GR-8

Another Incredible synth (which i just discover) Amazing, Marvelous,

No Words are enough to describe his enormous potential... there is here some real Big Fat Sounds.

Thank you a lot to the creator(s).

Update: The installer was replaced with a vst3 version. It's all good now! Grate sounding synth.

Great introductory synth, and more. Very good modeling of a fixed architecture synth. Good, clean sound.

Its one of best synths in "simple" category. It feels and sounds like HW synth from 80s for example Polysix. Sound is very good, I would not guess it is VST from blind listening. Good sound for commercial grade songs, nice unison.

It has good sounding effect unit with analyser and score, it would be good to have it as separate VST.

This one is a good one. I have a lot of fun with it.

It needs a little time to find wich knob modulates what (like the LFO)...i realy was trying to modify the Theme then, .

but thats maybe a fun for later. Straight forward Design, Clean sound, that Chord Thing holy Cow is awesome.

I realy like the possibillity to modify what happens when u release the key...thats so cool. But i think its a basic Synthesizer thing right? Anyways...

And you have a two-click random Option thats very nice. Random is key.

What I want to see:

• a little bit more clever options in the FX Section (like on Reverb: Predelay, Feedback, Decay or other Reverb Types like Shimmer, Mono Delay, Pitch Delay).
• More Filter Types: Notch and all that stuff.
• The LFO should be complete OFF on "0" he is not off.
• One-click random.
• Mousewheel Edit.
• More Modwheel and Pitchbend Connections to OSC Mix, Filter Wet/Dry...
• One or Two Modulation Sources (connect to everything).
• Visual Feedback that a Preset was changed (mostly marked with * on Preset Name).
• Better Presets Organisation (actuall all is in one Folder that make issues with external User Banks import/ export).

All at One - Another Awesome Free Plugin i highly recommend. And i hope for some further Versions or another better Synth by "Phuturetone"

Thank you Sir .

Plug-in looks great and have seen great videos on it, just a shame I can't use it (discussion tab).

Fantastic synth. Sounds as good as it looks. Straight forward, ergonomic and well worth checking out.

Check out the full walkthrough video I created here:

VST Spotlight - Phuturetone GR-8 - YouTube

Sounds great, looks great, controls are intuitive and well thought out. Only issue I have with it is there's no VST version for MacOS which is annoying since I use Bitwig and it doesn't support AU. Didn't remove any stars for that though since it's a limitation of the tools and not the developers choice.

Great plugin with a beautiful and unique Retro/Modern hybrid user interface capable of producing quality sounds. It has a great ARP functionality, good sounding presets and high quality sound effects. I love the ARP and delay fx which has 1/3, 1/6, 1/12 and other triplet signatures which is good for some of the music genres like Afro which I produce. This is a solid plugin I am gonna be using a lot in most of my projects and with every update it keeps on getting better.

This synth is pretty much what it says it is - g-r-eat. It is a straightforward 2 osc V/A synth with the usual features - four different waveforms, PWM and the usual cross-modulation functionality. It has six effects - delay, reverb, phaser, chorus, EQ and distortion - that are all very usable and do what you'd expect without setting the world on fire. Global controls, like voice modes and portamento/glide, are easy to find. There is also a basic arp.

The GUI graphics are really good and everything is laid out really well, which makes it very quick and easy to work with. Usability is one of GR-8's real strengths.

There aren't a huge number of presets but they show the capabilities of the synth quite well. There is a patch browser and preset management is good - not overly fancy/fussy, it's straightforward and easy to use.

CPU use was initially on the high side but this was addressed in an update. The sound quality is excellent and easily justifies the CPU use. This is a synth that has a full, thick sound with a modern character all its own. It's not trying to sound like anything else, it just sounds good. This sound quality is up to the standard of synths in the $100-$200 price range. For free.

GR-8 is not just good for the price, it's actually a good synth and well worth checking out. For me it is the pick of this year's Dev Challenge crop.

EDIT May 2023: Two years on and GR8 remains one of my go-to synths. I still find uses for it all the time and whenever I think to load it up, it always gives me what I'm after.

This synth competently does what has been done before. It's a solid subtractive virtual analog with a corresponding workflow, sound and feature set. A rather crowded market, so naturally there's a lot of competition there.

That is, until you take the price point into account.

See, most of the aformentioned competition will cost you upwards of 100 euros for a comparatively similar sound, if a bit cleaner. And this one is free. Suddenly there are a lot less competitors :).

Moreover, most of those other free VA lack either looks, sound quality, or ergonomics of GR-8, or are simply too unruly in comparison. If you want to get started with VA, you can't really do much better, .

It's hard to rate free products, because mathematically speaking, any musically functional free synth automatically gets 5 stars by its quality/cost ratio (as the cost is zero), so in this review I'm ranking the synth's sound and workflow on their own merits, disregarding the price. Ultimately tho, this is the second best free subtractive VA out there, and not by a long stretch.