Synapse Audio The Legend HZ v2.0.2.R1 2.1 — Mac version

Sound designers who want a thick, characterful bottom end often reach for The Legend HZ. It models the circuitry of a classic Moog-style synth and adds a few modern twists the original never had.

What gives it that weight

The six VA oscillators don’t just stack up — they let you detune and spread the source before it even hits the filter. That’s where the 500 hz sound lives. Dial the low-pass cutoff down around there, push the resonance a touch, and the body of a bass patch sits in a mix without fighting the kick. The 914 Fixed Filter Bank on the back panel lets you carve out a narrow band and amplify it, which is handy when a pad needs more knock or a lead needs to cut without getting harsh.

Shaping it further

The back panel hides a paragraphic equaliser and a compressor saturation stage, both added in version 2.1. The EQ is precise enough to notch out boxiness or boost air without upsetting the analogue-style drift of the oscillators. The saturation fattens things up before the output — useful on arpeggios that might otherwise sound a bit polite. With 200 factory presets from Hans Zimmer and Kevin Schroeder, you can also just pull up a sound and see how the gain staging was built, then tweak it for your own stuff.

Six oscillators chewing CPU on a chord

People often wonder whether this thing hogs CPU. It can, if you run all six oscillators with unison on a full chord. Back off the voice count to four or six for pads and it settles down on most machines from the last five years. M1 and M2 Macs handle it without much fuss — the Apple Silicon build is native, not translated.

Another common one: does it replace the original Legend? No, and it’s not meant to. If you own both, they sit side by side. Projects saved with The Legend still open the old plugin. The Legend HZ shares patch format, so any soundbank you made for the first one loads straight in. You don’t lose anything.

The “HZ” in the name throws some people. It’s not a Hans Zimmer sample pack bolted onto a synth. Zimmer and Kevin Schroeder designed the 200 factory presets, and the extra features — the fixed filter bank, the extra oscillators, the MPE support — were built around the kind of sound design he does for film scores. But the engine underneath is still a full Minimoog-style subtractive synth you program from scratch.

MPE support means per-note pitch bend, slide and pressure if your controller can send it. Roli Seaboard owners get a lot out of this, but even a Launchpad with poly aftertouch opens up expressive patches that glide between notes instead of stepping.

Notching 250 Hz mud without leaving the plugin

The paragraphic EQ was the big one. Before 2.1 you shaped tone with the filter bank and hoped the mix engineer had room. Now you can notch out 250 Hz mud or shelf up 8 kHz without leaving the plugin. The EQ curve is visual, so you see what you’re cutting — helpful when your ears are tired at two in the morning.

Compressor saturation snuck in quietly but it’s become the go-to for thickening arpeggios and bass sequences. Crank it gently and the transients round off in a way that sounds like pushing a hardware mixer channel. Push it harder and the low mids get a chewy texture that works on dark, pulsing underscore cues.

MTS-ESP microtuning support means the synth now follows system-wide tuning tables. If you’re scoring something that needs Arabic maqams or just intonation, The Legend HZ slots into that workflow without workarounds. The 50 new presets from Kevin Schroeder lean into this — several patches use subtle detuning that wouldn’t make sense in equal temperament.

Eight macro knobs mapped from your Komplete Kontrol keyboard

The Legend HZ shows up as a standard VST, AU or AAX plugin, so it drops into Logic, Ableton Live, Cubase and Pro Tools without fuss. Native Kontrol Standard support means Komplete Kontrol keyboards map the eight macro knobs and patch browsing straight to the hardware — no MIDI learn required.

Because it loads patches made for the original Legend, you can treat The Legend HZ as an expanded voice for older projects. Open a patch, flip on the fixed filter bank, add a touch of compressor saturation, and a familiar lead suddenly fills out the stereo field differently. The two synths share a patch format but diverge in tone once you start using the HZ-only features, so you’re not duplicating — you’re layering.

In a film-scoring template the arpeggiator syncs to host tempo via MIDI clock. Run it into a long reverb like Valhalla Supermassive and the 500 hz sound from the filter bank cuts through a dense orchestral arrangement without clouding the strings. Sound designers working on the legend hz torrent often pair it with convolution reverb for sci-fi atmospherics — the fixed filter bank gives you surgical control over which frequencies feed the reverb send.

• Paragraphic equaliser added to the back panel
• Compressor saturation stage now available
• MTS-ESP microtuning support included
• 50 new factory presets from Kevin Schroeder

• macOS 10.14 or newer
• Apple Silicon or Intel 64-bit processor
• Host that loads VST, AAX, or Audio Unit plugins