VST Roundup

Since I’ve acquired a number of desktop synthesizers, I no longer find myself researching the vast vst plugin pool on the internet. I spent a great deal of time digging about for the cool, hard to find companies, but spent some time in the latest and greatest as well. As such, I’ve decided to post my findings here. None of my acquisitions were in the expensive category.

I’m going to start with fx. I didn’t invest in these a lot, mostly using whatever bitwig and ableton provided to make things interesting.


'FX':

AudioThing : a small boutique company. Their 'Outer space' plugin an excellent emulation of classic space echo unit. Also of note, 'Minibit', an 8-bit synthesizer for chiptune music. I also use their 'Things Texture', a very simple to use granular manipulator. SR-88 drums have been featured in a few of my mixes.

PureMagnetik : Makers of very cool synths and effects. The designer puts comic book style art built into the software as backgrounds. A catchy hook for plugins that are very creative, and cheap too. They can be processor intensive.

MUX, of MULAB software company, is an excellent set of expressive sculpted synths and effects at a very low budget. Has a retro ‘80s vibe, and is rather inexpensive.


'Now, onto the synths...'

Redux synth rack. From the makers of 'Renoise', A DAW with a top-down ‘note matrix’ creation area instead of a arrangement view classic. Instruments sound great, middle of the road budget, and aimed at pro sounding dance music. The tool itself has a very interesting approach.

Vital and helm: Indie synths hosted by a single creator. Helm was the first effort, and is very cool freeware. Vital, is an awesome creation that is subscription based. Indie cinematic chipsynths at their finest. Cheap, very cheap.

Multiphonics CV: a near pro sounding tool. The direction that midi is taking. Great for creating imaginary ‘big budget’ creations that you could never follow up on irl. This was a little near the 2nd tier budgetwise, not expensive-ware listed in 'best of' web collections, but above some of the cheaper softwares I've mentioned.

TAL instruments and effects. Lots of classic sounding emulations and effects at reasonable prices. Juno emulators, dub delays, and 808 bassline reproductions Easy to use and create new instruments. Cheap.

Avoid: Voltage Modular. A tool that could be a great modular environment, emulating
classic eurorack setups. Crashes often and is processor intesnive.

Reason, daw and modular synth rack : a software that wears two hats, and wears them well. The synths are very well sculpted, and sound ready for low budget documentary creation. A useful tool in that it, like a workstation, has many instruments built in not covered by many modern synth softwares. Orchestral, ethnic percussion, and a variety of keyboard and electric pianos. Their now subscription based and looking very poppy commercial nowadays.


'Lastly, Free stuff':

Odin, Surge are two great freeware synths designed by indie creators.

Fullbucket, a website I wish I’d stumbled upon earlier in my vst efforts. I would doubtless have invested in fewer newbie stumblings. Won’t list those, but there were a number. These are free, and sound great.

Cabbage, an open source vst creation platform, as well as ~250 free plugins made with such. Another trove that would be a great newbie tool.

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