Review: The Riser Synth Plugin by AIR Music Technology

The Riser is a very interesting and innovative synth plugin created by AIR Music Technology that can be used to create rises and drops for your music productions.

The first thing that stood out is the fact that it has 301 presets. Not many plugins can boast about that as a default. It has Pitch rises, the pitch falls, reso rises, reso falls, swells, fades, modulating rises and falls, rhythmic rises and falls and finally atonal rises and falls. A pretty good variation overall and it fulfills pretty much ever use of a rise possible. You could easily use this plugin without ever having to make your own settings, although if you wanted to its made easier by the fact it defaults to a blank patch.

One of the first things that I noticed is it has a handy tip area that you can scroll through tips on. The window, at first glance, looks a bit daunting, but you quickly realize it’s divided into logical sections, and the clean and functional interface is actually quite pleasant.

In the settings menu, you have a choice of host sync or note sync. In note sync mode, the pitch determines the length of the riser. The higher the note the shorter the riser is. The settings also have a high-pass setting to cut out all lows automatically, independently of the filters themselves, which I thought was a great touch.

Filters

23 different kinds of filters. That is impressive by pretty much any ones standards. You’ll be able to achieve a huge variety of sounds with them. Every option is easy automated as well. The filters have an adjustable cutoff and resonance where you can have a different setting for the start and the end of the riser, resulting in a sound with a lot of movement. The two LFO’s can be set to affect them via a handy slider bar. And the filters have a distortion mode with 5 different distortion models.

There are a tempo-synced delay and reverb with 4 different models. Both delay and reverb have an adjustable high cut, the delay has a feedback knob and the reverb has a time knob. Both have a wetness knob, with a separate Effect Mix section that again has separate beginning and end settings. The end result it’s extremely quick and easy to dial in the amount of FX present and sculpt the exact sound you want.

It does not use ADSR envelopes however, in this case, it is a good thing. There is a new section to adjust the decay of the rise so you can have control over the sound dying away, without having to worry about dialing in other settings to make it sound good. The decay has its own Filter and Pitch settings too.

The LFO’s are interesting. It keeps with the theme of separate beginning and end settings, and each LFO has the four basic wave shapes and is tempo-synced. LFO B also has a 5th shape called Pump. There is also a section called Pumper that creates a sidechained feel for the rise, and this too is tempo-synced with 14 different tempo settings and an adjustable Depth. It also comes with an Amp and Panning section.

I should also point out that you can change any curve shape from straight to curved simply by clicking and dragging it. That combined with the fact you can adjust the start and end settings means you have an amazing amount of control. The interface is really well thought out for its simplicity.

Generators

This is the meat of the plugin. There are three different generators – Sweep, Noise, Chord. Each with their own options, The LFO’s affect each via a slider and you can disable sending to a filter on each one. The Chord generator is particularly interesting since it has an option to select Major, Minor, No Third, or Octaves and has options to be either a selection of various Saw waves, or Square waves. And the brightness is adjustable so you can have a riser that is brooding or dark or bright and screaming.

It is also worth pointing out that the rises are automatically tempo-synced no matter what settings you use. It will never end abruptly or sound bad. I intentionally tried strange settings and curves but it always resolved perfectly.

Conclusion

The Riser works well, and it sounds great. It is definitely going to become a staple in my music-making process. The best part is every rise you create will be unique, no more using samples anyone has access to and I highly recommend getting it.

The Riser is available for Mac or PC and in AU, VST and AAX plugin formats and can be used with any DAW such as Ableton Live, Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, Sonar, FL Studio, Reaper, Bitwig Studio and more.

More Details/Buying Options: The Riser