Best free synth

[mr.bungle]

Well, since your program is free, you can afford that odd attitude. Few people would spend money on that, though...
Nor is a GUI supposed to be exciting, it is supposed to be functional and intuitive (even if you consider that boring), the excitement should come from the sound
It is a pity, though as your synth sounds very good...

No, it's not "odd attutude". The modulation matrix _is_ functional and intuitive, and praised by many people, the fact that you don't like it doesn't mean that it's not good.

[fluffy_little_something]

Well, since your program is free, you can afford that odd attitude. Few people would spend money on that, though...
Nor is a GUI supposed to be exciting, it is supposed to be functional and intuitive (even if you consider that boring), the excitement should come from the sound
It is a pity, though as your synth sounds very good...

No, it's not "odd attutude". The modulation matrix _is_ functional and intuitive, and praised by many people, the fact that you don't like it doesn't mean that it's not good.

I don't really consider it a matrix, it is too simple for that. Its results are good, that is what people praise. The results are good despite missing labels, not because of missing labels. People would praise it even more if the controls were labeled as that would speed up the familiarization process. After all, many people use lots of plugins. Hard enough to remember how each one of them works even with labels...

[iacoposk8]

how many answers! thank you very much! now I just have to try them ...

[IrionDaRonin]

Dune BE (Bread and butter Analog with FM and Wavetable)
Zebralette (Spectral and Wavescanning)
Zeta+1 BE (Wavetable)
Oatmeal With Lime Flavour Skins
Augur (WaveScanning)
Zenharmonic FMTS (FM and Microtonal)

I think you don't need too much more.

Have a nice day

Can anyone explain to me what the descriptions actually mean? I know each has it's own quality but I always worry about having duplicaTES OF SYNTHS AND i'D LIKE TO NARROW IT DOWN...Caps off!

Also, what does aliasing sound like?

Sure, let me explain it quickly and clumsily.

·Bread and Butter sounds = Typical analog sounds which are prepared for typical electronic tracks.
·Spectral = A kind of synthesis that uses the frequency spectrogram to create timbres and sounds.
·Wavescanning = A kind of synthesis that uses more than one single cycle waveforms in a line to create different moving and evolving timbres and sounds while scanning all them in time.
There is also a kind of synthesis which is called Vector Synthesis, which is alike, but slightly different.
·Wavetable = The synth uses small single cycle waveforms which are the main sound source of the synth.
·FM = Frequency Modulation. Another kind of synthesis which takes a sound source and modulates it with another waveform, usually a Sine, but it can be done also with Saw, Square and others.
·Lime Flavour Skins = A great digital graphic designer which makes skins for synths, usually free. Here you can find him.

Also, Aliasing is this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_QE1Ci_7TY

Have a nice day

[David Carpenter Wind Core]

Why don't we put it to the test with a single solo midi test track. This is a great way to do an AB comparison of the top free synths.

I think we would find that each is capable of being musical in some form or another. This is like the idea beauty is in the eye of the beholder or in this case the ear.

Of course all of these synth's as long as they work are the best because they are free.

[ras.s]

I disagree, I guess most people want labels on their controls.

I don't get it, should every one of those knobs be labeled with something like "strength" ? That is what they do right, as it is a matrix. That would be even more unintuitive.

[fluffy_little_something]

I disagree, I guess most people want labels on their controls.

I don't get it, should every one of those knobs be labeled with something like "strength" ? That is what they do right, as it is a matrix. That would be even more unintuitive.

I just reinstalled it to check again.

What you say sounds as if every one of those controls had the same function. But that is not the case. Other developers manage to label their matrices (source, target etc.), so what's so difficult about it?!

First I thought that the arrows might have some meaning in terms of signal flow. But then again, what would the arrow next to osc 1 waveform selector mean? It comes out of nothing.

You are also from Scandinavia, maybe your brains work differently

I also don't like the control motion, too circular for my taste, nor are there double-clickable zero or default settings.

[ras.s]

You are also from Scandinavia, maybe your brains work differently

You are correct.


Here's the official mausynth thread: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=346820

And here's a quote from the developer in that thread:

Yep, you can see the source of the modulation from the color, and the destination from the arrows. Modwheel controls the amplitude of the LFO.

Still on the topic of the best freeware synths, here's a few more; Cantus1, Deputy, Daedalus ..

[fluffy_little_something]

I stumbled upon this video earlier today, sounds quite good, no idea how many instances they used for that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxLJJyaU6gw

Downloaded and tried the Blooo myself, it has a really nice sound, very clean, yet lively And it is quite flexible, lots of modulation options. Soundwise it blows most of my commercial ones out of the water, the Germans are really good at making synth plugins (Uhe, Tone2, Charlatan, etc.) My only problem is Blooo's uggly user interface

http://www.fullbucket.de/music/blooo.html

[Full Bucket]

Thanks, fluffy_little_something!

The demo Detour (http://www.fullbucket.de/music/index.html#detour) uses 16 instrument tracks (=instances of the blooo) plus 2 aux busses (global delay and reverb; no other effects are therein except for a master limiter). I could have reduced the number of instrument tracks by using program change commands, but hey, PC power's that cheap nowadays...

To be honest, many people are complaining about the blooo's UI. To me it makes (almost) perfect sense (I mean: the UI ) but maybe I really should consider to rework it. Comments about the UI of the deputy Mark II do encourage me that this might be worth a try...

Cheers, Björn

[fluffy_little_something]

The user interface as such, i.e. concept, does make sense, it is logical and well explained in your manual.
I was just talking about ergonomics, looks, and usability only. Generally speaking, I would pick another base color, a more professional blue tone. Charlatan also used to have a rather cheap color tone in the past, but now it has a more subtle, professional tone.

Some issues/suggestions:
Some sliders don't turn blue when setting them to 0 by means of the arrows.
Arrows should increase or decrease the value continuously when clicking on them and keeping the mouse button pressed.
Controls should be douple-clickable to set them to zero or default.
Sometimes when keeping the mouse button pressed on a slider for two seconds or so, that seems to interfere with my DAW GUI. In this case the screen flickers and your plugin is no longer the active window. I don't know if that has to do with your plugin, I have seen that behavior with another plugin as well. But with all other plugins there are no problems like that at all.

I can see from the crowded GUI why you rotated the slider labels by 90°. There would not have been enough space for them horizontally above the sliders, or the fonts would have been even smaller. Sliders tend to consume more space than knobs. But if you want to use sliders, you might use horizontal sliders, basically just taking the whole slider-label unit the way it is now and turning it clockwise by 90°. This way you could also visually separate the controls into groups more easily (especially in the filter sections) as there probably wouldn't fit more than 4 horizontal sliders into one column. And you could make sliders longer, lots of space for a stronger label font.

The button labels are ok to read, except for the inactive buttons. I can't read the labels on them. Maybe it would be better to use the white letters for inactive buttons and red letter for active buttons, similar to the sliders, which turn red when not at zero.

Just thoughts...

[D N A]

My short list - probably needs a small update, but still there are some interesting freebies there

http://www.vstcafe.com/2009/10/best-fre ... art-i.html

[layzer]

did anyone mention Digits yet???

http://www.extentofthejam.com/

nice PD synth, low cpu and can get very gritty.
appears to be coded in C++ or assembly...
the GUI can use some work, so i emailed the developer
if he would consider havig me do one. we'll see...

[fluffy_little_something]

Seems interesting, kind of unusual I like the angrier option I was very careful when pressing the first key after switching to angrier, you never know...
Very good for effects, great sound quality.

[brok landers]

ZynAddSubFX

>snip<

if that thing would't be so damned buggy, it would've come quite far...