Hey all, i'm poking around the net for "quirky" VSTi's

"what the heck does he mean? " You're probably asking yourself.

I'm talking about synths that don't behave perfectly like your typical VA.
My favorite "quirky" vst i've used thus far has been the Mono/fury from fullbucket audio.

It doesn't behave like every other VA. The "poly" mode steals notes here and there, the cross mod is cryptic yet glorious.

Also, because of its quirks, it lends a certain sound to the end result. Even if you perfectly patch in a pluck how you would in any other synth, it's a little weird, a little off. I LOVE IT.

I've tried korg's MS-20 as well. While there's nothing particularly rogue about it, the limitations, and modulation routes do lend a weirdness to your results.

Of course there's that freebie "therapy" but i'm looking for something that is still controllable, and tonal.

I'm sick of VA. Sick of FM. Sick of wavetable.

I'm sick of my synths behaving predictably.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

sample?

Maybe try something like alchemy, using the granular mode or something.

You can always take some sounds and just edit them by hand as well. Maybe do that AND feed into alchemy's granular mode?

Dmu Arcade, it takes a sample folder and whacks it around to make an instrument. It was recently reposted here, should be in the last couple of recent pages.

These all offer something different
Glass Viper
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/2950

Scanned Synth Pro
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/2230

Mr. Alias Pro
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/4054

Actually, if you have zebra, the comb filter is pretty wild; maybe that might be interesting to you?

There's synplant which doesn't function like other vsts, although I personally don't use it and can't really say anything about it.

Nearly forgot Synplant,that's another good one

Olga and Unique come to mind.
Oh, and Aalto.
Last edited by Xichael on Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

http://www.krakli.co.uk/cygnus.htm
Maybe this one w/- Space skin?
Kinda quirky just to press stuff,
not knowing what it does.
But +1 here for Synplant

Yep yep. Both quite different from each other, but equally awesome & "quirky".

I would also recommend SQ8L - the features are mostly VA-like, but the (E)SQ flavor is a little different.

SG didn't you put out some odd little noise makers?

Any synth with modular/semi-modular routing capabilities can do some weird stuff, especially when you start playing with feedback. I'd also recommend synths by xoxos.

err ... that's not quirky, it's just a correct emulation of how a real mono/poly behaves (seriously, having owned one 'quirky' is probably the nicest way to describe the x-mod modes - how about 'unstable and impossible to reproduce reliably')

Yeah, thanks for the mention. However, the OP specified "tonal", which isn't really where most of my stuff shines. Link is in my sig though (first one), if anyone wants to check 'em out.

Which also reminds me, because I posted a bank for Meridian a little while ago too: Tiny God has a couple of pretty quirky synths available too (and fx for that matter).
Last edited by synthgeek on Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

Definitely OLGA.

You want quirky?

http://www.xoxos.net/

Knock yourself out!

Also +1 for Scanned Synth - excellent product

Would Chimera by Majken qualify?

"Chimera is a noise driven synth focusing on pads and haunting leads. Three noisegenerators are connected through pitchcontrolled resonant bandpass filters."