Blade 2 from Rob Papen

I’ve used several Rob Papen audio plug-ins for years, with Blue, Blue II, and most recently Blue III being among my favourite virtual instruments for atmospheric, etherial sounds. But somehow I missed the original Blade and even Blade 2 which made it’s appearance in late 2020. OK, I was busy testing over 100 other products since then, but I should still have watched Rob more closely.
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What is It?
BLADE 2 is an additive synth with a lot of manipulation and modulation possibilities. It is a very capable virtual instrument available as a plug-in compatible with pretty much all DAWs, but not as a standalone instrument.

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The view above is the main window, and might scare some people (those saw blades look dangerous!), but even if you never dig into all the possible controls (I found nearly a thousand of them!), there are over 1,700 factory presets available that cover a very wide range of sound types, from powerful bass and lead sounds to slowly evolving atmospheric effects to edgy, dynamic pulsating beats. I spent more hours than I’d like to admit just cruising the presets. And you don’t have to just open them randomly – there are 30 Banks and three sets of categories (Types [19], Tempo/Feel [20], and Timbre [9]) to help more quickly grab what you want.

But let’s talk about the complex window above (before we look at the other five windows in BLADE 2!). It has about 80 knobs plus a number of switches/selection-windows, so it may appear daunting. But it is logically arranged. Like most plug-ins, the very top section includes the Preset and Bank windows, the “undo/redo” function which in this case is an Edit/Orig(inal) control, ECS (access to the External Controller Setup), access to the user manual, a preset database (Manager) control (opens the excellent preset manager noted earlier), and an EASY button we will talk about later.

In the middle we have the famous X-Y controller that Rob Papen have employed on most of their virtual instruments, and in this case the locator dot is a saw blade! The six controls above, below and on each side of the X-Y square control how strongly various parameters respond to the X-Y position. This can affect twelve destinations in both the X and Y dimensions. One odd thing is the controls on the sides control the X action while the top and bottom control Y – fine once you realize it, but seems swapped from what I would expect. One useful feature is the X-Y controls can operate in polyphonic, monophonic, synced or free-running automated modes (and you can record whatever movement you wish) or in a manually controlled mode. In the polyphonic automated mode there will be a saw representing each note played, spread out if there are played sequentially (as seen above playing six notes with a spiral X-Y preset) so that each blade shows the current modulation position for each note. This can create some fascinating expressions. Right clicking in the X-Y area brings up a menu that accesses several settings and enables loading preset X-Y patterns and saving your own patterns, which is very handy. Of course any X-Y pattern used in a BLADE 2 instrument preset is saved with all the other settings of that preset.

The left side of the main window, left of the X-Y panel, contains the sound generating components – there are four of these: the Harmolator module, an Additive module, an Oscillator module and a Noise module. The Harmolator is a unique approach to creating complex sounds that was a major feature of the original BLADE and enables controlling relative levels of “partials” (96 of them!) which include harmonic and non-harmonic frequencies (harmonics of course being 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. times the fundamental frequency and non-harmonics being non-interger multipliers of the fundamental that create more “abrasive” sounds useful for percussive effects such as cymbals). There are several different modifiers including unison settings, detuning, and a sub-oscillator (and superior-oscillator) that can provide continuously controlled levels of either a sine wave or square wave up to +/- one octave from the fundamental frequency in three steps (a fifth, a seventh and a full octave). But that’s all pretty standard stuff – however, there is also a section to adjust Bass, Range, Symmetry, Even/Odd harmonics, and a Timbre control that can morph the basic set of fundamental and harmonics smoothly to one of a vast range of waveforms. A note on the Bass control – it is not an EQ (that is available in the Filter and FX sections later) but shifts the peak level of the harmonic series from the fundamental (where it usually is found in most sounds and synth systems) up through the higher harmonics while the Range control adjusts how wide or narrow the resulting set of peaked harmonics is. Symmetry skews the resulting set of peaked harmonics and Even/Odd can increase or decrease the relative levels of even and odd harmonics. All this isn’t found on many other, if any, synths. Results can run from subtle changes in tones to outrageous changes.

