Sonic Underworld Repro-5 Meridian Review

I normally don’t review preset libraries since I pretty much invest the majority of my time making my own, but on occasion, something really special manages to capture my attention. Sonic Underworld’s Meridian for Repro-5 (which is bundled with Anamorphia for Repro-1 with their Repro-5 Bundle) is a collection of 140 patches intended for moody cinematic underscore and dark ambient productions, and features some of the most useful and tastefully programmed virtual analog sounds I’ve heard pour out of a software instrument in… well… ever!

Meridian is split up into eight categories…

• 20 Ambient
• 20 Basses
• 20 FX
• 10 Leads
• 20 LFO
• 20 Pads
• 15 Perc
• 15 Synth

The “Ambient” patches are basically pads but are more like a pillow-soft bed for your tracks to lie in. The difference is that they have a slower envelope attack and release than the “Pad” presets and are often slathered with reverb and delay to create a strong sense of vast, open space. A good number of these sounds are “colored” in some pleasing ways, and are often very melancholy, which is never a bad thing.

Now, I’m no bass aficionado, but the majority of the bass patches are a bit bright (for my tastes anyway) but that’s an easy enough fix; a filter adjustment or a few tweaks in the Voice Mod section should warm things up. Aside from that, the basses are all very useful in the appropriate context.

I was floored by the “FX” patches, many of which I’ve favorited. These sounds actually helped me to better understand just how significant a role atonal atmospheres and dissonant soundscapes have in cinematic underscore, and how they can deepen the listener’s sense of the world your music inhabits.

The Leads are mostly unison-based, ranging from beautifully warm to ice-cold timbres. In any case, each one of them brings their own distinct persona to the fore, and demonstrate a good use of glide, velocity sensitive behavior and pitch-bend assignments for expression.

The “LFO” patches are a bit of a hybrid breed, behaving more or less like analog basslines most of the time while occasionally wandering off the beaten path into weird, uncharted territory, which is always a good thing for me. I’ve also favorited a good number of these LFO patches.

And now for the Pads! Oh, the beautiful, buttery vintage analog goodness! Obviously, these are the sounds that drew me in like a moth to a flame. You get a strong sense of artistic integrity here as it becomes clear that Stephan Baer (Sonic Underworld’s sound designer) has spent a considerable amount of time making music with the sounds he creates.

That’s just the thing with this library. There’s a tasteful use of programming knowledge on display here. Instead of blowing your mind with impressive modulations, a more mature, restrained approach has a delicate touch on these sounds that result in some of the most useful patches I’ve used in some time.

The “Perc” patches are next in line, which are a collection of percussive hits, often very cinematic ones at that, which are of course in keeping with the rest of the library. There are also plucky, splashy sounds and distant bells…and a few strange LFO-driven sounds that almost defy classification.

Last but not least, the “Synth” patches offer a slight dose of vintage playfulness, with a small collection of sounds that often blur the line between bass and lead. There are a few patches in this category that very well could’ve ended up in the Pads category, but I can see how their “old school” vibe factored in.

The SoundCloud demo playlist for Meridian, which includes 12 tracks, is so good, I’ve actually saved it to my SoundCloud profile just to listen purely for inspiration!

Meridian for Repro-5 is available for $30 or as one half of Sonic Underworld’s Repro-5 Bundle ($45), which also includes Anamorphia for Repro-1, sold separately for $25. Anamorphia might seem like a superfluous addon but I can assure you that Anamorphia boldly stands on its own as a truly masterful assortment of patches available in seven categories…

• Atmospheres
• Bass
• Drums
• FX
• Lead
• Pulse
• Seq

I was actually shocked by the selection of Atmospheres, which are beautifully textured in some really surprising ways that make you temporarily forget about Repro-1’s complete lack of polyphony. There are also quite a few sequenced patches that will remind you that Repro-1’s sequencer is one of the main reasons Repro-1 still matters every bit as much as Repro-5.

I’m a newcomer to Sonic Underworld’s product line, but if these two libraries are a small taste of what to expect from Stephan Baer’s sound design, then sign me up for more! Sonic Underworld has also made sound sets for Spectrasonics Omnisphere and a number of other u-he synths such as Zebra and Diva.

More info: Repro-5 Meridian ($30)