Free basic simple synth with lots of variety of presets?
Something like vital is very powerful, but it has few presets and they're not the most versatile.
I am wondering if there isn't something that's more sort of basic, less power in modulation and stuff like that, just a far less powerful synth, but with a large variety of presets. They don't need to sound the most amazing, and be like something you want for creating a top 40 hit or anything like that, but something with a wide variety of presets, so there's a decent library of all the usual suspects, like basses, leads, pads, and plucks, and stuff like that. Basically the opposite of vital, in that vital is extremely powerful to make whatever you want from scratch, but the presets are few, and sort of niche.
Any ideas? I can only really install one, so I hope there's a consensus for which is the best for this lol.
The installation size of surge was ~400Mb btw, not exactly miniscule lol.
400 problematic?
Not the smallest. Are you trying to put a portable install of Reaper on a really ancient flash drive or something?
That's still miniscule compared to drive space today. Vastly smaller than most modern sample instruments too. There are lots much smaller than Surge anyway. Surge is a bit bigger than some freebies given that it is a big preset part wavetable synth. It's a big beast synth for free!
If you want properly small look at charlatan.
Full Bucket synths are tiny too, and they are in the new CLAP format also.
A lot of the presets sound pretty good, but I prefer other synths just because I do like to fine tune or design my own sounds. You can of course do that in Synth1 too, but I just don't like the UI compared to some others (but also haven't taken the time with it beyond presets).
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I'd certainly recommend Dexed and Surge as mentioned above, but also the following:
Fathom Mono - A modular monophonic synthesizer with advanced modulation, detuning and distortion capabilities as well as the ability to draw your own waveforms and import single cycle waveforms of your own.
FireBird - An easy-to-program synthesizer, characterized by its 'Harmonic Content Morphing' synthesis. It features 84 oscillator types containing 18,000 morphable waveforms, 38 different filter types, 21 arpeggiator types, and 437 build-in sounds.
Helm - A polyphonic semi-modular synthesizer with a flexible modulation system. It features two oscillators, a sub-oscillator, a modulation envelope, and multiple effects, including a stutter effect and a formant adjuster.
OB-Xd - A simple but powerful emulation of the Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8 synthesizers. It features two oscillators, a noise generator, a unison effect, voice variation, micro random detuning, and several banks of presets.
Synthetic - A virtual analogue synthesizer with a group oscillator system, parameter modulation, 128 presets, and five built-in effects, including distortion and a stereoizer.
TAL-NoiseMaker - An improved version of the TAL-Elek7ro synthesizer; featuring two oscillators with phase control, self-resonating 4x oversampled filters, a ring modulator, and 256 presets.
TS-Substance - An easy-to-program virtual analogue synthesizer, with a ring modulator and 'two-of-everything': two oscillators, two LFOs, two envelopes, and two filters.
Tyrell Nexus 6 - A virtual analogue synthesizer, with features similar to the Juno series from Roland. These include two oscillators, a sub-oscillator, a noise generator, a ring modulator, two LFOs, and a modulation matrix.
I use all of the above synthesizers regularly; they're a diverse group of free instruments, and they each feature many presets. My personal favorites at the moment are FireBird and OB-Xd, so if you only want to install one, go with one of those two.
Another thing to consider with Surge XT's um.. whopping 400mb is the huge bank of effects.
So if you plan to use "just one synth" then you've probably got all the effects their built in too.
Charlatan is miniscule though and does polyphonic presets too. But you would have to use other plugin effects, or resort to the ones built into Reaper.
I made hundreds of presets in synth1. However the 64 bit version has issues for some systems. Kind of abandonware last time I looked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synth1
But if we're going with the "one free synth to rule the all" my vote would go to Surge XT.
I use it even though I've got a lot of favourite commercial synths.
I think it may have been mentioned already, but, if you just want a shed of presets, TAL Noisemaker is great. It's good enough to use commercially too (I do!) and there's lots of options to play around with the sounds using essential synth theory -- but you don't have to.
Spoilt for choice for great free synths frankly -- lots of good ones out there, but I find myself drawn often to TAL Noisemaker for some great Electronic noises.
I think it may have been mentioned already, but, if you just want a shed of presets, TAL Noisemaker is great. It's good enough to use commercially too (I do!) and there's lots of options to play around with the sounds using essential synth theory -- but you don't have to.
Spoilt for choice for great free synths frankly -- lots of good ones out there, but I find myself drawn often to TAL Noisemaker for some great Electronic noises.
That one does look very simple. Could be perfect for my needs actually. I saw it before, but I didn't really look through many presets. In my mind it was maybe too basic for lots of presets, but actually I think that might be perfect.
That one does look very simple. Could be perfect for my needs actually. I saw it before, but I didn't really look through many presets. In my mind it was maybe too basic for lots of presets, but actually I think that might be perfect.
Definitely Surge XT. When I d/l'd last fall to evaluate it, I sifted thru some of the presets to see if they played well together. The result was to write what ended up being a goofy parody. I think I used 17 instances of Surge with only included presets and a little BBCSO for the horns and tam-tam (and a bunch of audio clips from the 1960's Start Trek series):
If instead you wanted something complicated with no presets, I would recommend the free Cardinal modular synth by DISTRHO. Although exactly not what you are looking for, it's a lot of fun and you will learn a lot about synthesis, then you won't need presets so much. Maybe in your spare time.
Otherwise, Surge and TAL Noisemaker are both good options, with Noisemaker being the less complicated one.
Just one version of Surge XT with no Effects plugin (it's not required for the synth), the patches and wavetables is 330MB. I guess it's big, actually I never noticed, but closer to 300MB than 400MB
Without wavetables and patches it's just 18MB so that's pretty small. Oh, and the required "data files" (not today, CIA) so about 31MB just for the bare synth.
I use Synth1 with the Synth1 Librarian VST Plugin from Neutrino Sky, it organises all the presets and makes them easy to find. You can put presets into "favourites" too. https://neutrinosky.com/
I think its by FAR the best free Synth in terms of sound and features and it has tons of presets.
I was also disappointed with Vital. That's a tool for synth enthusiasts and sound designers, not casual synth users who just need a cool sound quickly.
Free basic simple synth with lots of variety of presets?
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