Zero G's Morphology

Flexible soundscapes and dream synths, it says on the bottle. Drink in the sounds of the sisters of morphy...

 Zero G's Morphology is one of a new type of virtual instrument or VSM (Virtual Sound Modules) as ZG calls them, just in case you think there aren't enough acronyms out there already. A VSM is a hybrid instrument combining a sample collection and a sample player. In particular, as its name suggests, this collection majors on morphing sounds.

You get both PC and Mac versions in the Morphology box, and plug-in and stand-alone versions, too. Every popular plug-in format is supported including VST, DXi2, ASIO, MME and DirectSound for the PC, and VST, ASIO, SoundManager and OMS for the Mac. RTAS, Audio Unit and Core Audio versions are promised as free downloads.

Installation is easy but do note carefully the system requirements. You need a DVD player which is no problem for modern Macs but they aren't yet standard with all PCs. Also note the memory requirements. The program wouldn't launch on a Mac with 256Mb RAM without engaging virtual memory (or severely pruning the extensions) and the more RAM you have, the more efficiently Morphology and your sequencer will run.

Finally, copy protection requires that you register the software within five days or it will stop working so it's a jolly good job you've got an Internet connection. An interesting way to restrict the use of what is, at heart, a collection of samples.

Instrument players

The sample player is a special version of Native Instruments' Kompakt Sampler. However, Zero G is keen to point out that this is not merely a 'player' but an 'instrument'. And, indeed, it does rather more than simply play the samples because it acts like an instrument capable of playing several samples at the same time, and it offers a host of edit and processing functions. It's also 'special' because it can only be used to play the supplied samples so no freebie sample player here.

What you do get is many of the instrument functions of Kompakt. For example, there are eight slots which can each hold a sample, and collectively, this is known as a Multi. The selection is fixed, limited to the samples supplied with the program but you can edit the sounds and create and save new Multis. You can also edit sounds and save them but what you can't do is save samples for use in another program or import your own samples into it.

In a Multi, each instrument can be assigned its own MIDI channel enabling you to play eight sounds at once, although most of these sounds are so full and complex that playing three or four may be two or three too many! Each sample has Mute and Solo buttons and you can adjust their key range, transpose them, change their polyphony, and route each one to a different output if your sound card has multiple outputs.