Applied Acoustics Systems Tassman

I've been using Tassman Version 1.0 for a while now, and I'm quite impressed with the results. The layout is clean, stylish and logical, and the "presets", although limited in this version, give the user a good sense of what can be acomplished with the program.
I do wish there were more presets that didn't rely on midi note or keyboard input, as I am more of a free-running modular fan.
I'm especially impressed with how well the physical models react to
extreme stress. No aliasing or unpleasant crashes happened during any of my sessions with Tassman.

I've created gargantuan patches with this thing; eight oscillators driven by3 LFOs each with further treatments from reverb simulators and modulated filters etc., were launched one on top of another on my PC with no audible artifacts. I did notice a slower response, but this has more to do with the fact that I was running the application on a Pentium II (266Mhz). When used in conjunction with Doepfer's Regelwerk, my Fader box/Analogue "styled" Sequencer of choice, Tassman really shines by offering control destinations for everything on its modules. If you close your eyes, you'd swear you're playing a massive modular. There was a bit of a problem with latency, but since I'm not using Tassman with a Keyboard, this was virtually unnoticeable. Plus, I'm told this has been corrected on Version 1.2, so it really shouldn't be an issue at this point.
It would also be nice if they provided us with a better (Serge TKB styled perhaps?) sequencer module; I found the one on hand to be a bit limited.

I didn't really spend too much time tweaking the acoustic instrument models, but a friend of mine tells me driving the filters with the plectrum model yields very interesting results. The filters models are impeccable, the Band-Pass in particular having anice Korg MS-20 vibe to it.
The Delay module is also quite nice, with warm "Space Echo" like feedback and nice warping too. As I said before, aliasing is a non-issue.

I have been running Tassman on a very wonky PC and haven't had any troubles yet. With a proper laptop and the Regelwerk, I wouldn't hesitate to take TM on the road. So far, I've been sampling the hell out of it and to be honest, it's basically replaced my modulars. I was able to recreate pretty much any patch made on my EMS VCS-3 and Doepfer A-100 on this thing.

I've had nothing but good experiences dealing with the Applied-coustics Systems staff, and they have a solid web presence, which makes it easy for me to stay informed on upcoming developments.

Tassman is well worth the price of admission. It's a serious instrument which could put modular synthesis concepts and possibilities into the hands of thousands.