Reveal Sound Spire v1.5.20.5390 [WiN]

• Product: Spire
• Developer: Reveal Sound
• Version: 1.5.20.5390
• Format: VST, VST3, AAX, CLAP
• Requirements: Windows 7 or later
• Source: reveal-sound.com/plug-ins/spire

Spire v1.5.20 is a polyphonic hybrid synthesizer from Reveal Sound, combining four multimode oscillators with nine-voice unison stacking, two multimode filters, a 15-slot modulation matrix, and built-in effects including a dedicated X-Comp multiband compressor. It sits as an instrument track generating leads, plucks, pads, and basses across trance, EDM, and related electronic genres. This build is a stability release rather than a feature update, fixing a waveform display glitch and reducing CPU spikes without adding new oscillator, filter, or effects types to the underlying engine.

Key Takeaway

The core value is a dense four-oscillator, dual-filter engine with a 15-slot modulation matrix and built-in mastering-style compression, all inside one instrument. Spire has no global pan channel and doesn’t respond to MIDI note pan — stereo placement runs through DAW automation instead, and panning that does exist happens before the onboard delay and reverb.

Four Oscillators, Seven Generator Types

Each of Spire’s four oscillators selects independently from seven generator types — Classic, Noise, Frequency Modulated, AMSync, SawPWM, HardFM, and Vowel — rather than sharing one waveform algorithm across all four. That per-oscillator generator choice is what gives the instrument its wave morphing character, a wavetable-like sound built on subtractive synthesis fundamentals rather than pure sample-based wavetable playback.

A unison engine stacks up to nine voices on each oscillator independently, with those voices distributable by chords or octaves rather than only detuned copies of the same pitch — that chord-distribution option lets a single oscillator generate a supersaw- or hypersaw-style stack without needing four separate oscillators tuned to different chord tones manually.

Two Filters, Six Characters Each

Two multimode filters each switch between six filtering characters — Perfecto, Infecto, Acido, Scorpio, Combo, and Shaper — spanning both analog-modeled and digital filtering types rather than committing to one filter topology for the whole instrument. Running both filters with independent character selection on each lets a patch combine two distinct filter behaviors rather than cascading two instances of the same curve.

Each filter’s character selection changes resonance behavior and self-oscillation threshold differently — Acido’s more aggressive resonance character behaves differently under the same cutoff sweep than Perfecto’s smoother curve, so switching a filter’s character mid-patch changes more than tone color alone; it changes how the filter responds to modulation sweeping across it.

Fifteen Slots, Two Sources Apiece

The modulation matrix runs 15 slots, each accepting two modulation sources routed to four targets simultaneously, on top of four dedicated Macros, four Envelopes, and four LFOs with morphing waveform shapes available as sources. That slot count and per-slot source-and-target multiplicity is large enough to route several modulation ideas simultaneously without one LFO or envelope needing to cover more than its own specific job.

Two Steppers and a built-in Arpeggiator sit alongside that matrix as rhythmic modulation and note-generation tools, both assignable into the same matrix as additional sources — a stepper sequence can modulate filter cutoff on one target while simultaneously driving amplitude on another, rather than being limited to controlling pitch or gate timing alone.

X-Comp Sees Only Spire’s Output

The effects processor covers Shaper/Decimator, Phaser/Vowel, Chorus/Flanger, Delay, and Reverb inside the plugin itself, keeping a full sound-shaping chain available without leaving Spire for outboard plugins on simple patches. X-Comp, a multiband compressor, sits alongside a 3-band EQ as a dedicated mastering-style stage for gluing and fattening the instrument’s own output before it reaches the DAW’s mixer.

Running X-Comp and the 3-band EQ inside the instrument rather than after it on the channel strip means that shaping happens ahead of anything else on the same track — a producer wanting to compress the combined result of Spire alongside other layered elements on the same channel still needs a separate compressor downstream, since X-Comp only sees Spire’s own output in isolation.

Panning Happens Before the Effects

Spire has no global pan channel and doesn’t respond to MIDI note pan values, so stereo placement across a patch has to be handled through a DAW’s own automation lane rather than a control inside the plugin itself. A part that needs to pan across the stereo field over time gets that movement from host automation targeting Spire’s output, not from a panning parameter inside the instrument.

Panning that does exist inside Spire’s signal path happens before the onboard delay and reverb, so a pan move doesn’t carry through into how the effects tail sits in the stereo field — widening or narrowing the reverb’s own stereo image after a pan adjustment needs an external plugin placed after Spire, since the internal effects processed the signal before that pan position was set.

Stability Fixes, Same Sound Engine

Version 1.5.20’s changelog lists improved overall stability, a fix to a visual glitch in the waveform displays, minor optimizations reducing CPU spikes, and memory leak fixes aimed at long-session reliability — no new oscillator types, filter characters, or effects arrived with this specific build. The underlying sound engine in 1.5.20 is the same one described across Spire’s feature set generally.

Spire’s CPU load sits below Xfer Serum’s but above Lennar Digital Sylenth1’s on comparable patches, and the free demo runs the full feature set with one limitation — an audible noise burst every 30 seconds until a purchased license key is activated. A producer evaluating CPU headroom or sound character through the demo hears the same engine 1.5.20 ships with, interrupted periodically until the license goes in.

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