PortaFM – Plogue Revives The Iconic Yamaha PSS Synthesizers In A New Plugin

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Plogue brings back the iconic and cheesy Yamaha PSS Synthesizers from the 80s in form of a new plugin

In the late eighties there were various FM Synthesizers. Especially well known were the cheap Yamaha Portasound PSS Synthesizers that are still in demand on the market today. So that everyone can benefit from these familiar sounds, Plogue created an accurate emulation of this keyboards in one new synth plugin.

PortaFM is a 2 operator FM Synthesizer plugin that offers a bit-accurate reproduction of the low-cost FM chip (OPLL). The complete engine is based on fm synthesis and no samples are involved. On top, PortaFM makes it easy to program this kind of sounds known from the PSS Synthesizers.

Overview

The late 80’s ‘PSS’ series was cheesy and made of plastic but had a very unique sound which was lost to time. Some of the most well known examples of synthesizers in this series include the PSS-140, PSS-270 mini keyboards and the SHS-10 keytar. Not willing to just copy the past, we designed a NEW synthesizer that features the same sound generation found in these synthesizers, but this time with much more processing power to control and modulate its features, all in a convenient virtual instrument form.

PortaFM uses a pair of cycle-accurately emulated OPLL (YM2413) FM chip cores for its main synth engine, and another core dedicated to the the drum sounds, all of which can be layered creatively.

The unique ‘lofi’ quality of the OPLL was never recreated this accurately before. Plogue’s experience of more than 15 years studying vintage digital sound generators was pushed to its limit. Brand new mathematical models were built using our custom Hardware-assisted systematic testing procedures by our in house reverse engineering team in Montreal.

Oh, and of course, it does not use ANY samples!

Other Chipsynths Are Coming Soon

Beside this news, Plogue also announced that other future new plugins in the chipsynth series will coming: FC, MD, 64 and SFC.

PortaFM will be available soon for 64-bit macOS and Windows (VST/AU/AAX plugin formats as well as standalone) priced at $29.95 USD.

More information here: Plogue 

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