Cherry Audio ODC-2800 is an authentic polyphonic ARP Odyssey emulation for your DAW with extra features such as a third oscillator, multi-FX, and more.
Alan R. Pearlman, founder of the ARP Instruments brand, was born on June 7, 1925, in New York City. The legendary developer would have turned 100 this year. With his company ARP, he developed many of today’s legendary analog synthesizers, including the 2500, 2600, Quadra, and the Odyssey.
Cherry Audio, which has already created emulations of the ARP Quadra, 2600, Pro Soloist, and Rhodes Chroma, dedicated another virtual instrument to the developer on his 100th birthday. It’s the ODC-2800, the fifth ARP Instruments-based Synthesizer plugin. Here is my review.
Cherry Audio ODC-2800
The ODC-2800 is a faithful emulation of the ARP Odyssey, a duophonic analog Synthesizer initially released in 1972. At first, I thought that was a strange name decision for a plugin. At this point, I only saw the letter. When pronounced (O-D-C), however, it makes total sense.
Installation was quick and easy. You can choose between a standalone version or VST, VST3, AU, and AAX versions. The only thing I would like to see is CLAP support for the plugins. Open it and off you go? Almost. The first time you use it, you must log in to your user account to activate the plugin. Once complete, the plugin automatically downloads the remaining data.
The Cherry Audio ODC-2800 holds no significant surprises on the synthesis side. It’s an emulation of a classic: the ARP Odyssey. The signal path and individual components of the circuit have been replicated using analog modeling technology.
You have access to all the original features, plus extras that were not available in the hardware. A major difference from the original is the number of voices. Besides the vintage duophonic configuration, Cherry Audio has raised the engine to polyphonic levels.
You can use it in mono, legato, original duophonic, or with up to 16-voice polyphony, making a wide range of new sounds possible that are unfamiliar from an ARP Odyssey, such as pads and strings.
Expanded Polyphonic ARP Odyssey
The synth is programmable via an interface that’s almost identical to the original hardware. It includes all the familiar sections and features, such as oscillators, filters, modulation, VCA, and more.
ODC-2800 has three oscillators that have been faithfully reproduced. Indeed, Cherry Audio added an oscillator to its Odyssey emulation. They have the same ingredients, including switchable sawtooth, square, and pulse waveforms, sync ring modulator, and FM.
Unlike the original, each oscillator also features a handy multimode quantize function and an extended sync function, providing more flexibility for sound creation. For example, you can sync between oscillator 3 and 2 or 1.
The oscillator waveform settings are also adjusted here via the audio mixer on the right side. Of course, each oscillator also has fixed modulator routing, with which the oscillator parameters can be hands-on modulated, just as we love from the original ARP Odyssey.
Neat, Cherry Audio also added a third frequency modulation input with an assignable modulator offering 35 source options. This includes oscillator waveforms, LFOs, and a keyboard, among others, while velocity and aftertouch aren’t available.
Alongside the new oscillator setup, it also features a new noise generator that expands the hardware Odysseys types to four: violet, white, pink, and brown. You can also go all-in and take all oscillators and create a massive 16-voice unison sound with 48 oscillators.
A Filter Odyssey
The original ARP Odyssey was on the market for nine years (1972-1981). During this time, there were three revisions, each with modified feature sets. In addition to their different color layout, the filter was the crucial part of this, as each revision had a different filter.
ARP Odyssey MK1 used a 2-pole 12dB filter (4023), the MK2 a 4-pole 24dB Moogish filter (4035), and the MK3 a 24dB 4-pole custom ARP filter (4075). The Cherry Audio ODC-2800 plugin offers accurate emulations of all three filter revisions.
To match the layouts of the original hardware units, the developers assigned each filter a distinct interface. Switching from one filter to another also changes the UI. There is also a UI Lock feature that allows you to keep a single interface for all patches. A nice extra feature that constantly reminds us of these vintage units.
In addition to selecting revisions, the plugin also added the option to choose from resonant LP, BP, and HP filter responses with gain compensation. The latter is neat, as it restores the gain that you lose with the Moogish at high-resonance levels on the Mk2 and Mk3 models.
Next to the multimode filter, there is also the modeled high-pass filter. Modulation is also identical to the vintage device, including the control via the sliders and switches.
I liked the filters in the testing. I don’t own an original ARP Odyssey to make a 1:1 comparison, but they were able to keep up very well with my Behringer Odyssey. It’s also very close to the original. It’s a bit unpleasant that switching between Mk2 and Mk3 is noisy. There’s a crackling in the sound.
Classic Modulation
The Cherry Audio ODC-2800 features the original modulation setup, including LFO, S&H with a mixer, and two envelopes, as well as numerous additional modulation capabilities not available on the original and later clones.
