Six Free Synthesisers & a Peace Pipe

Vital has been moved to its own page.

We’re blessed that software instruments are available, rarely the cost of hardware and often their equal. We’re especially blessed by free, or donation based instruments. Some recent free titles excel in their interface, design and sound. They should be reviewed respectfully, which I hope to do here. Some are from Bedroom Producers Blog, excluding vintage recreations which I don’t find interesting in 2021. I’ve added some that I think have more relevance to the current century.

Exakt Lite https://www.sonicbits.com/

This 4 operator FM synthesiser is very close to the old Yamaha TX81z, except for the wheezing of the latter’s cheap D to A output. You’ll recall that Yamaha expanded the available FM waveforms so that 4 operators could reach much of the DX7’s 6 operator sounds with much less user effort. Exact further expands the wave set to include basic analogue waveforms and a resonant filter. You can work this like a standard subtractive synthesiser, bringing in FM only where it’s needed – extremely versatile.

FM has never been an easy path for the beginner. I took ages to learn my DX7, constantly battling that moment the sound tipped over into sizzle. Deep respect goes to Brian Eno for making quite gentle pools of sound from his machine – but even better to have this simpler means to do so.

A waveform scope up the top right illustrates the waveform at its start – it’s not animated so you can’t see the effect of modulation. But it’s enough to make Exakt a tool for teaching additive, subtractive and FM synthesis all in one instrument. The students can see what’s going on, which helps them feel the sound as it develops. Besides that it makes a firm useful range of sounds. 3.5/5

Odin 2 https://www.thewavewarden.com/odin2

No attempt to hide the ‘homage’ to Reason Lab’s Thor. If you know that, you’ll get this. But Odin has some tricks of his own.

Three oscillators feed into two filters, an amp and out. The choice of oscillators and the filters are many and varied. Oscillators are: analogue, wavetable, multi (wavetable), vector, chiptune, FM, PM, noise, waveform draw, chiptune draw, spectral draw. Filters: LP, BP, HP, SEM-12, ladder, KORG MS20, comb, format, ring mod. So a lot of mix and match is on offer.

Let me just address a few of the odd ones. ‘Chiptune’ means extremely aliased 4 bit waveforms of the sort found in ancient game consoles. Some people are hell bent on reproducing this noise because it was the only time in their life they were truly happy. The rest of us will use the rough edges of these square waveforms to spice up some of the smoother oscillators.

FM and PM are extremely simple 2 operator versions of the Yamaha sound. The ‘draw’ waves are single rendered waveforms – not modulated. So e.g. you cannot use spectral draw to create a spectral morph. Wavetables here only means 35 presets of four fixed waveforms each. You can however cross mix between four of your drawn waves with the vector oscillator, which sounds quite fancy.

In practice Odin 2 is a luxurious subtractive synthesiser with a capable range. It can do all that a small modular rig can do, it can range from warm to cool – and hot at that. If you don’t often need the specific features of some others listed, it will take good care of you. 4/5

Surge https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

The most popular free synthesiser of the moment. The interface is cluttered, true, but at least some kind soul has donated some virtual wood so it doesn’t look as harsh. It took me a while to ‘get’ Surge. But bear with it and you’ll see why it gets lots of kisses.

There are two ‘scenes’ or layers, each of which has three oscillators through two filters, amp and an effects rack. There are a gaggle of oscillators available – classic and modern analogue, wavetable, window, sine, FM2 and FM3, string, twist, alias, noise and audio through. Wavetables are compatible with Serum, but are played without smoothing as if “1980’s era” – something which the manual hopefully sells as a benefit. ‘Window’ mysteriously multiplies two waves causing timbral effects. ‘Twist’ emulates a particular Eurorack module with a variety of algorithms. The oscillators are an odd bunch, without a master plan and seem to represent the interests of various open-source authors. You will find good sounds but often by wandering.

The filters are less haphazard – the usual HP, LP, BP suspects. Some filters are taken from Odin 2. Some of the effects, for example ‘Neuron’ (a ‘Gated Recurrent Unit’) and ‘Treemonster’ are further evidence of individual zest, or perhaps ‘whatever we can get free’. It’s fun and experimental, true. But I prefer a systematic design for an instrument to someone’s organically assembled modular rack. 3/5

Cobalt http://www.lesliesanford.com/vst/plugins/

This is a ‘two digital oscillators through analogue filter’ machine. It refers back to the time when 8-bit sampled waveforms first took the place of the analogue oscillators in traditional subtractive synthesisers. My example would be the Ensoniq ESQ and SQ80 keyboards. For the first time you could go ‘ding’ or ‘kong’ or make a kind of string sound, filtering these very rich harmonic sources for a hybrid sound.

You can do this on other programs – e.g. Odin, but as the presets demonstrate Cobalt is spot on for this kind of sound. It’s not hard to design your own patches and it’s useful in a mix. Unfortunately PC only. 3/5

Viking https://blamsoft.com/vst/vk-1-viking-synthesizer/

It’s a Moog Voyager. Maybe it doesn’t sound exactly like a Moog Voyager but as somebody that owned that hardware, fought with it and eventually sold it, I feel justified in saying that if you like that sort of thing you will like this a lot, and vice versa. Actually I prefer this to the ‘real’ thing. For a start it stays in tune. It costs 100% less. And it seems a little less eager to dominate and smother every other instrument in your mix.

If you are going to be subtractive then you may as well go right back to the source. 3.5/5

OSS Polyphenom https://oceanswift.net

This is an odd one (which is my way of saying – I am unclear of how to drive this let’s blame it on them). Several instruments listed here allow you to draw harmonics to create a waveform. With Polyphenom that process is put loud and proud in the main part of a skeuomorphic interface. Not only are there 16 additive partial oscillators which don’t necessarily go in harmonic series, but two ‘subtractive oscillators’ which mix with all the additive ones. The use of ‘subtractive’ and ‘additive’ is confusing – they sound as if in opposition but that’s not really the case. Think ‘very powerful sub oscillators’.

Modulation of the individual harmonics brings complex changes. The example sounds prove that you can achieve some very cinematic sounds this way – but when I try I’m not rewarded very quickly. Seems like it’s a synthesis technique that requires some dedication, and I’m not sure I could climb that DX7 mountain all over again. PC only 3/5

and the peace pipe…

Element https://kushview.net/

It’s a $2 tool that pipes MIDI and sound through a flowchart of nodes. You can make and save your own maps of effects and instruments. This is good. Better still it plugs VSTs into Pro Tools’s AAX slots. AVID has tried to lock you into their ecosystem, which is rarely free and mostly gouging. Running Element opens an entire world of possibility for Pro Tools users and might just get them to rethink the walled garden. There are paid tools that do this – but Element is particularly punk about it. 4.5/5