UVI Falcon: A Synthesist’s Playground

Written by Bytemapper

When I think of soft synths, there’s usually the question begged of what exactly is happening under the hood to keep limitations in mind. While things like Softube’s Model 72 sound fantastic, it’s 2024 for the time being, so why keep all the old hardware limitations in check? Some developers get it, like my faves over at Gforce Software and Tofu Audio Line. What if you had a software playground that let you build your dream synth?

Well, the good folks at UVI have an answer for that in Falcon. Falcon has been UVI’s flagship synth for a few years now, and it’s fairly dense subject matter. I’ve been working with it and learning what goes on under the hood for around 10 months now, so this has been a labor of love in the works. 

So, let’s dive in and see if UVI Falcon is worth your hard-earned cash. 

A Learning Curve 

Upon initializing Falcon, you’re greeted with a popup box asking what sort of synth patch you’re looking to create. From there, things get a little more daunting. Falcon’s inner workings are relatively straightforward when you get used to them, but it does have a learning curve. This isn’t as pronounced as creating ensembles from core modules in Reaktor, but the manual is heavily recommended. 

At its core, each sound in Falcon is divided into layers, which are then further divided into key groups. Each key group can span a given range on your MIDI controller of choice, allowing for something dense like a granular pad with a FM layer playing while you’ve got lead sound on top in the upper ranges. 

It isn’t as dense perhaps as navigating the bevy of menus seen on a flagship Roland or Yamaha keyboard workstation, but that isn’t far off the mark. It took some time to dig into what Falcon is capable of, but it was well worth the effort. In my humble opinion it is one of the most flexible and powerful soft synths on the market today. It makes a worthy counterpart to Spectrasonic’s vaunted Omnisphere 2 as well. 

Sound Design Delights 

There is no shortage of synthesis types available in Falcon. You can have it function as an alternative to something like Native Instruments’ Kontakt, layering multiple samples across key zones. Alternatively, you can dive into FM synthesis, granular sound design, additive synthesis, subtractive, and even physical modeling modules based on the Karplus-Strong models for strings and the like. 

The sky is the limit, but that also comes back to the learning curve. You can make just about anything you can imagine with Falcon, from deep undulating neuro basses to sedate and gentle swelling pads right out of a Korg rompler from the 1990s. 

Synthesis models are relatively easy to get to grips with, visualization is downright superb when it gets down to it. Version 3.1 of Falcon also brings a trio of new oscillators. First, a VOSIM oscillator is available for modeling formant noises. This one’s great for designing synthetic voices or just making the strangest cat meowing sounds you’ve heard. Additionally, you’re looking at a bowed string model and a harmonic resonator. 

Effects and Modulation 

Each layer and key group in Falcon has its own set of modulation parameters available. You’ve got your usual suspects like LFOs and envelope generators, but of special note is the more esoteric modulation sources like a drunk LFO. The drunk LFO isn’t just ripped out of its skull on two bottles of brown liquor, but it has a natural jitter to its waveform and phase, allowing for interesting bits of motion to lend an uneasiness to your sources. 

Effects can be applied by key group or by the layer as well, and they’re top notch. You’ve got access to both a convolution and algorithmic reverb that rival most processors I’ve heard in a standalone format. The included delays and other time-based effects are also top-notch, but can be a bit heavy on the old processor. 

I’m running things on a stock M2 from Apple, and more complex patches with tons of effects can readily hit the 50% or higher mark on the CPU meter of Ableton. Reaper is a bit more forgiving in this regard, but that’s beside the point. The effects sound great, but you’ll want to use them cautiously, keep an eye on the meters while doing so. 

How Does It Sound?

Falcon rivals most of the big name soft synths I’ve heard. UVI has a pedigree of sorts when it comes to developing instruments and the tech behind them. Some of the filters present in Omnisphere were originally developed by the team at UVI, just as a basic example. As such, the core sound rivals professional workstation hardware keyboards ranging in the thousands of dollars. 

The modeled analog filters have a sweet warmth to them with the MS-20 and Oberheim inspired filters being strong recommendations to try. The oscillators are also of equal quality, no fizziness or aliasing at the upper registers can be heard by ears or meters at least. It is an instrument designed for a professional in mind, so it gives sounds that are polished, organic, and raw depending on what you’re after. 

Sure, it won’t come with the trappings of something like u-he’s Diva, but it doesn’t need to. If you think of it as something like a Korg Triton married to a Yamaha Motif, you aren’t too far off the mark. It’s glossy and polished with the right processing, but never overly plastic in its tone. 

At its heart, it is a semi-modular workstation with all the benefits and drawbacks that implies. 

Is It Worth the Spend?

With an asking price of $299 and no demo in sight, UVI Falcon is a tall order for the average bedroom producer. However, I do think it is worth the purchase, given a few caveats at least. If you’ve got FOMO like crazy and you’re purchasing every major release on the market today, you probably won’t see much utility in something with such an involved and demanding user experience. 

However, if you take your craft seriously, and let’s face it, most of us do, it is worth the purchase. If you’re just planning to preset surf, go for it, it has some of the best presets I’ve heard out of the box for a soft synth. I could mine it for fodder for DnB, trance, house, and retrosynth with the utmost ease. 

You can’t buy a hardware synth that does what this does for the same price, and that’s worth its weight in gold to me. Falcon hasn’t been a constant companion for most of my work over the last year, but it has made infrequent appearances. It lacks the immediacy and breadth of selection of something like Omnisphere or Diva, but it is vastly more flexible than both.