New free synth: CMP100 by Electronik Soundlab

Fans of retro obscurity will love this new VST from Electronik Sound Lab. CMP100 is a sample-based plugin based on an obscure tape-recorder and groovebox from Philps. Not many people remember the PMC-100 but for those that do, this brings the sounds, if not the experience, of the 1986 FM-based portable instrument.

Electronik Soundlab CMP100: quick review

Joining a broad collection of sample-based plugin instruments, the CMP100 is donationware – but you can have it for nothing, just a signup. It’s a drag and drop install with 36 sounds and basic filtering and shaping features added over the samples.

The graphics are simple, so using the sample-shaping controls is intuitive, and the manual reflects that minimalism with just a single page of instructions. Confusingly, you can see the PMC-100’s controls as part of the backdrop, but they’re just a graphic.

No effort has been made to recreate the multi-timbral sequences from the PMC-100’s 11-voice polyphonic architecture, the tape or chord/real-time sequencing capability, so this is a long way from being a virtual copy of the Philips original. When robust, well-documented emulations of the OPL2, OPLL and OPL3 chips exist, the presets and filtering are unremarkable, and what would make a good PMC-100 VST would be a proper emulator.

However, while I’m a little confused as to why anyone would want this, don’t let me stop you enjoying it. If you’ve never heard the quirky Philips progenitor of devices like the Teenage Engineering OP-1 – well, now you have.

How to get CMP100

It’s free, so don’t get derailed by plugin-host spam sites – download CMP100 directly from Electronik Soundlab. They’d probably appreciate you checking out their paid products, too…

What about the Philips PMC-100?

I owned one of these, and I’m not going to beat about the bush – it was a real waste of a concept, from any objective viewpoint. The two-op FM sound was borrowed straight from the cheapest PSS home keyboards, the membrane keybord was awful, and the tape deck features were simply not very good. What’s the point of having a walkman-like groovebox if you can’t multi track or even overdub a recording – though, you can record a sequence in memory while playing over a pre-recorded tape.

A 1986 music sequencer without MIDI made little sense either, and the sequences were hard to program – chords are a multi-step process to program into the step sequencer, while the realtime sequencer is monophonic and you only have one out of the 11-voice polyphony to use with the unresponsive membrane keys. Attempting to squeeze backing and melody from, such a weak sound engine without any form of multi-track ability was always going to be a failed enterprise.

This particular OPLL chip – the Sharp MS1823 – allows six voices plus five for rhythm sounds (as a derivative of the YM2413, it’s actually nine voices, three of which are shared with the five-voice rhythm generator).

Yet it focused the mind somewhat if you wanted to make music, and it was a fairly decent ’80s retro accessory to carry about, particularly in the striking white and pastel finish.

What does it sound like? Pretty much like the cheapest AdLib soundcard from the PC era. Not that this is a bad thing – musicians such as Stéphane Picq (with Philippe Ulrich) achieved incredible things with those old Yamaha OPL chips.

Can you get an emulated Philips PMC-100?

Not yet, but you can choose from several emulations of Yamaha’s OPL/FM synthesis technology – and not just the legendary DX7 synths. Free options include ADLPlug and OPNPlug, twinned open source projects based on various console and chip emulators, and for a paid, powerful VST look to Plogue sound technologies’ PortaFM. It recreates the same chip used in the PMC-100 with, more presets and powerful control to get the very best out of the 2op FM architecture without losing the unique ’80s sound.

It’s not particularly expensive, and you can download a free trial of Porta FM on Plogue’s website.

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