Imaginando COLAPSO is an additive synthesizer that builds sounds from the measured emission spectra of 22 chemical elements, with an uncertainty-principle Observation control.
Plugin comparison
Imaginando COLAPSO vs Melatonin Sine Machine
Specs, price and the Dubspot Score, side by side — with our verdict on which synth to buy.
Independent score / workflow fit / buying signal
Contenders
The side-by-side
8.4Great
Melatonin Sine Machine is a friendly additive synthesizer with 10,000+ oscillators, a zero-knob visual interface, additive reverb and filters, MPE, and MTS-ESP.
Technical matrix
Specs compared
| Signal | Imaginando COLAPSO | Melatonin Sine Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 69 euros (intro, regular 89 euros) | Pay-what-you-want, suggested $75 |
| Dubspot Score | — | 8.4 |
| Formats | Standalone, VST, VST3, Audio Unit (AU) | Standalone, VST3, AU, CLAP |
| Type | Additive (atomic emission) synthesizer | Additive (time-domain) software synthesizer |
| Sound source | 22 elements, 422 measured emission lines (NIST data) | — |
| Oscillators | 3 per voice, up to 16 partials each | — |
| Voices | Up to 8 (Poly, Mono, Unison) with detune, glide, legato | — |
| Filters | 9 circuits per voice (SVF, ladder, comb, formant) with drive and keytracking | — |
| Modulation | 4 drawable envelopes and 4 drawable LFOs (0.01 to 40 Hz or synced) | — |
| Effects | 2 series inserts (8 types) plus a send per oscillator; master glue compressor | Additive reverb (1,000 sine waves), additive brickwall and Gaussian band-pass filters |
| Presets | Over 200 factory presets | 140+ factory presets, hackable plaintext JSON |
| Platforms | macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon native, ~333 MB), Windows 10+ 64-bit (~68 MB) | — |
| Engine | — | 20 voices x 511 oscillators (10,000+ total), 20,000+ LFOs |
| Editing | — | Bulk per-harmonic ADSR, volume, and pitch LFO; zero-knob interface |
| Expression | — | MPE, per-harmonic Gaussian pitch noise, absolute pitch glide |
| Tuning | — | MTS-ESP microtuning, mappable partials to arbitrary frequencies |
| Plugin formats | — | macOS VST3/AU/CLAP/standalone, Windows VST3/CLAP/standalone, Linux VST3/CLAP/standalone (no AAX) |
| Licensing | — | Pay-what-you-want, up to 3 installs per licence, online activation, 14-day demo |
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