GForce Software has released Oberheim Matrix-12, the only official software emulation of the Oberheim Matrix-12 and Xpander. GForce built it in collaboration with Oberheim and Marcus Ryle, one of the Matrix-12's original designers, and it runs as an AU, VST and AAX plugin or a standalone app.
The Matrix-12 arrived in 1985 with twelve voices, a fifteen-mode filter and Matrix Modulation, a virtual patching system whose routing map was printed on the front panel. Vangelis, Depeche Mode, The Orb and Technotronic all used it. Original units are rare, heavy and costly to maintain.
"The Matrix-12 is the deepest instrument Oberheim ever built, but on the hardware, most of that depth was hidden behind a small display," said GForce co-founders Dave Spiers and Chris Macleod. "Working with Oberheim and Marcus Ryle, one of the original designers, we set out to keep every detail of that sound and finally put the whole matrix in front of the player, where you can see it, touch it and play it."
Oberheim Matrix-12 voice architecture
Each voice has two oscillators, a filter and two VCAs, with the oscillators, filter and envelope shapes modelled against the hardware:
- Two modelled VCOs with triangle, saw and pulse waves; VCO 2 adds noise and hard sync, and FM is on board
- A 15-mode filter: 1- to 4-pole low pass, high pass, band pass, notch, phase and the classic combination modes
- Two VCAs in series
Oberheim Matrix-12 modulation
Every voice has five envelopes, five LFOs, four ramps, three trackers and a lag processor. Sources also include vibrato, keyboard, velocity, release velocity, pressure (with rise and fall), pitch bend, mod wheel and random, and there's full MPE support. Any source can modulate any destination, including itself.
Patching is drag and drop: pull a crosshair onto a parameter and it takes up to six bipolar slots, each with its own quantise setting. A green corona around each control shows the modulation range.
Three views open up the matrix. Flow draws the signal path live, Mod Matrix is a sortable, filterable grid of every routing, and the Visualiser gives an overview of the patch. Each module also has its own scope, filter curve, envelope or tracker graph, and you can drag them directly to edit.
Oberheim Matrix-12 Single and Multi modes
Single mode uses all 12 voices for one timbre, with polyphony, unison, detune and spread. Multi mode gives every voice its own timbre across six overlapping keyboard zones, each with its own voice allocation, MIDI channel and micro arpeggiator. You can solo, copy, lock or load any voice from any patch, and Relative Edit moves a whole zone at once.
Oberheim Matrix-12 plugin: new features beyond the hardware
- Six micro arpeggiators
- Tempo-synced ramps with curves from linear to exponential
- Smoothing on every LFO shape
- Stepped tracker mode, which turns any LFO into a four-step sequence
- Four global Macros
- Stereo delay and matrix reverb, with per-voice sends in Multi mode
- Resizable UI and a preset browser
The library holds 570+ patches: more than 380 new sounds plus more than 190 original Matrix-12 and Xpander patches.
Oberheim Matrix-12 price and availability
Oberheim Matrix-12 is available now for $119.99, with an introductory price of $83.99. It comes in AU, VST, AAX and standalone formats and requires macOS 10.15 or later.
More information: gforcesoftware.com
Image in this article is from GForce Software.
