U-He Releases Free Public Beta Version of RePro-1

RePro-1, U-He’s software emulation of Sequential Circuits’ legendary Pro One mono synth from 1982, has officially graduated from the alpha phase and is now available as a free public beta version with a temporary (yet fully functional) license until January 1st.

I’ve never owned a hardware synthesizer, and I have absolutely no direct experience with the Pro One, but judging from what I’ve heard just browsing through factory presets and detailed information provided in the manual, I can say with a considerable amount of certainty that RePro-1 is a painstakingly thorough “component-level” emulation of one of the most iconic and sophisticated electronic instruments of its time.

Personally, I’ve never been a huge proponent of mono synths. I’ve always found it rather unnecessary to impose hardware limitations on a software instrument purely for the sake of producing a mirror’s image of the original, but in this case it actually makes perfect sense, not just for the purpose of recreating a classic instrument, but also because of the way that the waveforms, envelopes and the filter have been modeled.

You might remember RePro-Alpha, released earlier this year as a free “researchware” intended to gather feedback in regard to the five included filter models. I lost track of the KVR thread long ago, but whatever was decided by the end of the alpha phase ultimately helped churn out one of the most highly resonant, dare I say “juicy” low-pass filters implemented in a software instrument thus far.

One of the most useful features on tap is the ability to “step-record” notes into the sequencer, regardless of whether you play back a sequence in your DAW’s piano roll or finger notes on your MIDI keyboard or on the touch-plate style keys on Repro-1’s interface. Up to thirty-two steps are available for each of the two patterns, and with the “1+2” option within the sequencer controls selected, you can “double down” with up to 64 steps and program highly complex sequences and arpeggiated chord progressions.

I’m afraid there aren’t too many sounds available in the factory library, which is still under construction. However, I’m very happy to say that you can not only save your own presets with the temporary license, but you can save pattern presets in the sequencer as well, which is a huge bonus. I also have it on good authority that, in the past, Urs Heckmann has been generous enough to allow the use of multi-sampled recordings of his software instruments, even after the beta version expires.

I’ve used dozens of “emu” synths in the past, the majority of which are utterly forgettable. Even the very best emulations of classic analog and digital synthesizers often fail in their attempt to recreate the magic of the original hardware… but this time, I think Urs might have actually done it! The exhaustive amount of attention to detail that went into the component-level modelling is a computational milestone. This might just be my absolute favorite emulation of any classic instrument developed so far.

Many thanks to our reader Jeffrey aka Fictions for the news tip!

RePro-1 (beta) is available for free download via KVR (Mac version 28 MB download size, ZIP archive, AAX/AU/NKS/VST plugin format for Mac, Windows version 17.6 MB download size, ZIP archive, AAX/NKS/VST plugin format for Windows, Linux version 27.8 MB download size, TAR.GZ archive, VST plugin format for Linux, documentation 2.74 MB download size in PDF format for Adobe Reader).