Cherry Audio has releases another cool synth plugin: The Mercury 6
…which is an improved clone of the “Jupiter 6” which was built by Roland back in the 80s.
They offer this plugin for an introductory price of $49 (instead of $69).
Since i meanwhile evolved to some kind of Cherry-Audio-Addict, i couldn’t resist and bought it…
And even if i just began to play through the sounds (there are about 500) and only arriving at “B” (alphabetically), i would like to recommend this synth already at this point… almost every patch i tried so far is playable and sounds quite nice to my ears. (I don’t get paid to say this, btw).
CPU wise it’s not overly hungry… it brings my PC to about 13% (GP meter)
…looking forward to what’s awaiting me for the rest of the alphabet.
I tried it out immediately, too.
However, soundwise I was not as impressed as when testing and buying Elka-X last year. For the later, I think the presets are much more elaborately programmed than for the Mercury-6 release.
Considering the architecture, they are quite similar virtual-analog poly-synths.
I like the iconic GUI of the old Roland, having owned a Juno-106 as my first synth back in the mid-eighties, and playing the Jupiter-6 (which I couldn’t afford) for hours in the local music store.
CPU load of the Mercury-6 is low, especially compared to the Elka-X.
Already having Elka-X, the Mercury-6 adds no significant sound possibilities, I think. But well, I love the GUI, so …
I have the DCO-106 and find it to be somewhat CPU intensive. I will say the sounds are very good in this synth emulation. I also have the Miniverse, but I find it far more niche for my rig.
Most of my synth work is handled by AIR Music’s xPand2!, Hybrid 3, and VacuumPro. But, I’m always on the hunt for new sounds so might have to give the mercury a try.
How are the AIR VIs holding up? I have most of theirs, but none have been updated since the '21 Win10 tweaks. None are scalable. A couple are readable on a 4K display. A couple of others are more problematic for these old eyes.
I’m running them on a Win 11 system without too much issue. You are right in that the UI/UX doesn’t scale at all. I will say that the CPU usage for them is exceptionally low on my system.
I mainly use them to build out synth leads, some polysynths, and pads. I also have the Velvet VST and it still sounds really good. My only complaint on that one is that it can sound muddy – but nothing a little EQ won’t fix.
