Plans for Mirage sample-based synth in 2020

Happy new year! … It’s rather late to be saying that I know. In this blog post, I’d like to write a little bit about what I hope to bring you in 2020.

Last year was almost entirely devoted to developing my new sampler engine, Mirage. The first library to use this engine, Wraith, was launched back in October. It turned out to be largely a success. This year I’m going to focus on creating more Mirage libraries and develop Mirage into what I envision it to be. But first, let me share a little context on what Mirage is.

What is Mirage?

Mirage is a sample-based synthesiser engine which hosts specially designed sample libraries. These libraries are just files that contain sounds and how they should be laid out as playable instruments. Such instruments could be anything from multi-sampled real instruments to just single synth samples. Libraries can be purchased from the FrozenPlain store. However, the Mirage engine is not an additional cost- you will receive it in the installer along with the library.

The Mirage engine is something that can be updated, new features can be added, and improvements made. However, Mirage will always be backwards compatible. Presets or DAW projects made using an old version of Mirage will work perfectly fine in future versions. This means you never need to worry about losing anything when updating the engine. And if you don’t want to update for any reason, it will not be forced upon you.

The structure of the engine is designed for rapid sound design and ease of use. Instruments can be loaded into one of 3 independent sound layers. Each layer has its own set of controls such as a volume envelope, filters, EQ, loop settings, LFO and much more. These layers are then combined and are processed by a built-in rack of effects including reverb, delay, distortion and more.

Mirage roadmap for 2020

I think this engine has a lot of potential. I’d like to see Mirage with a vast selection of libraries designed for it. Each library would have a multitude of professionally designed presets, all of which can be simply loaded from the GUI. In addition, I want there to be free updates to the engine (as often as I can do them), such as brand new features, new effects, new filters and improvements to the GUI and usability. And I hope such features will partly be in response to your feedback.

Wraith was just the first. Next, I’d like to move my existing Kontakt libraries into Mirage, and I’ve already begun work on brand new sound-sets and working with more talented sound designers. What types of libraries or features would you like to see?

I hope that you are interested in what you’ve read about here, and I hope this year to make products that inspire you and allow you to write faster and easier.