UVI’s UVX-3P – Review

In the first days of 1984, I started at, what was to be, my third and final high school in as many years. Circumstance had led me to make and remake friends more often than most kids, at what is normally a difficult time to do such a thing. And, because of this, I often found myself in the school library, tucked away in a corner, reading a book. This third high school had a very nice and modern library that contained some great books, and one that stood out for me was a big, glossy tome entitled “The Synthesizer and Electronic Keyboard Handbook” by David Crombie. It had, on its cover, a picture of a Roland Saturn 09, hardly their finest creation, but the Roland styling of the time made it look nice. It also had a foreword by Thomas Dolby which piqued my interest even further. Sadly, it was a “reference” book, so I could never take it home, hence my squirreling away in the corner of the library most lunchtimes to read this book. It was full of pictures or synthesizers and it was pretty much gear porn for a young kid like me. I would go through the book, picking out which synths I wanted, based not on their sonic potential, but more about how cool they looked. And one always looked really cool to me because it was this lovely combination of black and red, with futuristic looking buttons and a cool name. That synth was the Roland JX-3P.

The JX-3P was Roland’s attempt at not only simplifying analogue synthesis, but making it even more affordable to the masses. The Jupiter 8 was a behemoth beyond the wallets and comprehension of most burgeoning synth kiddies like me. But this little beauty was far more accessible, without stripping away all the good stuff Roland was known for, sound-wise.

Image courtesy of http://www.vintagesynth.com

As with most, if not all, keyboards of desire, I never got to own one. But now, thanks to the guys and gals at UVI, I can finally get to play with the sounds via their new instrument, the UVX-3P.

In recent months, UVI have released a wealth of instruments and, quite often, collections of instruments that seek to emulate, in sound more than architecture, the great synths of the 70’s and 80’s. And they’ve done a sterling job! They’ve taken the sonic essence, replicated it with immaculate samples and wrapped them up in delicious user interfaces that follow a common yet entirely functional and intuitive theme. They’ve never set out to faithfully recreate the machines that inspire each of these libraries. These aren’t virtually modelled emulations, but they contain a huge wealth of the classic sounds that made them once so desirable and also brought them bang up to date with a host of modern and relevant patches to suit today’s musicians needs. And the UVX-3P follows suit.

Visually, there is no mistaking the inspiration behind this synth. The buttons and nomenclature are faithfully recreated here. But it still uses the tried and tested UVI workflow which makes all of their offerings much more easy to use and instantly familiar. All the usual suspects are here, but dressed up in JX-3P-esque styling. There are two pages, Edit And Mod. These offer up main editing functions and LFO modulation options respectively, the latter offering a neat little 16 step sequencer to enhance the modulation further. The Arp button utilises the built in arpeggiation features of the UVI Workstation or MOTU’s MachFive 3, both of which support this library.

The first thing you notice about this instrument is how full-on analogue it sounds. They’ve really captured the power of Roland’s analogue synthesis engine of the time. And when it comes to the sounds, UVI have grouped them up in a typical style, covering everything from arps, basses, bells, keys, strings and sweeps to FX sounds and 2 banks covering the original JX-3P presets and a bank containing samples of the raw waveforms too. It’s a pretty comprehensive package. Sadly, this instrument doesn’t feature the same waveform layering options offered in other UVI instruments such as the CS-M and Synthox, but if you’re using the magnificent MOTU MachFive 3 sampler, this can be circumvented by using the deep processing tools held within.

There are 168 presets delivered here, all of which use over 6,700 samples. That gives you an idea of the quality and detail used in the creation of the instrument. And the whole package weighs in at 6GB. Best of all, it’s a mere $99. This gives you a heck of a lot of bang for your buck. And UVI have continued their laudable trend of offering a free demo version for you to try. Simply grab this and a copy of their free workstation app and you’ll be experiencing the UVX-3P in no time.

I’ve often been accused of being unfairly biased in favour of UVI and all they do, which is not true. The simple fact is that they consistently and continuously produce great sounding instruments that are not only highly useable but sound amazing too. The UVX-3P is no exception. If you want affordable, powerful and instantly gratifying analogue sounds in your production, you could do far, far worse than choosing this instrument.

Here are some demos for you and there’ll be a video review in the near future!

UVX-3P is available now from uvi.net for $99/€99, as a download or physical product.

Download the free demo version HERE