Cherry Audio teams up with Crumar to revive Bob Moog’s designed Spirit Synthesizer as a plugin for your DAW: full review + sound demo.
Robert Arthur Moog, known as Bob Moog, was an electronic music pioneer who passed away almost twenty years ago (August 21, 2005). He is primarily associated with his work and synthesizers, released under the Moog brand, including the Moog Modular, Minimoog, and many more.
There was also one outlier, the unique and weird Italian Crumar Spirit analog Synthesizer, which he designed in the early 80s with Jim Scott and Tom Rhea. In 2023, Crumar released a highly limited reissue of it. To celebrate Bob Moog Appreciation Month, Cherry Audio has teamed up with Crumar to release a Spirit emulation. Here is my review, including a big sound demo.
Disclaimer: Since I’ve never held or played a Crumar Spirit, I can’t say precisely how authentic the plugin is. The rarity (some units in the past and 100 of the reissue) of this instrument makes this situation even more difficult.
Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit
The Cruma Spirit plugin is based on the original vintage hardware designed by Bob Moog in the early 80s. At first glance, the Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit plugin looks like a standard subtractive Synthesizer.
Two oscillators with different shapes (saw, square, triangle), a noise generator, a ring mod and sync, two filters with multiple modes (lowpass, highpass…), two envelopes (filter, amp), an LFO, and more.
It can be used like this, and Cherry Audio has taken this into account in its emulation. It has all the original features, making this possible.
However, the Italian synth and the plugin offer a set of unusual features that make it unique and stand out from other Bob Moog synth creations. One of them is located in the mixer section.
Two Audio Paths
The Crumar Spirit has two different signal paths. The Filter/ADSR Path is the traditional subtractive path through the filter and envelopes. Right next to it is the Shaper Y path, which takes the synth into other, more experimental, weird areas.
The Shaper Y path is a secondary output with the oscillators, ring mod, and noise generator that ignores the filter. It can run freely or be triggered by the keyboard. A highlight of this is the ability to use the envelope shapes that it generates to modulate the modulation.
Via a switch knob in the dedicated Shaper Y section, you can route the loopable and syncable modulation to various parameters, including oscillators or LFO rate. The third mod wheel controls the whole thing and also makes the Crumar Spirit so different.
This second level of sound processor and modulation makes very complex patches possible. From supercharged modulation and dual sounds to evolving rhythmic textures, everything is included. The linked sound demo provides many examples of what’s possible.
Using the modulation matrix (Matrix Z), you can also go beyond the fixed modulatable parameters and assign other parameters to the Shaper Y modulation – nice!
Distinct Filter
The vintage Crumar Spirit also differed sonically from Moog, Roland, and Yamaha synths. This was due to the built-in dual filter, which has a very unique character.
Like the original hardware, there are two filters. The upper section offers a 12dB/24dB lowpass filter, while the lower has a multimode filter with four options: out, overdrive, bandpass, and highpass.
The special colorising feature here is not that you can mix the two filters, but in the fixed formant option in the keyboard tracking option, which adds a vocal-like color to the filter.
Using this extra goodness, the filter and the overall sounds get a very special vocal quality. I can’t say how precisely Cherry Audio implemented it, but I like the way it sounds in the plugin. It’s enjoyable and unique.
New Additions In The Cherry Audio Plugin
As with its other emulations, Cherry Audio hasn’t left the Crumar Spirit plugin with its original feature set. They’ve enhanced it with neat extras.
For example, it’s no longer monophonic, but a polyphonic Synthesizer with up to 16 voices, unison option, and various intriguing voice modes, including cycle, poly, and multi.
Talking about multi. The multi-voice mode lets you add variation and color by altering parameters on a per-note basis, including pitch, pan, cutoff, VCA envelope, attack, and VCA envelope release.
It’s a great feature to create an organic behavior of the voices and to achieve slight or significant differences per voice. And with the possibility to change the note order of the voices (loop, ping-pong…), the whole thing becomes even more flexible.
The original Crumar Spirit had an arpeggiator. The CA plugin also has one, but a more creative and flexible one that makes the original look dated.
A highlight is here the weird Leap mode that takes the notes you’re holding and launches them across a three-step octave pattern. In the test, this mode was the most fun because you could achieve very unexpected results from just three notes.
Alongside this and other modes, you can make them more interesting with swing, change (probability), and feel. Also features that significantly enhance the arpeggiator and make it more inspiring.
Matrix Z & Multi-FX
Another major upgrade is the Matrix Z, a 4-slot modulation matrix that is seamlessly integrated into the UI design of the Crumar Spirit.
It’s a straightforward modulation hub that lets you modulate parameters that weren’t possible with the original hardware, including velocity and polyphonic aftertouch.
Indeed, there is also again the best-known CA multi-FX playground. Unlike the previous Cherry Audio plugin, the ODC-2800, the Crumar Spirit offers two distinct, independent multi-FX processors, one for each signal path.
Each section offers various effects, including multimode distortion, flanger & chorus, echo reverb, envelope filter, and dual phaser. There is also a dedicated multi-wave LFO for each section for animating effects parameters.
I would have liked more freedom with the modulation here, rather than just a fixed mod parameter. Nonetheless, the effects blend beautifully with the Crumar Spirit emulation. The option to turn off individual effects is nice, but unfortunately, you can’t change the order.
They’re high-quality and work well with the plugin. I won’t go into total detail, as I’ve already done this with the ODC-2800 and wouldn’t do it again.
Sound Demo
The Crumar Spirit plugin also comes with a vast number of presets that range from classic bread-and-butter sounds like bass, leads, keys, and pads, but also many unusual, experimental sounds like soundscapes, textures, and sound effects.
If that’s not enough, there’s the Spectres sound library as a separate purchase, which offers even more sound to explore. Here is a sound demo with an overview of my favorite patches from the factory library, showcasing its different characters.
Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit Review Conclusion
With the Crumar Spirit, Cherry Audio has created another great-sounding emulation of a vintage synth. Special praise goes to the developers for also creating emulations of synths that are less well-known and tend to fly under the radar.
The extra features that the developers added to the virtual version make sense and do not detract from the original charm. I can’t vouch for how accurate or authentic the virtual Crumar Spirit sounds. The synth is too rare for that. My sound assessment is based on online sound demos, and in comparison, the plugin reminds me of those sounds in many places.
Cherry Audio offers a cost-effective option for anyone who wants to dive into the Crumar Spirit’s original workflow and lovely “weird” charm.
Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit is available now for $59/59€. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows. The Spectres sound pack by James Dyson is out now as a separate purchase for $9,99/9.99€.
More information here: Cherry Audio
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