11 Totally Free VST Synthesizers That Sound Great
Aug 22nd in Composition by Joel FalconerIt can be hard to find a good synth plug-in, and there are plenty on the market that will have you wondering why you ever parted with your money. Fortunately, this list offers no such disappointments, because everything on it is totally free!
These are all VST synths—while some developers may offer ports for other plug-in architectures, most don’t, so if your workstation of choice doesn’t support VST you might have a hard time finding something you can use here. That said, flick through the list and to each developer’s website and see if they have something that'll work for you.
Joel Falconer is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontman. While Joel's first love is writing and performing songs that touch on important and personal issues, programming, engineering and producing music in the studio are also strong passions.
Let’s take a look at what’s out there.
1. polyIblit
polyIblit is a subtractive synth with alias-free oscillators, and sine, triangle, sawtooth and pulse waveforms. It’s a VST 2.3 plug-in for PC. Get it here.
2. Crystal Soft Synth
Crystal Soft Synth is both a subtractive synth and a frequency modulation synth with a semi-modular design. It features graphical editors, temp sync for envelopes and delays, and built-in effects such as chorus and echo. Get it here.
3. ASynth
ASynth is a virtual analog synthesizer with two oscillators and three filters. It’s technically donationware, but if you can ignore a nag screen this synth is practically free. Check it out here.
4. Oatmeal
Oatmeal is a simple subtractive synthesizer with two oscillators. Despite its simplicity there are plenty of parameters to tweak and it’s even skinnable, if you’re so inclined to tinker with your VST plug-ins visuals. Get it here, near the bottom of the page.
5. Ticky Clav
Ticky Clav is a virtual clavinet synthesizer—it recreates the famous clavinet sound you’ll know from Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. Though it does attempt to recreate the clavinet sound there’s plenty of room for tweaking and there’s an included wah-wah effect. Get it here.
6. Synth1
Synth1’s web page may be unreadable unless you know Japanese, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good, free choice. Synth1 features two oscillators, FM and ring modulation, four types of filters and distortion effects, among many other things. Check it out here.
7. Satyr VA Synth
Satyr VA is a virtual analog synth with two oscillators with FM and ring modulation, delay and two filters. The Satyr is the second plugin on the page—check out the screenshot to see this synth’s cool medieval design. Get it here.
8. Adonis
Adonis is a four-waveform synth with ring and FM modulation and some built-in keyboard settings so using a MIDI controller is much easier. The Adonis has a built in arpeggiator too. Get it here.
9. Alieno
How can you not try out a synth that looks like Alieno? Alieno is well-suited to lead lines and special effects as a monophonic synth with advanced step-modulation. Alieno features six oscillators, two multisaw generators and several built-in effects such as delay, vibrato and reverb. Get it here.
10. Xhip
Xhip isn’t pretty, but it’s an analogue subtractive synth that’s smooth and punchy all at the same time. If you can handle working with the basic interface until a makeover is released, you should check it out here.
11. Helix
Helix is an aliasing-free synth with forty two modulation slots and advanced distortion controls. The whole synth is designed in stereo, so the sound is always big and wide. It’s considered one of the kings of free synths. Get it here.
User Comments
( ADD YOURS )R August 23rd
on the internets all plugins are frees
( )Nic Bertino August 23rd
No love for Superwave P8?
( )Joel Falconer August 23rd
@Nic: Got a link? I’ll check it out.
( )dan August 23rd
Featurific, free and delicious-sounding (but Mac-only) is Alphakanal’s Automat – http://www.alphakanal.de:4356/articles/category/automat – apart from a few bespoke hand-made reaktor synths, it’s actually my favourite one, commerical OR free. Come packaged as an AudioUnit Instrument.
( )Eric Shafer August 23rd
Joel, you got a recommendation for a good synthesizer (doesn’t matter if it’s free or not) to reproduce some of the sounds that Diddy used on his “Press Play” album? I’ve been looking for it for awhile now but I can’t find anything close. I’m trying to avoid programming each synth I want from scratch.
( )Joel Falconer August 23rd
@Eric: Without programming it from scratch, to be honest, not a clue!
( )michael uman August 24th
( )No love for the mac?
Evtimii Mihailov August 25th
Superwave 8 is one of the greatest synths that I have ever heard. Alieno is too different from the commercial sound in my opinion
( )Brandon August 25th
Good post, but these lists would be much easier to parse if Mac and Win support was clearly indicated up front.
( )Andy August 25th
Also check out Fauna here: http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html#nature
( )Really great for creating organic and animal sounds, it’s somewhat of a vocal cord synthesizer.
brett houston August 25th
check out tweakbench.com
lots of simple but great VSTs… monomate is my personal favorite. its a very raw, nasty sounding synth, haha… also, check out peach for those 8-bit nintendo sounds you might have been looking for at some point!
( )Joel Falconer August 25th
Thank you, everyone, for your great recommendations.
Brandon: I’ll make sure this happens in future posts – sorry about that!
( )SimplyWit August 28th
Cool! Thanks for your post. I like ASynth.
( )db September 16th
Please take a look @ Daedelus. Buggy, but a very warm sound!
( )Mark LeBlanc September 18th
Some other great freebies are MinimogueVA http://www.home.no/gunnare/downloads.htm Arppe2600VA http://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/downloads.php/id/3410/software/Arppe2600va/ and TAL Bassline http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products:VST_TAL-BassLine I also agree Superwave P8 is great http://www.kvraudio.com/get/708.html There are tons of others as well. Just do a search on http://www.kvraudio.com
( )Digital-Dreamer January 17th
Thx for this post!
Very interesting synths!
But the Synth1 unfortunately isn´t able to be automised in FL-Studio 8.
But…
Here is another great Synth for free!
http://www.nx-sound.de/downloads/nx-synth2/nx-synth2_all.zip
The only bad thing about it is that it takes a freakin long time to load in FL Studio,but great synth though.
( )Digital-Dreamer January 17th
Edit: Synth1 CAN be automised in FL Studio! I used the Midi-Channel to configure the knobs i needed! Awesome! Just downloaded some banks… The best synth ever!!
( )LCDJ May 24th
HELIX ISN’T FREE! It only has a free trial which generates a random pitch, makes noise every 5 seconds, and you can’t save.
MEANING HELIX ISN’T FREEWARE, IT IS SHAREWARE. Get your facts straight.
( )Joel Falconer May 25th
At the time the article was written which is pretty close to a year ago now, the facts were straight. Things change. Check the dates on articles.
( )Robert June 9th
Genesis is a good one.
( )cardwell September 13th
sytrus, gladiator2, fm7, pro 53, hotelsinusReeseBasslineBig, Tal-Dub, Tal-U-No-60, MinimogueVa, jungleist, IMP-OSC-TOR vsti, Stelsi Virtual Synth 1.0, toxic 2, toxic 3, toxic biohazard, toxic 3 biohazard. These are jus sum ov wot am usin n wreckon if u havnt already got em get em
( )SHAWN November 3rd
hey guyz i need a really good synthesizers for making trance chords….!!
( )Chris November 22nd
Anyone here tried Zynaddsubfx it’s available as a vsti for windows, it very nice pads, the interface is a little daunting but if you spend some time with it you’ll find it’s incredibly versatile.
( )Irfani December 17th
Thanks for share….
( )Waz January 27th
Helix isnt free
( )