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And there is more in the Harmolator section – there is the Harm Freq and Harm Vol controls which enables a second copy of the partial volume map to be placed at a higher frequency. Partials on top of partials! And there is Ripple which will impress a repeating pattern of amplitude reductions to be placed on the partials with a selection of patterns (Ripple Wave), origin of the variations (Ripple Type), the depth of the impressed ripples (Ripple) and the spacing of ripples (Ripple Width). The output of the Harmolator can be directed to one of 6 locations including the Pre-Filter Distortion section, the Filter section, FX1, FX2, FX3 or directly to the output.

If that were all, you could make a lot of different sounds, but we’ve barely started. The next section at the top left is brand new in BLADE 2 – the ADDITIVE module, a nifty sound generator that is like a wave-table oscillator in that you can use two or four waveforms at a time and even morph between them. You choose either HARMOLATOR or ADDITIVE clicking their title in this section, only one can be used at a time. Note that ADDITIVE uses the same basic controls at the top of its window as the Harmolator for unison settings, detuning, and a sub-oscillator, but the section below these controls has settings for how one, two or four (A, B, C, D) wave sets will be combined or controlled via the X-Y modulator (including mixed and morphed choices), and selection of basic waveforms other than a sine wave. There is window (actually one for each wave set) with sixteen partial slots for each of the four waveforms, not as many as the Harmolator, but enough for some fun. And rather than having only control of amplitude like the Harmolator, you can also control phase and tuning. This sound generator alone can create some fine, full sounds and is especially good at smooth organ-like tones but can create more piercing notes if desired.

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While only one of the two sound generators above can be used at a time, there are two more sound sources available – the (Analogue) Oscillator module and the Noise module. You can use either one or both at any time, even without using the Harmolator or Additive module. And I found the Oscillator module can actually cover a lot of sonic territory itself – and adding in some noise (even “tuned” noise is possible) really expands the range of tones. The Oscillator has four possible waveforms to start with (sine, square, saw and triangle), and then adds Semi (semitone adjustment from the base note), unison modes with stereo width adjustment, high pass and low pass filters along with an envelope control. This includes the usual ADSR, plus an unusual Fade control that operates as a second Attack or Decay stage and starts as soon as the Decay reaches the Sustain level. Positive Fade values increase the envelope from the Sustain level up to 100%. Negative values decrease the envelope from the Sustain level down to 0%. There are also controls for changing symmetry of the waveform: Sym controls the symmetry of the Oscillator waveform and is applicable to all but the Saw waveform and with the Square waveform it provides Pulse Width Modulation. And there is an SMA (Symmetry Amount) and Speed control which adjust how much the symmetry of the wave changes over time and at what rate. Even using a sine wave the symmetry control can create impressive harmonics by skewing the sine wave to left or right (below it skewed left a bit).

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And of course a noise source is always welcome – the Noise generator has several rare/unique controls: COLOUR continuously varies the colour of the noise from Pink (fully ccw) to White (fully cw), ENV(velope) adjusts how the noise output responds to its ADSR amplitude envelope from not at all (ccw) to fully (cw), Tune/TRK controls a bandpass filter which can either track the keyboard or use a fixed frequency (that of course you can modulate or control via MIDI), low pass and high pass filters, and the aforementioned ADSR/Fade envelope controller that in addition to affecting the Noise Oscillator volume can control the Band-pass Filter Frequency and the Low / High pass Filter frequency with different strengths for each control. All very flexible and useful stuff!

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The output for each of these sound generators can be sent to one of the processors along the right side of the main window. So you might send a clean OSCILLATOR signal directly to the main output while sending an ADDITIVE signal to DISTORTION. Lots of flexibility!


Speaking of the Right Side
Along the right side of the main window are sections for Distortion, Filter and Amplifier controls and an FX section with three slots that can each hold one of 30 different FX types. Note the signal flow through these sections is top to bottom, although as mentioned before, the outputs of each sound generator can be sent to the input of any of these processors so you can skip pre-filter distortion or the filter if you want. Also note that each of these processors can be turned on or off – this “caught” me at when first testing since the Distortion section was off, so sending a signal to it had no effect (its controls were dimmed which should have caught my attention!). Just click the title of any processor section to turn it on or off.

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The (pre-filter) Distortion module has 20 different types of distortion including bit reduction, clipping, fuzz, foldover, gapping, saturation and even a simple ring modulation effect. Note the Distortion processor uses a built-in normalization “circuit” to manage overly loud signals.

The signal exits the Distortion section to enter the Filter module (unless you’ve sent a signal directly to the Filter). This has nine filter types including low pass, high pass, band pass, two formant types and ring modulation. There are a number of controls that can make the filtering “dynamic” – these include velocity modulation of the Filter frequency, key tracking, and a Filter envelope wired to control the main Filter frequency with ADSR controls as well as a Fade control as described earlier in the Oscillator section.

After the Filter section the signal enters the Amplifier module (note you cannot route a sound directly to the AMP module! And it is the one module you cannot turn off). The Amplifier has its own Distortion effect which is different than most such processors in that the distortion processor gives each BLADE-2 voice (up to 16 of them) its own distortion! When you play multiple notes, each note has its own, slightly different distortion effect. You cannot control this, it just happens. If you want the same exact distortion applied to every voice, you can use the pre-filter Distortion section or apply distortion later in one of the FX slots. The Amp section also has Velocity control which adjusts how BLADE-2 responds to the keyboard velocity. And of course there is an ADSR curve, with the Fade control as described earlier. Another tip: the ADSR controls of both the Filter and the Amplifier can be shown as a set of knobs as shown above, or as graphic plots as shown below. I found knobs to be best for me since the graphic mode is very hard to accurately adjust. This is a global setting found using the upper right menu selection, Select Dial Envelopes or Graphic Envelopes, and changes the view in the Harmolator Modulators window, the Modulation Matrix window and in the Filter and AMP envelopes.

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Next is the FX “rack” with three slots – that may seem limited, but we already had all the above modules with plenty of FX types available. And there are actually three signal paths possible through these FX: Parallel where the effects all receive the same input signal and their combined outputs go to the output; Serial where the effects follow one another from FX1 to FX2 and on to FX3; and [1,2] > 3 mode (yup, that’s what it’s called) where the outputs of FX1 and FX2 are summed and sent on to FX3. As I indicated above, there are 30 different FX available, including distortion, delays, filtering, reverb, phaser, flanger, chorus, etc. All providing excellent results. And as with the other processors, you can individually turn any FX on or off. That’s about all I have time or space to describe of the main BLADE 2 GUI, but there is more!

More Windows
Above the central X-Y window are six tabs, with the X-Y tab being the one we’ve seen so far. There is an ARP(eggiator) tab, a HARMOD (Harmolator Modulation) tab, MOD (Matrix Modulation) tab, a WAV(E) tab and PLAY MODE (oddly spelled out fully!). Since I’ve already written over 2,000 words, I won’t go into detail, but show a view of each of these control panels – you can see they replace only the X-Y area so you still have access to the Harmolator, Additive, Analog Oscillator and Noise, as well as all the filters/FX on the right side.

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Arpeggiator with a simple nine step pattern – note that up to 16 steps are available in both an A and B set, and the steps can be accessed in several ways including in series for a 32 step sequence.

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The Harmolator Modulators window provides vast control of up to 12 destinations from sources including note velocity, an envelope control, an LFO and two additional sources selected in the lower section, here showing the Mod Wheel for Source 1 and Pitchbend for Source 2.