Two LFOs instead of one, more waveforms with pulse width, delay, polyphonic LFO option, envelopes with velocity, and more.
The second LFO is particularly interesting in combination with the additional modulation assignments that almost every section of the ODC-2800 offers. This provides you with more modulation freedom for creating more complex sounds. For example, with oscillator modulation, you can now use other waveforms than those specified by the original.
A nice upgrade for the Odyssey’s modulation. I would have liked to see a mod matrix that gives a precise overview of all the modulations currently active. Perhaps the developers wanted to stick strictly to the original slider concept, which is also fine.
Effects
As a vintage ARP Odyssey user, you rely on pedals or 19-rack units if you want to add effects to your sound. With the ODC-2800, there’s no need to go through any of the hassle; the effects are built right in.
Cherry Audio has incorporated a multi-FX processor into the plugin, featuring four fixed multimode effects familiar from other CA creations: distortion, dual phaser, flanger & chorus, echo, and reverb.
A lovely addition is a multi-wave LFO with delay for the effects. You can use it to modulate each mod amount independently, putting them in motion. I would have liked more freedom with the modulation here, rather than just a fixed mod parameter.
The effects blend beautifully with the Arp Odyssey emulation. The option to turn off individual effects is nice, but unfortunately, you can’t change the order. When it comes to distortion, my favorite is tube saturation, as it gives the sound a lovely warmth and crunch. The EQ that doesn’t fit into this section. Maybe they can separate this in an update to make it more flexible to use.
Dual phaser, flanger, and chorus add a lot of movement and swirl. At high resonance, you also get metallic sounds. It’s nice that you have multiple waveforms in the chorus, so it has more facets. The echo and reverb algorithms are known from many other CA plugins. Tape and Galactic are among my favorites because they seamlessly move everything into the ambient sound.
Playability
You can play the synth the traditional way with MIDI, either with a MIDI keyboard or any other MIDI data, like the sequencer from your DAW. Speaking of sequencers, Cherry Audio ODC-2800 doesn’t offer one. However, it has a playful arpeggiator with multiple playback modes, creative chance, and feel parameters.
Other playing helpers, such as a chord function, are not onboard. Here, you must rely on the tools provided by your digital audio workstation (DAW).
Velocity and polyphonic aftertouch support is provided. There is a dedicated section on the right side with visual feedback, where you can map up to three parameters to poly aftertouch. This all worked well in testing with the NI Kontrol S49 Mk3.
Other notable features include plugin window scaling, flexible portamento, and independent drift parameters for the VCO, VCF, and envelope, allowing for precise dialing in of the perfect vintage character.
Cherry Audio ODC-2800 Sound Demo
A colorful catalog of over 330 varied presets from professional sound designers also ensures immediate fun in playing with this CA plugin. The presets showcase impressively the two worlds in which the plugin is at home.
One that reproduces all the classic ARP Odyssey sounds (beefy, fat basses, searing leads, and legendary sync) and the other, with the many new facets only possible with the plugin-only features, such as polyphonic pads. An overview can be found in my linked sound demo. By the way, the built-in limiter helped me a lot in many cases because many sounds clipped quickly.
Cherry Audio ODC-2800 Review Conclusion
AIR Music Tech, Korg, and GForce Software are all companies that already offer ARP Odyssey emulations. Cherry Audio follows suit seamlessly, offering the ODC-2800, which is arguably the most comprehensive option in terms of features not available in the original hardware.
The ODC-2800 is remarkably authentic and offers everything you’d expect from an ARP Odyssey, plus many more features we could only dream of in hardware. Since I don’t own an original ARP Odyssey, I can’t say 100% how exactly it’s modeled, so I’ll skip that.
All three filters, polyphony, multi-effects, and deeper modulation fun make the ODC-2800 an exciting package. If I had to compare all Odyssey emulations, I prefer the GForce Oddity 3 slightly more in terms of sound due to its beefiness, but that’s a personal preference. In terms of features, however, Cherry Audio stands out as it offers more options to experiment with.
All in all, the ODC-2800 is another technically and sonically high-quality vintage-based plugin for the Cherry plugin. It also impressively demonstrates once again the huge leap plugins have made in terms of sound quality in recent years. If you’re looking for an authentic, soft ARP Odyssey replica at a fair price with plenty of extras, this might be the right choice.
Cherry Audio ODC-2800 is available now for $59/59€. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows. The Centennial Sounds library James Dyson is out now as a separate purchase for $9,99/9.99€.
More information here: Cherry Audio
Available at my partner
once again, no name attached to the review?
no name? If you mean who wrote the review. Synth Anatomy is a one-man operation so it’s me.
Why call it 2800 when its a odyssey clone?
Because the original Odyssey MkI was the Model 2800, MKII Models 2810-2815 etc.
OK.:-)
Maybe people should have a little think before they post questions!