Cherry Audio Mercury-6

Mercury-6 is a meticulous recreation of the Jupiter-6 analog synthesizer, just in time for its 40th anniversary! Sandwiched between the earlier Jupiter-4 and Jupiter-8 models in name only, the sophisticated Jupiter-6 has sometimes been considered a sleeper release. These days, it has persevered to become one of Roland’s most notable and coveted classic synthesizers due to its distinctive dark and complex character. Mercury-6 captures all that is exceptional in this treasured polyphonic classic, boosts its extraordinary feature set for today’s DAW production and workflow, and celebrates the ground-breaking innovation from the era that changed music forever. If you’ve long yearned to explore the Jupiter-6, you’ll love Mercury-6!

Cherry Audio’s Mercury-6 captures all that is exceptional in the classic Jupiter-6 and boosts the extraordinary feature set and functionality for today’s DAW production and workflow. We’ve added velocity sensitivity, improved the split mode, and added a layer mode capable of stacking two different sounds simultaneously with per-layer stereo panning, detuning, and sustain. A panel control lets users easily select and navigate between these layers and includes a utility function for exchanging settings between the lower and upper layers, or even between presets. And with polyphony extended to 16 notes, Mercury-6 won’t easily run out of voices.

We’ve reproduced the arpeggiator, including the hidden Down/Up modes of the original, and augmented it by adding a Random mode and MIDI tempo sync. A chord memory mode enables multiple notes to be stored and played back with a single key. We’ve improved the functionality of the LFOs with a retrigger for LFO-1 and an always-on option for LFO-2, both syncable to MIDI tempo.

We’ve also introduced an integrated studio-quality effects panel with brilliant-sounding distortion, phaser, flanger/chorus, delay, and reverb. With additional touches such as per-layer drift control, over 500 expertly designed presets, and flexible MIDI mapping, Cherry Audio’s Mercury-6 brings the authentic Jupiter-6 experience 40 years into the future.

Features

• Highly optimized, massive dual-layer voicing architecture with 16 polyphonic voices per layer. Keyboard split or stacked layer modes allow two simultaneously playable layers, with separate per-layer controls for all parameters, including effects
• Two VCOs per voice with combined waveform capabilities: triangle, ramp sawtooth, noise, and square or variable pulse
• Multimode filter with a 24 dB/oct lowpass, 24 dB/oct highpass, or 12 dB/oct bandpass modes
• Accurate reproduction of the original’s advanced VCO-2 to VCO-1 FM cross-modulation for searing tones
• Precisely implemented portamento and glissando modes
• Exactingly replicated arpeggio section with MIDI tempo sync, the hidden Down/Up mode of the original, and the addition of a Random mode
• Powerful solo and polyphonic unison modes for fat, stacked sounds
• Two tempo-syncable LFOs with extended retrigger functionality
• Per-layer drift control for oscillators and filter frequencies for authentic analog character
• Single-key chord memory mode
• Over 500 presets, created by a talented team of sound design veterans, easily accessible in a convenient preset browser
• Panel Control for selecting layer controls, including extensive utility functions for duplicating and exchanging synthesis and effects parameters between layers and presets.
• Studio-quality integrated effects: distortion, 4/8/12 stage phaser, flanger/chorus, three types of delay with sync, and four types of reverb, with easy-to-access global or layer settings
• Complete MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls, with easy-to-use MIDI learn and mapping (Preset and Global)
• Cherry Audio’s popular Focus zoom-in feature, as well as standard UI zoom and resize via drag
• Complete documentation available directly online from the instrument or in downloadable PDF format
• Highly optimized coding for optimal performance with ultra-low CPU load, and multithreaded processing for presets using Split and Layer modes
• User-adjustable oversampling control