In this article, I’ll look at my Top 5 Free Synth plugins and provide some links to demos and walk-throughs. These are great instruments if you’re looking to explore 3rd party offerings on a zero budget. Rather than an exhaustive list, I will focus on what I consider to be the cream of the crop.
FREE SYNTH PLUGINS
Surge XT
This open-source jewel has been around for a while now and just keeps getting better thanks to a community of enthusiastic developers that keep it up-to-date. It began as a commercial product developed by Claes Johanson, one of the developers behind Bitwig.
This is a hybrid synth that serves as a fantastic playground for exploring and combining synthesis techniques such as FM, wavetable, vector, and subtractive synthesis. It boasts many features in high-end instruments, including a robust collection of wavetables, an FM routing section, dual multi-mode filters, effects processing, powerful modulators and routing matrix, and a deep collection of categorized presets. One thing you’ll find, often missing in even high-end commercial products, is a microtuning section that can access the MTS-ESP global microtuning protocol, load Scala tuning tables, or enable user-defined microtuning.
For a free product, Surge XT is amazingly well-documented and is a perfect device for those looking to explore a variety of synthesis techniques.
Visit the Surge-Synthesizer YouTube channel for tutorials and demos.
Tyrell N6
The grimy, coffee-stained aesthetic of this classic subtractive synth suggests a highly usable instrument appropriate for a variety of contexts and genres. Originally developed by Urs Heckmann, the founder of u-he, this great sounding instrument is distributed by the German inline magazine, amazon.de. The project was based on “pool of ideas for a low-cost hardware analogue synth, which Mic ‘Moogulator’ Irmer collected and used to develop quite a powerful concept. Based on a design similar to Roland’s classic Juno 60, a few modules and novel features could be added without making the product too expensive.”
The instrument has two oscillator sources, two LFO’s, two envelopes, multi-mode filter, and a chorus effect. Noticeably missing are other onboard effects like reverb, delay, distortion, etc., so you’ll have to add those to your signal chain externally. But Tyrell N6 provides a solid foundation on which to build infinite analog-flavored emulations.
Signal diagram from the manual
Video demo with Christoph Thomas
Pendulate
Billed as a chaotic synth, this free mono version of Pendulate from Newfangled Audio, uses a unique approach to create novel sounds. The premise involves the sonification of a double-pendulum mechanism visualized here.
This unpredictable system is used to create an oscillation source that becomes the foundation of the sound. From there you can use the wavefolder section, lowpass gate, and modulators to further transform the output. The interface itself is unique as animated waveforms appear behind the controls making this instrument both aurally and visually attractive and fun to use.
Video demo
VCV Rack
The VCV rack offers an awesome playground for exploring modular synthesis in a virtual setting. “There is no official meaning of the name “VCV”, but some users have suggested “Virtual Control Voltage” or “Voltage Controlled Virtualization”. These are good guesses, but “VCV” was chosen simply because it is easy to remember and type.”
There are 2,928 free modules available in a searchable database to get you started with the concept of building sounds using a modular approach. If you are not familiar with building sounds in this way expect a somewhat steep learning curve and you should know the free version is only available as a stand-alone (you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version to get access to VSTs and AU plugins). But if you’ve been curious about how modular synths work, VCV Rack is a great way to test the waters for free.
There is also a free and open-source version of VCV Rack 2 called Cardinal, that will run as a plugin in your DAW. See a great walk-through below.
Video walk-through and demo of Cardinal
Vital
The basic free version of this wavetable synth comes with 75 presets and 25 wavetables and is clearly intended to get you hooked on the usability of this beast and entice you to upgrade to the Plus and Pro versions which offer up to 400+ presets and 150 wavetables. But the free version is pretty awesome as is. It boasts a great library of onboard effects, multiple LFOs, envelopes and random modulators, and three source wavetable oscillators. The interface is clean and elegant, making it a pleasure to work with.
Promo video
CONCLUSIONS
These five free synth devices use a variety of approaches including wavetable, vector, subtractive, modular, chaotic and hybrid synthesis. If you’re looking to explore new ways of making sound that go beyond the instruments found in your particular DAW and have a zero budget, I encourage you to check these instruments out. Don’t let the free part dissuade you–sometimes the best things in life can actually be free!
EXTRAS
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