Lush 101 _ Stripped Down Sound Design [Review]
Lush has a very inspiring sound and I found myself using it to produce samples for my private collection as well. I only did so with hardware such as my Nord Lead 3 and my beloved Sherman filters (FB2 and Restyler). For me, this is interesting approach; to record a lot of what you do. It was also very nice to record the actual sound design process. Sculpting your desired sound while recording the loop for 20minutes meant that there were plenty of unexpected variations I could use later.
For even more d16 goodness I suggest you add d16’s Devastor and Toraverb to your Lush channel. I don’t use them as actual effects, I just use them to add even more body and physical presence to the sound; 2 characteristics which are already strengths of this synth itself. To increase the analog experience, I added SonEQ (a free 3 band analogue modelling EQ) after Devastator and Toraverb, to cut the lows and a tiny bit of highs, then ran it into saturation (with caution), as I would do with an analog desk.
This setup is capable of producing huge and expensive sounding noises and melodies.
So after 5 months with Lush, I can add a bit of a personal view on usability to the review. For me this has quickly become one of my top 3 all-time softsynths, besides U-He ACE and Zebra. Soundwise it’s even better then its German competitors as it forces you to focus more on the details because of the restrictions. It really forces you to work smarter due to its immense CPU hunger.
To conclude, there are actually 2 nice side effects of using this synth:
1.You’ll learn a lot about synthesis.
2. You’ll focus more on musicality instead of hiding musical mistakes behind a curtain of delays and flangers and other makeup.
Lush is available for €149 from http://www.d16.pl/lush-101
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Mslwte
Mar 16. 2013
nice one ste, i honestly thought you had forgot 😛 its definately a beast of a synth!
ste
Mar 16. 2013
i never forget about things james 🙂 (tbh john reminded me every single week)
Ashley Borg
Mar 16. 2013
Excellent write up, some classic lines in there.
” suddenly realised that a synth like Lush works best when tasted raw, without any extra side dishes.” 😀
Hahaha.
ste
Mar 16. 2013
thx ashley! a good synth is like sushi.. i always knew 😉
foxy
Mar 18. 2013
sick synth that sounds like nothin else. very honest and accurate review Subsekt
Jenk
Mar 18. 2013
those tracks you made with lush are wicked. huge sound. must check the demo
ad.lib
Mar 18. 2013
thx Jenk! appreciate
Ronnie
Mar 18. 2013
I love the sound of LuSH-101, right up there with u-he’s synths indeed. Did you check u-he’s Diva yet? Pretty sure you’ll enjoy that one too.
Mono-xID
Mar 19. 2013
I love that LUSH synth aswell. CPU hog indeed but it sounds awesome. Very good review and a nice read,ste!!!