Legend HZ review: Superb Minimoog emulation with the backing of Hans Zimmer

Synapse Audio’s The Legend HZ offers Minimoog emulation with unmatched sound quality, a versatile feature set, and very much star name backing.

Synapse Audio’s The Legend HZ accurately simulates the circuits of Minimoog Early and Late models. It has an 8x oversampled engine, a vectorised core (Unison, Mono, and four voice Polyphony modes), six oscillators, Hans Zimmer’s personal Vintage 914 Fixed Filterbank, and 213 patches made in cooperation with Zimmer in addition to the 440 presets from the previous The Legend plugin.

The Legend is recognised by many to be one of the best Minimoog emulations on the market. The Legend HZ, however, is in a class of its own. For example, of its six oscillators two can be used as LFOs with additional polyphony settings to match, it has an extensive modulation matrix, a 32-step sequencer, four MSEGs, and an expanded effects section.

If you want to go beyond the limits of the machine and still generate the typical Minimoog sound, e.g. for diving deeper into cinematic sound design, you’ll find the plugin will effortlessly take you into the realm of sounds like the ones Vangelis created for Blade Runner on an entirely different synth than the ones we hear in They shoot horses, don’t they?.

When initialising The Legend, the first thing I heard was — as I had with Synapse Audio’s flagship synth DUNE 3.6 — this ultra-clean, ultra-neutral sound from which you start creating your own patches. The eye, on the other hand, sees an impeccable, beautiful interface. To accommodate all the features, The Legend uses a front and back panel with several ways to switch between them, so it won’t interrupt your creative flow.

The controls are all simulating analogue knobs, clearly laid out, beautifully designed and accompanied by analogue looking switches. The whole interface gives excellent visual feedback and makes spending time with the plugin an almost guilty pleasure.

Of course I had to go through all of the patches Kevin Schroeder created in cooperation with Hans Zimmer. It came as no surprise that most of them are perfect fits for recalling atmospheres and emotions beyond what you’d expect from presets that are suitable for pure music playing. Creating your own patches, is a pleasure and if you know digital synths — certainly if you know Synapse Audio’s flagship synth, DUNE — you’ll be creating beautiful Moog signature stuff in no time.

If you want to have the Minimoog signature sound going beyond the strictest emulation but still clearly sounding like it, then The Legend HZ is the best there is. It emulates the machine as accurately as is technically possible, but additions like the three oscillators and the Fixed Filterbank expand the sonic range into even warmer, fatter and/or more aggressive results.

I quickly created a patch of my own, which in my most humble opinion does a fair job of showing off the fat face of Synapse Audio’s Minimoog emulation. Of course, the best way to judge for yourself is to visit Synapse Audio’s website and go through all of the patches.

The Legend HZ is available now for $179. Existing customers of the Legend synth can upgrade for $79.