OM

Most Ondes Martenot emulations model the drawbar tones and stop there. OM starts from the three places the real instrument's character actually lives: the pitch that takes time to arrive and never arrives perfectly, the loudness that comes entirely from a pressure key instead of the keyboard, and the speakers — including a lyre with twenty-four sympathetic steel strings — that are part of the instrument, not an afterthought. It glides and slides with the greatest of (MIDI) ease while inventing the sound as it goes, all through a diffuseur bank that behaves like a real spring reverb. A second-order ribbon model gives you portamento overshoot an ordinary synth glide structurally cannot make, and a playable ruban across the bottom of the panel lets you drag for pitch and press down for intensity — playable the right way with nothing but a laptop.