reFX Nexus 4:5 - the ROMpler opens up

[Guy Rowland]

I never thought I'd see the day. The release last year of Nexus 4.0 was the dampest of all damp squibs, a few new patches and cosmetic changes for a $99 upgrade. Now comes the free update 4.5, and it's like it's a new synth. In fact, it's like it's a SYNTH!



The whole architecture has opened up to fully access the wavetables, samples and oscillators and all the associated controls. There's the mod matrix, filters and envelopes. There's a new routing / mixer page for quick edits, an FX page with drag and drop re-ordering, a new black hole reverb (noting Eventide's product has now achieved the status of Auto-tune or Hoover as a branded term so ubiquitous it becomes short hand for everyone), exporting of ARP patterns to a DAW, right click midi learn and 70 new presets.

The public reaction - and I strongly suspect sales figures - to 4.0 was so dire I think reFX realised they had to up their game in order to survive.

This is a "soft launch". My upgrade price from 3 is £110 (partly due to the terrible exchange rate). with the Christmas sale not far away I'll wait for that, but respect where it is due. This is as close as we'll ever come to reFX saying the word they never use - "sorry".

[Arcana]

As a big fan of Avenger who never got his hands on Nexus, this does sound like a really powerful bunch of new features, that brings it beyond the basic rompler status.

But IRRC even the christmas sale offers miniscule discounts for Nexus, right? Like 20% of so, right? Hard to get on board, when so many other synths are 50% off