Three vintage synth emulations dropped this week covering Roland, Casio and a rare 1978 Italian polysynth, plus a MIDI-controlled polyphonic filter and a preset expansion for a free delay plugin. Here is what came out and whether it is worth your attention.
TAL-J8X: JX-8P Emulation with MPE and Sysex Import
TAL Software released TAL-J8X, targeting Roland's JX-8P, the six-voice polysynth Roland produced from 1985 to 1987. The JX-8P uses DCO-based oscillators, which gives it more tuning stability than earlier analog polysynths while keeping a warmth that later FM instruments lack. It shows up throughout mid-1980s pop production in pads, brass stabs and string patches.
TAL's emulation covers the rev 2/OS 3.1 hardware variant and reads sysex files from the original hardware, so existing JX-8P, JX-10 and MKS-70 patch libraries import directly. This matters more than it might seem: there are large online libraries of community-shared JX-8P sysex data, and accessing them immediately makes the plugin useful without building a preset collection from scratch. The plugin ships with 600+ presets from Electric Himalaya, Saif Sameer, Sound Author and others.
Beyond the original circuit: MPE support for per-note pitch and pressure expression, a self-oscillating modern filter mode that the hardware cannot do, and built-in EQ, delay and reverb. Microtuning via .tun file import rounds out the additions.
TAL plugins are consistently well-regarded for their accuracy and low CPU footprint. The J8X follows that pattern.
Price: $55.20 intro (normally $69, both net plus VAT) until April 30. Available as VST, VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP on macOS, Linux and Windows.
Good for: JX-8P hardware territory without hardware hunting. Particularly useful if you have existing sysex patch collections.
UVI Vintage Casio Legacy: Phase Distortion Synthesis on Six Instruments
Part of UVI's Vintage Vault 5 release, Vintage Casio Legacy covers six Casio synthesizers from the 1980s. The engine of interest here is Phase Distortion synthesis, Casio's method for generating complex waveforms by warping the phase of a sine wave rather than using traditional oscillator stacking. Casio developed Phase Distortion specifically to work around Yamaha's FM synthesis patents, which Stanford licensed from John Chowning in 1973 and which Yamaha had just brought to market with the DX7 in 1983. The result sits between FM and wavetable with its own character: bright, slightly metallic, with a particular kind of movement in the upper harmonics.
Instruments like the CZ-101 are underrepresented in software. Most vintage synthesis libraries focus on Moog, Oberheim, Roland and Sequential Circuits. Casio's professional instruments from this period do not have many dedicated software counterparts, which makes this collection more useful as a sound palette than yet another variant on already well-covered hardware.
Vintage Vault 5 as a whole covers five decades of synthesis. If you own any previous version, the upgrade pricing is straightforward.
Price: Vintage Casio Legacy standalone: $199. Vintage Vault 5 intro: $299 until April 27, then $499. Upgrade from any previous Vintage Vault version: $149 until April 27.
Good for: Phase Distortion sounds, Casio CZ-series territory, rounding out a vintage synthesis library with hardware that is not already everywhere.
Cherry Audio Crumar DS-2: Paraphonic Architecture from 1978
Cherry Audio's April release emulates the Crumar DS-2, a synthesizer from Italian manufacturer Crumar released in 1978. The original hardware is rare enough that most producers have never encountered one. Its architecture is the interesting part: it pairs a monophonic synth section with a paraphonic polyphonic section that routes all active voices through a single shared filter and envelope.
Paraphonic architecture means when you play a chord, notes at different stages of their attack all pass through the same filter simultaneously. The filter opening does not happen per-voice but for all voices at once, and notes that triggered at different times are at different envelope positions when they share that filter state. The result is a kind of harmonic smear on chords that true polyphony does not produce, and which is difficult to replicate convincingly with modern fully-polyphonic instruments.
The DS-2 used DCOs in 1978, which was ahead of most of its competition at the time. Cherry Audio's emulation extends the original with unison and multi-voice modes for the mono section, full 32-voice polyphony for the poly section, and a keyboard split mode.
Price: $59. VST, VST3, AU and AAX on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows. Cherry Audio does not offer Linux builds.
Good for: Paraphonic synthesis exploration, vintage Italian analog character, obscure hardware sounds at an accessible price. The $59 price point is notably low for the specificity of what it emulates.
BLEASS Peaks: MIDI-Controlled Polyphonic Filter
BLEASS Peaks is built around a multi-peak filter with up to 32 resonant peaks or notches. In standard mode it shapes audio as a complex EQ. In MIDI mode, the filter's root frequency tracks incoming MIDI notes and generates up to eight simultaneous filter voices, each pitched to a MIDI note. You play the filter the way you play a synth.
The practical effect is harmonic filtering that responds to performance. Automating a filter cutoff and playing MIDI into a polyphonic filter are different operations: automation describes a trajectory over time, while MIDI input creates harmonic relationships between the filter resonances and whatever pitch content you play. The two approaches produce different results with the same source material.
The modulation section includes three LFOs, three envelopes with follower functionality and four macro controls, plus a five-slot multi-FX chain.
Price: $49. VST3, AU and AAX on macOS, Windows and iOS.
Good for: Harmonic filtering, performance-oriented spectral shaping, any context where you want filter character that tracks pitch rather than a fixed curve.
Also This Week
GS DSP Quantum Delay Lite (free) received 40 new presets from sound designer Jakob Haq as part of the 2026.2 update on April 15. Haq's design approach leans on evolving textures and deliberate modulation, which contrasts with most factory preset packs that rely on static rhythmic patterns. The paid Quantum Delay got the same preset pack plus user-saveable custom LFO curves that share across GS DSP plugins. Free, VST3/AU/AAX on macOS, Windows and iOS.