G-Force software have released an Optigan® virtual instrument of sorts called the Opti-Tron. Clicking on the link takes you directly to their site, where you can read about what it does. In a nutshell, they’ve sampled a bunch of Optigan® discs and processed the loops to all lock together, allowing for free mixing and matching of loops from across a variety of Optigan® discs. You can also manipulate the loops in other ways not possible on a real Optigan.

An inevitable question is- which Optigan® sample set is better, G-Force’s or Optigan.com’s? The answer depends on what the end user needs and values. Our sample set is meant to be purist and comprehensive, so it includes ALL of the known original Optigan/Orchestron/Talentmaker loops, presented in a straightforward, minimally processed fashion. This obviously allows for great flexibility so that the end user can import and manipulate the samples using whatever software s/he desires. The G-Force product is more of a closed system, though probably capable of much more immediate gratification and tempo-integration into a project. In other words, it works much more readily as a plug-in instrument. I haven’t tried it out yet myself, but it looks to be a quick and easy way to experiment with Optigan® sounds.