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The Modulation Matrix window give you access to Envelope modulation, some general-purpose LFOs, and a modulation matrix with which to direct them. The only downside of so much modulation and control possibilities is that, especially playing with a preset, you may find changing a destination or amount has no effect – because the parameter you are trying to modulate has its own Amount set to zero or is bypassed. So it pays to check each destination you want to affect. Note there is also DAW automation available for every control, nearly 1,000 of them, so you can vary settings that affect strength and timing of modulations beyond the modulation effects themselves!

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The WAV window opens up the ability to import your own waveforms to create a set of partials for the Harmolator sound generator’s Timbre Type, as if you needed more ways to create sounds! You can never say Rob Papen short changes you on sound manipulation methods!

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Play Mode includes choice of mono or poly modes, portamento settings, note bending ranges, and a chord mode seen here that can even create strumming of notes. Also the global tuning, some additional amplifier and filter curve modulations, and a Warmth control that provides some randomness of note tuning for a more analogue sound. Great stuff!

As I noted earlier, the 1,700-plus presets are worth a listen, and trying any of them and then looking at the settings in each tab will help you figure what is going on (and often there will be a lot going on!), and fiddling with any setting can result in a slightly different to greatly new sound. You can save your changes as a user preset (use the Save Preset in Folder option to arrange your preferred sounds in one location).

OK, there is a lot to BLADE 2, but there is also an easy way to quickly try a great variety of modifications to sounds: the EASY mode accessed using the word EASY at the top, left of the BLADE 2 logo. This results in a view like below.

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The Easy screen combines controls in a simplified screen as seen above. The Harmolator and Additive still have the Unison and Unison Detune controls, spread, volume and sub-oscillator controls, but the Harmolator section also has three Group controls that can affect the distribution of partials in musical (or other catchy) ways. The Analogue Oscillator has waveform selection, tuning, envelope speed and Volume controls. The Noise module has Noise Volume, Tuning (with Frequency and On/Off switch), Envelope Amount and Speed. The right edge has simplified controls for Distortion, Filter, Amp and FX. The X-Y window is also simplified and Play Mode is always displayed. While I found this mode to often provide some quick changes in BLADE 2 sounds, I find the full (Hard?) mode to be what I will use in future sound exploration. Why take the easy path?

Conclusions
A googolplex of sounds with an infinite range of variation, and even variations on variations with the ability to modulate modulations! I found myself engrossed for hours sampling sounds and modifying dozens of parameters to produce new ones.

Technical
BLADE 2 is available as VSTi and VST3i, AU and AAX. Windows 7 or later, either 32 or 64-bit operating systems, while with a Mac it’s 64-bit only and runs on OS-X 10.9 thru 10.15. I found the CPU load varies greatly depending on number of voices (16 max) and all the other settings and FX, from well under 1% to about 4% maximum on my rather modest, almost decade old PC Audio Labs Rok Box PC (64 Bit Windows, 4-Core Intel i7-4770K, 3.5 GHz, and 16 GB RAM). Impressive considering the complexity of the whole thing. Latency is zero.

Pros
A vastly capable, uniquely configured synthesizer with great flexibility, excellent sounds and FX.

Unique method of controlling the waveform harmonics in real-time using the X-Y pad which can produce some very different sounds compared to subtractive and even other additive synthesizers.

New ADDITIVE sound generator provides an additional variety of sounds and can also use the X-Y pad to mix or morph between different waveforms.

New wave-analysis section that allows you to analyse sample data into a waveform to be used in the Harmolator or Additive modules.

Flexible routing of sound modules to the Distortion, Filter/Amp and FX sections.

Extensive modulation capability with more ways to modulate everything than many synthesizers.

Excellent preset manager with access by developer, type, tempo/feel, and timbre.

Cons
Some people might want a standalone instrument, but I had no trouble playing it in real-time in REAPER and Studio One.

One minor issue I found is values for parameters don’t show as a knob is being moved, but only after you un-click on the image – however I find I adjusting parameters by ear is what I do most.

My only real complaint is how much time this review took since every time I went back into the studio to check on some detail I was describing, I ended up creating new sounds for an hour or two! It’s too much fun!

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