Toybox Audio Buzz Zone is a new feature-packed multi-engine Synthesizer plugin for macOS, Windows, and iOS AUv3 (iPad only).
In mid-May, Superbooth 24 brought us a huge number of new synthesizers. Anyone who has followed my news coverage will have noticed this. During this period, new software synths have come onto the market. We remember Cherry Audio Chroma, GForce Software impOSCar3, and Madrona Labs Sumu.
The fourth in the group is from Toybox Audio, the developers of the free Thump One Synthesizer. The new synth looks like the Thump One but is a different beast.
Toybox Audio Buzz Zone
Many describe Buzz Zone as a wavetable synth. Toybox Audio’s latest synth is more than that. It’s, for me, a multi-engine synth, as it uses multiple sound generation options.
Buzz Zone’s synth engine consists of two parts: synthesis and samples. The first hosts a classic and a harmony oscillator with either classic waveforms or customizable wavetables. You can also load in single-cycle waveforms.
It has various operation modes that make the synth powerful: different pitch intervals, unison, FM, AM, ring modulation, filter FM, sub, and low sub. Toybox Audio ships the engine with various tweakable parameters, including the position of the wavetable, pitch, FM, and more.
The second part is the sample playback engine. You can load samples from the factory library or import your timbres. These can also be pitched, filtered, and adjusted in level. A highlight is the built-in vocoder mode that turns the sample playback part into yet another synthesis engine.
Both sound sources can then be mixed into one signal. Then, you can work with a fully loaded filter block that hosts classic 4-pole, ladder, OTA, Salen Key, and State Variable filters but also unusual filter types like multi-notch, comb filter, frequency shifter, ring mod, wave folder, and more.
Packed Modulation
The modulation engine is just as extensive and versatile. Buzz Zone features nine fully customizable multi-segment envelopes with nine parameters for each.
The stages and shape can be easily drawn. These envelopes have five options: turning them into classic envelopes, complex mod generators, or LFOs.
Further, you have a stereo width option and an effects processor with various built-in algorithms to refine your sounds. You get different reverb types (shimmer, hall, rooms, etc.), chorus, phaser, flanger, wave folder, distortion, and more. There is also a randomization engine.
Toybox Audio Buzz Zone ships with over 400 ready-to-use presets from professional sound designers.
First Impression
At first glance, an excellent new synth plugin. Not an innovative synth on the feature side like Sumu from Madrona Labs, but Buzz Zone offers a lot of features for a very fair price. Big thanks for the iOS AUv3 version.
Toybox Audio Buzz Zone is available now for an introduction price of $24 USD instead of $39 USD. It runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows. The iOS version is out now for $9,99 USD and runs only on iPad as a standalone synth and as an AUv3 plugin.
More information here: Toybox Audio
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