We thought that the tale of the Hartmann Neuron synth had run its course, but it seems that there's a twist.

Originally released in 2002 as a piece of hardware, this 'neuronal synthesis' instrument arrived as a plugin/hardware controller package known as the Neuron VS a couple of years later.

The sound that this produced was excellent but, sadly, the software suffered from a collection of bugs that made the experience of using it less than satisfying.

Now, courtesy of original Neuron co-developer Stephan Bernsee, an updated version of the Neuron VS plugin has appeared for Intel Macs, and you can download it for free.

The (potentially) good news is that this is supposedly free of bugs; the bad news is that it requires a VST 2.1 compatible host, which rules out a fair few current DAWs, and that you'll need the original Nuke hardware controller (pictured below) in order to use it properly.

If you don't have the hardware some features will be available but many won't.

The new plugin is supplied without any kind of warranty, but if you want to try it on your system you can download it from the Neuron VS synth website.