth is worth it. For $199, you are getting a powerhouse synth capable of almost anything, with a huge library of ever-growing community-based presets. You can modulate anything, the oscillators are some of the most beautiful-sounding we’ve heard and there is a huge range of professional FX to choose from.

It may be a little overwhelming, to begin with, but once you get under the hood and acquainted with MPowerSynth, it’ll be one of the most powerful synths you’ve ever used.