Bristol is an emulation package for a number of different ‘classic’ synthesisers including additive and subtractive and a few organs.
Bristol consists of an audio engine and an associated photo realistic graphical user interface called Brighton.
There are more than 20 different emulations available for a diverse range of vintage synthesisers, electric pianos and organs; each sounds differently, not least due to that the original instruments used different modulations and mod routing. All emulations are available from the same engine, just launch multiple GUIs and adjust the midi channels for multi timbrality and layering.
Bristol Audio Emulations:
- Moog Mini – the renowned 3 oscillator non-modular synthesiser from Moog. Best known at the time on Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and other albums.
- Moog Voyager – the last released Moog synth from the 90’s with extra modulation features but still with the same general capabilities having oscillator/filter/envelope routing.
- Memory Moog – this included the capabilities of the Mini with addition of microprocessor driven memories and 6 voice polyphony.
- ARP Odyssey – Axxe and the Odyssey were competitive to diverse Moog synths.
- ARP 2600 – Axxe and the Odyssey were competitive to diverse Moog synths.
- Mono – the Korg Mono/Poly is a polyphonic hybrid, korg made a number of similar designs. It has 4 oscillators bug a single set of filters and envelopes and a very basic sequencer/arpeggiator.
- Poly – Korg Poly-6 is similar in build to the Mono/Poly, trading in some flexibility for true 6 voice polyphony.
- Korg MS-20 – unfinished emulation of the Korg repatchable synth.
- Prophet-5 – a 5 voice analogue unit.
- Prophet-10 – a 10 voice dual manual monster synth, each keyboard can be a separate synth, the two keyboards can be layered on top of each other or can be played with 10 voice polyphony.
- Prophet-52 – a hybrid of the Prophet-5 adding a stereo flanger to expand the sound dimensions and is specific to bristol.
- OB-X – Oberheims 5 voice competition to the SC Prophet-5, similar to the Oberheim fully modular systems where each voice had its own control panel, however here every voice has the same set of parameters.
- OB-Xa – basically two OB-X systems in a single case.
- Hammond B3 – a tonewheel organ emulator. It can produce all 90 something wheels simultaneously, then each key taps off the required harmonics allowing for some emulated features difficult to reproduce without a bespoke design like bristol.
- Vox – a British classic organ from the 60’s.
- Vox 300 – the dual manual Vox Continental 300/SuperContinental/Continental M-II.
- Rhodes Stage 73 – uses the FM emulator.
- Rhodes Bass Piano – another GUI to the Rhodes.
- DX FM Synthesiser – a full FM synth but takes a few exceptions to the ‘DX’ specification. It implements 6 FM operators but takes slightly different parameterisation.
- Juno-6 – the Roland equivalent to the Korg Poly-6.
- Jupiter-8 – supports 8 voices with split and layer facilities, arpeggiation, sequencing and chording, all emulated here.
- ARP Solina String Machine.
- Crumar Roadrunner Electric Piano – the definitive cheasy 80’s electric piano.
- Crumar Bit-1 – late 6 voice, split/layered synth.
- Crumar Bit-99 – late 6 voice, split/layered synth.
- Crumar Bit-100 – late 6 voice, split/layered synth with bristol modifications.
- Realistic MG-1 ConcertMate – monophonic synth with neopolyphonic organ circuit.
- Synthi Aks – unfinished Synthi Aks.
Website: bristol.sourceforge.net
Support: HOWTO, SourceForge Project Page
Developer: Nick Copeland with contributors
License: GNU General Public License
Bristol is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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