Looks great! Will most likely wait for the Usual Suspects iteration of the synth, but yeh... hope this one is sweet.

 

I purposefully stated both 'commercial' and 'released' for that explicit exemption.

 

@adamszabo Happy about your release, another gem in this era.
PS1: I wish you the best of luck with the sales.
PS2: I love you. ❤️

 

Just watched the comparison video and have to agree that it is close but, no cigar. The Roland just sounds more rich & open. Even for patches where the Szabo version had slightly more low or high end.

 

Here is the text from the Adam Szabo newsletter email:

After three years of development, I’m pleased to introduce Airwave.

Airwave brings the essence of a truly iconic synthesizer into a modern production environment. Its synthesis architecture has been meticulously recreated and modeled to capture the depth and nuance of the original instrument.

The dual-layer design allows the Upper and Lower layers to be shaped independently for detailed sound design and rich, layered textures. With extensive modulation options and versatile multi-mode filters, Airwave offers both authenticity and flexibility.

It also supports loading patches from the original hardware, ensuring seamless access to classic sounds!

Airwave is now available as a 32-bit and 64-bit VST 2.4 and VST 3 instrument for Windows at: www.adamszabo.com

You can watch the introduction video on YouTube or by clicking the header image.
Thank you for your continued support, I look forward to hearing what you create with it!

 

Last edited: Nov 21, 2025

Airwave Overview

Step into the golden era of electronic music with Airwave, a meticulously crafted VST plugin that brings the unmistakable sound of one of the most iconic synthesizers of all time. Revered for its lush supersaw leads, ethereal pads, and driving basslines, this synth was a defining force in the trance, progressive, and electronic music movements. Now, with Airwave, that iconic sound is reborn, modernized for today’s producers while staying true to its original character.

At the heart of Airwave is its dual-layer architecture, allowing for intricate sound sculpting and massive stacked tones. Independently shape the Upper and Lower layers, blending evolving pads with sharp, detuned leads or creating complex, rhythmic textures. The deep modulation capabilities and multi-mode filters give you total control over your sound.

Feature Highlights

Iconic Oscillators
Faithful Supersaw for massive unison stacks and polyphonic Feedback Oscillator.

Advanced Synthesis
Aggressive sync sweeps, expressive FM tones, and shimmering ring-mod textures in one powerful engine.

Integrated Effects
Accurately modelled Super Chorus, Flangers, Phasers, Delay plus a new Reverb missing from the original.

Analog Modelled Filter
Smooth, resonant, and musical, just like the hardware.

Stay sharp
Modern scalable vector UI for all screen sizes.

Hardware Patch Import
Load presets and soundbanks made for the original hardware line.

Airwave is available as a 32 and 64-bit VST 2.4 and VST 3 instrument for Windows.

More info:
https://www.adamszabo.com/vstplugins/airwave/

 

Last edited: Nov 21, 2025

could not been better.

 

In the comparison video preset 1979!, Hard Sync and Unison Bass sound different from original, not in a subtle way. Other presets are pretty much indistinguishable, other like 98/99% there.

I hoped this would be spot on because I always care for CPU efficiency but in this case for now I will opt for JE8086 even if it's very CPU hungry on my system because it sounds exactly like the OG, which is the purpose of an emulation/clone of a synth.

Maybe he rushed the release before JE8086 will be released to the public and now he will refine some aspect till it sounds the same as original but for now it's very close if not spot on on some sounds but not in others.

All the best to the developer!

 

The question is, airwave better than arturia JP8?

 

Yes. Arturia sucks vagina.

 

much better sound. amazing reverb and delays! even looks better

 

Looks like finally making a proper fully fledged version of his JP6K synth, which was (and still is) amazing and largely based on this hardware synth.

 

How do the other Roland JP-8000 emulations sound? I've made 3 free sound sets:

The Sound Energy Soundset by Sonic Sirius for the Arturia Jup 8000 VSTi

The Star Sky Soundbank by Abc Sound Design for the Adam Szabo - JP6K VSTi

The Energy Waves Soundbank by Che for the BeepStreet - Sunrizer VSTi

Free Download: https://ohlenbostelhelge.wixsite.com/sonic-sirius-sound-d

 

Three in a row now. Best 69 bucks I’ve blown on a plugin in ages. Thanks @adamszabo!

 

The sound is 98% the DSP that runs on the chip and is baked into the ROM. the ROM has to sound indistinguishable. if there was something iffy in the emulation of the Usual Suspects modelling of the DSP chips the ROM's simply would not run because of the accumulator or runtime or a number of other things that you cannot model. the last 2% is the DAC and reconstruction filter and whilst you wont get the exact sound of the DAC or the reconstruction filter being used on the actual device, you can get that last 2% doing a loopback through DAC that will allow you to do that. no shade on Adam, but Airwave sounds like a Flowstone plugin, but like somebody else already pointed out, he has the lower CPU usage in his favour assuming his discrete blocks are optimised

This is contrarian for the sake of contrarian. the ROM IS THE SYNTH warts and all. 16bit fixed point machine code you simply cannot model on a Native CPU with any degree of accuracy

 

I have his Viper plugin and love it, ever since he updated it to version 1.2.1 the differences in comparison to the 'real' (OsTIrus) version are either negligible or inaudible for me. And it feels nice to own a 'lawful good' version of the Virus in VST form

 

Yes. both is good

 

Finally, someone who looks and listens closely. I feel the same way; the Flowstone engine is clear and a bit thin. Even the old SynthEdit VSTs sound warmer and more powerful. The Viper—also Flowstone—can also produce good sounds, but it's not a Virus clone. I think the team "The Usual Suspects" will go down in history, and for free.

I made two Viper sound sets; I also once owned a real Virus TI desktop.
I created this sound set to have better presets that I like. Have a listen to how Flowstone Viper sounds:

The Signal System Soundset by Sonic Sirius for the Adam Szabo Viper VSTi

Free Download: https://ohlenbostelhelge.wixsite.com/sonic-sirius-sound-d

 

Well, yes but not exactly. A ROM can run fine but still sound a bit off, and that happens a lot with device emulation. Even though the chip’s mostly emulated, it’s still just an interpretation of commands for other processors. You can’t always get a perfect match, so you need workarounds. It’s really down to the programmer understanding it properly, figuring out the quirks, and implementing them. That’s why, for different chips, you end up with a few emulations that work better or worse, run at different speeds, and so on

 

Can you code your own algorithms in Flowstone or you have to use ready-made blocks that come with it? I don't know anything about Flowstone really. Not to take anything away from the efforts that went into making this synth, I am sure it is a monumental task to build synth emulation in Flowstone, maybe even so if you're limited only to ready-made "blocks" that come with it.