Gforce

THIS IS A TALE ABOUT THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF MUSICAL PASSIONS RATHER THAN ANY ATTEMPT TO BUILD A BUSINESS EMPIRE. AND IT’S BEEN THAT WAY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.

Beginning? Perhaps, we should say ‘beginnings’. Dave Spiers and Chris Macleod (that’s us) started GMedia Music in 2000. The next beginning was the formation of GForce Software Ltd 2003. We’d spent most of our working lives in the music industry, and the aim of the new company was simply to create products we needed for our own uses. With an emphasis on vintage synthesizer modelling, GForce Software has always worked with independent developers who share our love of music. Our sole aim is to offer the highest audio quality products in the virtual instrument arena. (Actually, thinking about it, our other sole aim is to deliver a level of service that leaves every single customer with a smile on their face. Not too hard when you truly love what you do.)

All our virtual instruments have been individually engineered, without relying upon core code libraries, to ensure unique and authentic character. They take the spirit of the original instrument and add features that enhance the user-experience in the software environment.

Our first product was the M-Tron, an emulation of the classic hardware tape playback instrument, the Mellotron®. We launched it at a time when the sounds of the hardware original were as out of fashion as the mullet.

Yet, even though the M-Tron was originally only made for the benefit of our musician friends, once word of its existence got out, the phone started ringing with requests to make it commercially available. The M-Tron was followed by the Oddity. This was another emulation of a vintage instrument, created in league with Ohm Force and using state-of-the-art component modelling technology to achieve the most realistic analogue synthesizer sound possible. Next, together with long-term work colleague and fellow GForce associate, Jon Hodgson, we developed the virtual OSCar synthesiser. The impOSCar (naming our instruments is one of the bits we love best) was recognised as a milestone in virtual synthesis development. The filters have been praised by the intelligentsia and, on the strength of audio demos alone, they were licensed to fellow plug-in supremos, Spectrasonics. As a result, Stylus RMX and Omnisphere now contain a variant of the impOSCar filters.

The next chapter? We believe we have a responsibility to keep striving to be different; to do things with software synthesis that have never been done before. Just like the hardware synthesis pioneers who brought us all these tools that still truly inspire us.