"The history of Waldorf goes back to PPG, the brainchild of Wolfgang Palm who, in the early 80's, brought wavetable synthesis to the world with the PPG Wave 2.2, 2.3 and the Waveterm--a huge Fairlight CMI-sized contraption. It's hard not to overstate how different-sounding those evolving, digital synths sounded in comparison to the other instruments available at that time.

All of producer Trevor Horn's productions from the early and mid 80's, notably the Frankie Goes to Hollywood records, featured the PPG Wave heavily."

PPG ultimately went out of business and 'passed the torch' along to the newer, more compact and less expensive Sequential Prophet VS, Korg Wavestation, and the nascent Waldorf synth line.

Waldorf's first foray into virtual instruments was years ago with Attack, a drum synthesizer, and a virtual modeled version of the PPG wave 2.3 keyboard.

Gamson continues with:

"So as a huge fan and owner of almost all of those old hardware synthesizers, I was very excited to hear that Waldorf were releasing Largo--a virtual synth that could create all of those wonderful sounds."

Largo is huge, yet the ergonomics are very good and well thought out, making programming your own sound very easy. It has four synth engines--each one has three oscillators, two of these include sub oscillators, two multi-mode filters with variable drive (overdrive) algorithms, a complete modulation matrix, an arpeggiator, and two digital effect sections.

These four synth engines run as independent synths, accessible via MIDI channels 1-4 and route out of four separate stereo outputs or, in "layer" mode, function as one giant synth where all sounds are accessible via MIDI channel 5, are mixed together and then routed out of one stereo output.

The oscillators produce any of the four basic analog waveforms: pulse, square, sawtooth, and sine--(sweepable via assorted modulation sources) so immediately Largo can function as a classic virtual analog synth. There are also 68 wavetables (also sweepable via modulation sources) taken from all the Waldorf synths. This gives you an incredible palette of sound.

Gamson continues with:

"I found the filters to be among the best sounding filters I've yet heard in a virtual synth! Essentially using Largo is like playing and programming a Blofeld synth only as a plug-in. And Largo has something that Blofeld doesn't: a stepped LFO.

Once I got my hands on Largo I started replacing things in the track I had been working on. I downloaded some PPG presets that someone had posted at KVR Audio and used a lush PPG pad to replace a much less interesting synth I already had. It completely brought back memories of using the Wave 2.3. But in this case, since LFOs can be synced to the host clock, I was able to easily add movement to the pad that was perfectly matched to my track.

I also used one of the aggressive sounding bass patches in the basic Largo patch set to double my bass part. The bottom end sounds big and deep yet really clearly defined.

To these ears, Largo nails the Waldorf sound better than anything I have heard in a plug-in. Huge, in your face sounds from beautiful evolving pads to greasy leads. All the sounds have tons of character making Largo a no brainer for any one interested in adding a virtual 'legion' of synth sounds to their synthesizer army."