In a previous article I had gone over my top 5 synth plugins or something like that. But because there are so many more plugins that I use and like, I thought I’d go over a few of them here to give you some more choices for your sound creation arsenal. Let me just say up front that none of these are going to blow you out of the water if you’re the owner of things like Omnisphere, Zebra 2 and Massive. But if you’re looking for some more sounds that are usable and even unique in their own way, you might want to check some of these out.
Let’s begin.
There is this guy by the name of H G Fortune. At least I think that’s his name.
Here’s his website.
http://www.hgf-synthesizer.com/
This guy makes some very interesting sounding synths. For the most part, they’re sample playback machines. You pull up your samples (in most cases two max) and then set your other parameters.
Ah, but this is where his stuff gets so interesting. He has a lot of very odd and quirky things that you can do with these synths. The best way to describe these features is to say that through a variety of controls you can make these samples dance around in some very unusual ways creating what could probably be best described as some very interesting soundscapes that probably aren’t possible with conventional synths, not even your most advanced ones.
H G Fortunes synths have lots of reverb and delay to really give you that washed out pad sound great for ethereal pads and the like. Sound wise, the synths won’t blow you away. We are of course talking free. But they’re usable. And if you’re looking for something different sounding, H F Fortune synths will definitely fill the bill.
We now move onto another synth producer. His name is Xavier Kalensky. He makes the KX77 series synths. These are extremely complex monsters to program so you probably want to stick to the presets unless you’re a seasoned pro.
For one thing, there are tons of parameters on these things and they’re not all clearly marked or even understandable. Plus, they are not laid out like traditional synths. Stuff is literally all over the place. Plus, you are going to run into features and controls that you won’t find on other synths.
What do I like these synths? They sound very good. Again, we’re talking free synths here. Some of them sound downright great. Unlike H G Fortune synths, these use traditional synth waveforms such as saw, triangle, square and sine. You won’t find any fancy waveforms but you don’t need them. The control that you will have over the sound is amazing for a free synth. But like I said, programming these things is a nightmare if you aren’t a pro. And even if you are, you’re going to have a lot of trouble understanding some of the controls. The matrix synth is pretty much click something and see what effect it has. So you will probably want to stick to the presets, which sound great. Many usable sounds here.
You can check out his web site below.
http://kx77free.free.fr/English-page-vst.html
Next we move onto the Kamiooka.
You can check out the website below.
http://www.g200kg.com/en/software/kamioooka.html
Here is the description right off the page.
“Kamioooka is a polyphonic Full-Modular synthesizer with patch cable system. You can freely combine modules and make patches. 10 module slots and 7 types of modules (VCO/VCF/VCA/ADSR/LFO/MISC/SEQ) are available.”
If you’ve never worked with patch cables before this synth cab be a bit daunting. But it sounds great. It comes with a few basic presets but not very many relative to what you usually get with a synth. So to get the most out of this, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and dive into it. Warning: Programming this thing can become very addictive if for no other reason then to see if you can get a sound out of it…any sound.
Moving on.
Check out this website.
http://www.omnitaur.se/
If you look at the first synth listed, the Daedalus, you really want to check this thing out. Why?
Well, for starters, it sounds very good. But more importantly, it is very easy to program if you know basic synthesis. This is your standard meat and potatoes analog synth with 2 VCOs, 2 LFOs, mixer, filter, ADSRs for VCO, VCF and VCA and even chorus and delay effects. Reminds me a little of one of my old Moog synths.
My only complaint is that it doesn’t come with many presets at all. In fact, it comes with all of 16. But, I just discovered today, in going back to the site to get the URL for you, that there is a download for extra presets. How many? I don’t know because I haven’t checked them out yet, but extra is extra so I’ll take what I can get.
But like I said, this thing is easy to program so you’re going to have a lot of fun with it coming up with your own sounds.
Oh, one other thing about this synth. Yes, it is free, but that comes with a small price. There is a nag screen for a donation that you have to click through each time you use it. Plus, it appears that you can’t access extra presets unless you donate. So you’re probably going to be doing a lot of programming with this thing. But it’s worth it. Easy to do and sounds great.
As I have hundreds of free synths, I could probably do this for quite some time, but I’m going to stop here so I have some more of these to go through in a future article. You’d be amazed at all the usable free synths that there are. If you’re on a 64 bit machine, some of them won’t work. Yes, that’s a problem. But there are plenty that do as is or with a bridging program like JBridge.
Hope you enjoyed the article and have some fun with these synths. They should keep you busy for a while.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim