In this article, I’m going to list my best synthesizer recommendations and give some reasons why I chose each one. Hopefully, this will help you to make an informed decision as to what synthesizer you get for your collection. Please note, these are all soft synths used in digital audio workstations. So if you’re looking for hardware, you’re going to have to look elsewhere for recommendations as I’ve sold all my hardware synths.
Okay, let’s begin.
Number 5 – Synth1
This one might surprise a lot of people. After all, it’s a free synth. How good can a free synth be Well, let me tell you something about synthesizers in general. You might or might not wonder what parts of a synthesizer are the most important as far as the quality of the sound that you get. If I had to pick just one thing, it would be the filters. Well, Synth1 has a great filter. There is only one, but is has low pass 24, low pass 12, high pass 12 and band pass 12 settings. You can get some nice filter sweeps and analog sounds out of this thing.
You get two oscillators that can be sync’d and you also get a ring modulator that sounds great. There are two LFOs with limited routings but they cover the basic things you’ll probably want to modulate including filter, amp and pulse width.
There is also an arpeggiator and an effects section.
If you want some great meat and potatoes synth sounds, as this things is equally good at basses, leads, pads and sfx, you really can’t beat this as a free synth.
My only complaint is that it’s not completely 64 bit compatible. When you go to edit the parameters, the interface goes a little wonky and it is a bit of a pain. But the sounds make it worth while. If you’re broke and need a good sounding synth, this is my recommendation.
Number 4 – NI Massive
A lot of people are probably going to ask me, why only number 4? Well, as the “premium” synths go, this one is probably the most limited. It only has 3 oscillators. All the synths I’m going to list over Massive have a minimum of 4 oscillators.
Here is why I do love Massive so much that it made my top 5. It is probably the easiest synth in the world to program. The design is incredibly intuitive. Modulation routings are so easy to set up. It’s essentially click and drag. Plus, they’re incredibly flexible. Now, you don’t have as many routing options as the higher end synths, but the learning curve is so much easier. I give NI 5 stars on the user interface.
As for the sound, it’s excellent. There are two filters and each one has 12 options including acid and scream filters. The oscillators also have a number of options that go way beyond sawtooth, square, triangle and sine. There is a modern talking waveform that is to die for.
Throw in 4 envelopes, a couple of LFOs and some neat effects and you have everything you need for a meat and potatoes synth and a lot more. Super complex sounds out of this you won’t get because the synth is slightly limited in what it can do. But for most musical applications, it’s perfect.
Number 3 – Synthmaster 2.6
Honestly, this and number 2 are percentage points apart. In fact, I had a hard time in choosing between the two of them. Ultimately, what it came down to is ease of programming.
Synthmaster is a bit of a learning curve. It is very flexible but also very deep. The interface isn’t nearly as intuitive as Massive. You really have to study it and work with it before you’ll get comfortable with it.
For one thing, it has two layers per patch. By default, layer 2 is turned off. You have to manually turn it on to get any sound out of it.
Then there are the oscillators. Upon first examination, it would appear that they are limited. They are not. You need to left click with your mouse where it says “Basic” next to type to uncover the other oscillator options. You have additive, wavescan, vector and audio in. These oscillators are very flexible when combined with the modulation matrix.
Let me touch on the matrix. I don’t know how deep it can really go. The reason for this is because there are only 8 possible routings per page. However, you have have multiple pages. How many? Ah, not sure. Have never gotten past page one. But appears the routings are virtually unlimited.
Synthmaster’s filters have a number of options. You can go digital or analog. The graphical representation makes them very easy to program. In fact, everything is easy to program because almost everything is graphical. Makes it easy to see what you’re doing.
You also get 4 LFOs and 5 different effects. Yeah, it’s a little skimpy on the effects but that’s not where this synth shines. It shines on its sound. I can’t think of very much you can’t get out of this synth. It is very flexible. The sound is excellent. It can go fat, thin, atmospheric, deep bass, screaming lead or whatever. It’s a little pricey but worth every penny.
Number 2 – Zebra 2
Okay, so why did Zebra 2 just beat out Synthmaster. Soundwise, they’re very similar. I think Zebra’s sound is a little fatter but that’s to be expected because it has a couple more oscillator options and some really powerful filters which pretty much blow every other synth’s away except for the synth that made number 1 on my hit parade.
Zebra’s interface is very compact, but don’t let it fool you. It is very deep. The oscillator section is so complex you can get lost in it. You can literally design any waveform that you can think of visually. Sound wise, there is nothing you can’t create unless you’re trying to duplicate exactly an acoustic instrument. That’s still beyond the capabilities of plain synths without samples. And no, none of the synths so far use samples. Massive uses wavetables but that’s as close as it gets.
Anyway, Zebra is semi modular. You can pretty much build your synth the way you want, within reason. It’s not totally open ended but it’s close enough. You got 6 oscillators, 4 envelopes, 4 LFOs and a ton of modulation capabilities.
Then there is the sound. Wow! Equally as good with pads as leads, bases or anything else you can think of. And with the semi modular structure, you can get some pretty complicated sounds out of this.
If you don’t want to spend the really big bucks on number 1, this is the synth I would recommend you get. It can do virtually anything.
Number 1 – Spectrasonics Omnisphere
At $499 and change, this thing better be unbelievable. And it is. Aside from the synth programming and your traditional synth waveforms (sawtooth, square, etc.) you also have a ton of sampled sounds. Speaking of which. As of right now, this monster comes with about 8,000 sounds. So right there is blows away every other synth on the market. If you never wanted to program your own sounds and just pull something up and play and never run out of new sounds, this is your baby.
But it doesn’t end there. I talked about Zebra’s compact interface. Well, this thing has taken 10,000 pounds of ham and somehow fit it into a 2 pound bag. Powerful doesn’t even begin to describe it.
However, there is a downside to this. You really have to dig deep into this thing to get the most out of it. And without reading the manual and/or watching the videos, that’s not going to happen. There is just too much here to absorb, even if you’re a master synth programmer.
Modulation? Anything, and I mean ANYTHING can be modulated from just about anywhere. You can not only modulate the effects but you can modulate just one parameter of an effect. You can do it on the oscillator or patch level.
And while each patch only has 2 oscillators, stack mode allows you to stack 8 patches at once. So effectively, you can have as many as 16 oscillators. If you use Unison mode on each patch, well, you can imagine how fat this thing can get.
Remember what I said about the filters being so important? Wait until you see how many different filter options this thing has. Has to be close to 30.
For something to be close to $500 in a land where other soft synths cost $99 to $150, this thing has to be amazing for me to say that it’s worth every penny and probably cheaper than I would have imagined had somebody told me what was in this thing.
If you want just one synth that can literally do anything and I mean ANYTHING, then Omnisphere is the synth you want to get. If Zebra is a 9, Omnisphere is a 19. There is just nothing that even comes close.
Anyway, there you have it. My top 5 soft synth picks.
If you have any questions about any of these, please feel free to email me using the contact form on my main site.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim