On the hunt for a new synth plugin or two? We’ve picked out ten of our favourite new VSTs from late 2014 and 2015 so far.
Producers are spoiled for choice these days when it comes to all the synth options on the market. There are so many new plugins released each month that it can be hard to keep track of which are worth checking out and which are a waste of your time and hard-earned cash.
We’ve picked ten of our favourites from the last year, representing everything from straightforward virtual analogue synths all the way through to exotic approaches like finite difference time domain modelling.
As always in Ten Of The Best, our picks are presented in order of price. We start with a simple, affordable option that has more to offer than first meets the eye.
$39
Bigger, more powerful, more and more feature-packed… The arms race of synth design has grown out of control in recent years, driven largely by the implicit assumption that producers want more of everything.
Of all the synths on our list, Audio Damage’s Basic is the cheapest and the most, er, basic. The USP here should be fairly self-explanatory: Audio Damage developed Basic to address a gap in the market for a simple, intuitive synth for newcomers to computer music. But before you assume that this one’s for beginners only and move on to the next on the list, don’t judge Basic by its feature set alone.
As well as being one of the most skilled software developers around, Audio Damage’s Chris Randall is also a musician. When he decides to make a simple synth for beginners, he doesn’t sacrifice sound quality or usability. Just because the feature set is limited doesn’t mean this is only for beginners – after all, some of the most popular synths ever built have been simple, from the Minimoog to the 303 and beyond.
Basic has an intuitive interface, just enough options to make it flexible, and, most importantly of all, it sounds great. Whether you’re a beginner looking for a cheap plugin to learn synthesis with, or a more experienced producer who just wants something quick and efficient without all the unnecessary bells and whistles of so many over-designed synths, Basic is a great option.
03.04 PM
Thanks for digging up these awesome synths! One more for consideration: Xfer’s “Serum”, programmed by Steve Duda. That thing’s an absolute powerhouse.
07.45 PM
No serum?
08.42 PM
Deadmau5 association means it’s banned from the list.
01.19 PM
Surprised Serum did not make this list.
12.41 AM
Nice list. From the ones mentioned I only have NI Rounds and Synapse Dune II. Both are rock solid options. I’m curious to try some of them, Kaivo especially.
If this was my personal list I would switch Oscillot with XFER Serum or Waves Codex, simply because Oscillot requires M4L and once you have M4L and know your way around it, there’s no reason to have a plug-in that adds virtually nothing new to the table, since everything it does, can be done by M4L itself.
Reaktor 5 is a good example against what I’ve said. Doesn’t require third party software, it can run both standalone or via host, and the ensembles provided with the bundle are diversified and have a purpose.
I’ve got nothing against Oscillot, I’m just failing to understand, at the moment, all the hype generated around it.
Keep it up Attack o/
11.13 AM
Fist things first: SERUM not in this list = smh Instead you put Basic in there!?
Let me tell you something about Basic: The simplistic approach to Basic is a nice concept. BUT the execution not so much. Sure, the GUI looks fancy and the visulization can be helpful – although it’s more eyecandy than anything.
The real Problem with Basic are it’s controls! Especially in the Oscillator Section. “Tune” Values are always in between pitches – there’s no musical stepping of the pitch (Octaves, Semitones, Finetuning) possible. If you could enter numerical values or use keyboard modifiers to lock it in on Pitches that would be no big deal. But there are no such options.
I am also missing basic routing functionalities as well. Everything is fixed in terms of Signal flow. That’s not really 2015-ish. A “basic” and “advanced” look would have been nice.
On the sound side of things everything you do with this thing tends to sound similar, techno-ish.
Even the simpliest Reaktor Ensemble of the Factory Library like 2-OSC does provide more flexibility. But hey, better than SERUM, right? 😉
08.09 PM
Serum fanbois are everywhere now
06.38 PM
I don’t think it’s fanboyism, the list features Ten of the best new synth plug-ins. And, guess what?
Serum is both new and, whether you like it or not, it has definitely proven himself to be one of the best softsynths out there, and I’ve used tons of them.
I’m not a fan of Deadmau5 music, same goes for Steve Duda, but when it comes down to coding, I tip my hat to this Duda guy.
But don’t take my word for granted, give it a shot and draw your own conclusions, since your comment made it clear that you haven’t tried it yet, or, if you did, your “know how” regarding synthesis isn’t on par with what this plug-in offers.
05.54 PM
Virtual CZ is not a perfect emulation of the sound of the hardware, far from it. The original sounds quite a bit different, far more grainy and sharper,
however it does sound excellent and much smoother than the hardware and compliments it well.
08.47 AM
Serum is genuinely the best soft synth of the last few years
09.38 PM
That Kaivo sure looks interesting!
11.25 AM
Attack dropped the ball by not even mentioning Serum or NI’s new Kontour.
06.20 PM
Bazille is the best synth on the list..imo.
j
0=0
09.35 PM
FUCK YOU ATTACK MG. YOU GOIN DOWN BITCHES!
02.19 PM
My top
Zebra 2
Serum
Bazille
Reaktor 6
Omnisphere 2
Harmor
Monark
02.28 PM
Serum is a bit of enigma. So MANY bad, cliche EDM presets out there, and hard on cpu. But beyond that a very powerful softsynth, that sounds very smooth and big, with a professional sheen on top.
11.08 PM
“Urs Heckman’s plugins are occasionally criticised for being a little on the greedy side when it comes to their appetite for processing power. It’s a fair enough criticism…”
I think a fairer criticism would be that most plug ins are anemic in their processor consumption, due to compromises in sound quality for the sake of marketability to users with inadequate processing power . Thus we have decades old digital synths ( Access Virus, Nord Lead, Novation Supernova ) that obliterate the sound of most modern plugins. And a whole generation of producers that think the poor sound quality of their mix ( caused by layer after layer of compromised sound sources ) can be fixed by some magical mastering trick, or overhyped analog summing box.
I found it hilarious when people posted spectrograms of Hive on the KVR forum pointing out issues in certain aspects of the sound quality and Urs calmly responded by explaining that those are unavoidable byproducts of “CPU efficient” MIPmapping you find in many popular synths.
TL;DR When it comes to sound quality, you get what you pay for.
08.45 AM
lol, these serum comments make me laugh. on the one hand, i might literally die if i listen to another EDM “producer” talk about how great serum is, why the sound is so much better than say, NI Massive, (because less artifacts bruh!). yeah, your dubsteppy growling synths are so much more pure sounding now…lmfao. however, this is not a thread dedicated to musical stylings. rather it might be prudent to keep an article, or whatever this page is, relevant to the topic. serum does have some pretty cool features…although honestly i find the workflow not so great and i never use it personally. i’m not really a huge fan of wave table synths, as i never use massive much either. however, when i go for one it is definitely still massive. the functionality is definitely more a bit more limited, but the way routing and automation is setup is way more intuitive (for me at least).
after watching a video of deadmau5 simply dragging and dropping pre-made midi loops, and subsequently struggling for about 5 minutes to ascertain whether one of these midi loops was in major or minor, i can’t entirely fault anyone for not wanting to associate with any music he does. granted, i’ve listened to an interview of him. he seems pretty cool. but his music is definitely garbage, and the lack of basic rudiments was plenty to prove that, if the end product were not enough already.
07.04 PM
Amazing!
Sounds just like Nord Lead 1/2 “Pelle Mode”
must buy this vst!
08.28 AM
TIL that Massive was made by Chris Randall. Source: his own AI vlog.
03.23 PM
Very subjective list.