So this morning I get up a little before 5:30 AM. Yeah, I’m an early riser. Anyway, I didn’t really feel like getting right to work (writing this article) so I decided to do a search for the best synth VSTs. I wanted to see if maybe there was something that I had missed. After all, new stuff is coming out all the time and you can never be 100% sure that there isn’t something out there that you won’t find useful.
Well, I do this search at YouTube and up pops all these videos on the subject. One of them really caught my eye. It was the top 100 free VST synths. I couldn’t resist. So I started the video. Essentially what it was, was about 30 second samples of each VST spread out over the course of two videos, each one 25 minutes long.
Now, some of these VSTs I already owned and knew how good they were or whether or not they would even work on my 64 bit host. That’s the problem with a lot of free VSTs, especially older ones. They don’t play so well with Windows 7 64 bit and a lot of VSTs that I had downloaded, which actually sounded great while they worked, eventually crapped out and crashed my Cubase. Some never worked at all and the only reason I know they sounded good was because I had heard demos.
Point is, I went into watching these videos with some reservation. I understood that if I had heard anything that I really liked that there was a chance that it wouldn’t work.
I was pleased to see that a number of free VSTs that I really liked were on this top 100 list. What this did was give me some confidence that I’d find something else worth getting. Had all the VSTs in the video been garbage, I probably would have turned it off after a few minutes, if that.
So, did I find anything good? Actually, yes. I found a few decent sounding synths, even if some of them were essentially only good for certain applications.
For example, I found this T-Force Alpha Plus for making trance sounds. It’s actually a very good sounding synth. Basically you’re limited to trance leads and bass sounds but if you need that sort of thing, this synth will fit the bill just fine. And it has a couple of features that even some premium synths don’t have. I guess you can do that when you’re only doing one or two things.
And then it hit me.
I’ve been searching for the ultimate synth, not that I expected to find it out of a list of free plugins. But still, I keep looking. T-Force Alpha Plus made me realize that you don’t have to find the ultimate synth for your music production. A good narrow synth might be just what the doctor ordered.
That’s when I realized that I have a few of these in my collection that maybe I have been unfairly neglecting. So I went to Cubase to see what I had and found these few little tidbits. I think you might find then useful, even if they’re rather limited.
Altair 4 – Did you ever see that old 1950s film “Forbidden Planet?” Well, if you did, you heard some strange sci fi like sound effects. Altair 4 recreates those effects and other synth noises. You’re not going to use it for melody lines, but if you need some good sci fi effects, this plugin will do the job.
Trancedrive – This may very well be the mother of all trance synths. It has that classic sound and has it in spades. It’s not really good for much else but if you’re looking to do trance music, this is one VST that you want to have.
X-Wof – This is one oddball synth. It’s difficult to explain just what it is this thing does. I haven’t yet figured out how to play a lead with it, if it’s even possible. What it’s great at is setting a soundscape. There are multiple parts to this playback engine including drums, percussion, bass and synth sounds. Essentially what you do is program each part, set it to the tempo of your DAW host and let it run. The sound isn’t anything earth shattering but it’s perfect for those ethereal soundscapes that you hear in lots of sci fi or horror flicks.
And that’s just three of the many plugins that I have that you probably only want to use for certain applications. But when you need something for those certain applications, plugins like these are extremely useful.
What you may want to do, if you’re looking for a particular sound for one of your songs, is look up that particular sound itself, assuming it’s something that you can describe. For example, if you searched for “synths that make sci fi sounds” at Google, Atair 4 would be in the top 10 results and you’d have a perfect synth for what you need.
Looking up best synth vst is great if you want a synth that can cover the meat and potatoes of music production. But if you’re looking for something very specific, maybe you don’t need to plunk down between $100 and $500 (for Omnisphere). Ironically, trying to program Omnisphere to do what Altair 4 can do might prove to be quite a challenge and not worth the effort when Altair 4 can do it in a matter of seconds. Time spent on creating patches has to be considered when choosing a VST for your arsenal.
And so the endless search will continue. At the rate that new synths are being made, I have no doubt that, if a month from now I do another search, I’ll find yet more synths that I never heard of or never tried. And I just might find something that I can use. What I won’t do is solely look for the ultimate synth if all I want to do is make a few sci fi sounds.
Sometimes a simple little VST is all you need.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim