Around 1997, products such as ReBirth RB-338 (Propellerhead Software) appeared, which had a staggeringly accurate emulation of the ubiquitous Roland TB303. Today software synthesizers are taken very seriously. Dynamo V1.0 by Germany’s Native Software is indeed one of the most serious music software products I have ever seen.

Dynamo V1.0 is a piece of software for both the Power Macintosh and the PC that turns your computer and soundcard into a powerful synthesizer and audio processing system. It is based on the more expensive Reaktor V2.3 which has a completely modular structure that enables you to create simple analogue synthesizers or complex modular systems which can feature sampling and different kinds of synthesis such as FM, made popular in 80’s by Yamaha’s DX7 and more exotic methods such as delay-line resonance and granular synthesis (a.k.a. re-synthesis).

With Dynamo V1.0 you cannot modify the instruments or build your own, instead you have access to the growing NI Premium Library, which is supplied on the installation CDROM and also on the regularly updated Native Software web site.

From initial impressions, I think that if you really get into Dynamo V1.0 then you may well want to upgrade to Reaktor V2.3, otherwise most will be happy with the massive possibilities that Dynamo offers.

Dynamo can be used as a VST 2.0 plug-in, DirectConnect or stand-alone, using your soundcards MIDI interface.

Installation

The full install (recommended) requires 180Mb of your hard drive, 100Mb of which is a key file so you can run Dynamo V1.0 without the CD in your drive. This speeds up some operations so it’s the preferred mode of operation.

Copy protection rears its ugly head once again in the form of an occasional request to insert the original CD-ROM into your drive for verification. Not an unreasonable request but an inconvenience I could do well without. Copy protection has become more advanced so this sort of nonsense is no longer necessary. However, it could be worse, it could be a dongle.

System Requirements

As with all software synthersizers, the more processing power you have the better. You can run Dynamo V1.0 on a Pentium 266MHz machine, but you will manage more notes and simultaneous sounds with a faster one.

The minimum system requirements for the Mac are OS 8.0 or higher, 604e/250 MHz, and 64Mb RAM. For the PC you can use Windows 95/98/2000 or NT 4.0, with a minimum of a Pentium 266MHz and 64Mb RAM.

The choice of soundcard can be crucial to your long-term enjoyment, some offer low latency to give an almost ‘instant’ keyboard response, while others can make playing software synthersizers from a keyboard feel right gooey. This depends largely on the soundcard driver design, and can’t always be predicted.

Any Instrument can be used to try out Dynamo V1.0’s real-time performance, optimise the Play Ahead setting for your particular soundcard by reducing the setting until you start to get audio clicks, and then edge it back up to the next higher setting.

My SoundBlaster Live worked on the lowest 10mS setting, and playing Dynamo V1.0 from a MIDI keyboard felt very responsive, but other cards may not prove so successful. However, NI also provide downloadable demo versions of their software, and apart from giving you a taster of the sounds on offer, these will also let you try out the products with your own soundcard to see how it performs.