Twelve Under a Hundred

Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Len Sasso

From time to time, EM's editors search out cost-effective solutions for common problems. Most electronic musicians use software instruments to one extent or another, and most are on a budget. So we decided to see what's available in low-cost virtual instruments.

A quick trip to KVR Audio, the Synth Zone, Harmony Central, or the “What's New” and “Download of the Month” departments in back issues of EM reveals a huge number of software instruments. Prices range from free to stratospheric, and all platforms and formats are well represented. For this roundup, we decided to stick with synthesizers (no sample-based instruments) and limit the price to less than $100. Even at that, the field is huge, and we make no claim to having tried them all or picked only the best. Our goal was to present an interesting and varied collection of instruments, and that proved to be no problem. But many of the inexpensive soft synths we didn't cover are equally worthy.

The Field

Four of these virtual instruments are cross-platform, running under both Mac OS X and Windows. Seven of the remaining eight are Windows only and one is Mac only. That totals 11 Windows and 5 Mac synths. All of the Windows synths support the Steinberg VSTi plug-in format, and KV331 Audio SynthMaster also supports RTAS. All of the Mac instruments support the Apple AU format, and all but U-he Zoyd also support VSTi. SynthMaster also runs as a standalone application.

The synths run the gamut from commercial products with large preset libraries and complete manuals to experimental instruments that require some ingenuity to take full advantage of their features. Many come with little or no documentation, but you'll always find some presets and at least a few helpful hints to get you going.

Various synthesis methods are represented. Subtractive synthesis (sound generators followed by filters) is at the heart of the vast majority of software and hardware synths, and that's also true here. In fact, every synth covered uses filtering at some point in the signal path. LinPlug Alpha 3 and ReFX Vanguard adhere closely to the classic analog subtractive model, although each has features not found on classic synths. Green Oak Crystal, KV331 Audio SynthMaster, and U-he Zoyd are hybrid synths, featuring other methods along with subtractive synthesis. They are also semimodular, meaning you can rearrange their signal paths. Sonic Charge MicroTonic is a drum machine that uses subtractive synthesis for its sounds.

Six of these synths deviate significantly from the subtractive model. Nusofting Modelonia uses physical modeling of plucked-string and blown-bore instruments to generate its sounds. ConcreteFX Vocal combines oscillators with formant filters to create vocal-like sounds. Humanoid Sound Systems Scanned Synth VST uses a relatively new method called scanned synthesis. Mutagene Pocas and Progress Audio Soup are additive synths; Pocas adds a technique it calls chaotic particle modulation, and Soup adds vectored patch morphing. Rick Jelliffe's Neumixturtrautonium employs subharmonic synthesis.

ConcreteFX

Vocal ($46, Win, VSTi)
Although Vocal is designed to produce vocal sounds, its architecture and modulation routings give it a much broader reach. Vocal's signal path starts with two 3-oscillator sound sources; the oscillators play the same waveform, but you can tune them individually in semitones. You get standard synthesizer waveforms, noise, and two user-definable additive waveforms.

Each oscillator feeds its own 5-band formant filter, and the formant filters together with a separate noise generator feed a resonant multimode filter followed by an effects block. The multimode filter has 12 and 24 dB lowpass, bandpass, highpass, and band-reject modes. The effects block consists of chorus, phaser, stereo delay, and stereo spread in series along with tremolo and vibrato modulators.

The formant filters are the heart of this synth. Each of the six formant-filter presets — Standard, Bass, Tenor, Ctenor, Soprano, and Alto A — consists of separate 5-band configurations for the vowels A, E, I, O, and U. A slider morphs between the vowels for the chosen filter preset, and you can modulate, automate, and remotely control (by means of MIDI) the slider. Two user configurations, which are saved with the preset, can be drawn from scratch or created by modifying one of the factory configurations (see Fig. 1).

For modulation, Vocal has six AHDSFR envelopes, six LFOs, and six step sequencers. You use a modulation matrix to route any of those sources to oscillator and formant-filter parameters. The step sequencers hold from 1 to 16 steps and can run at rates ranging from ¼ to 4 times the host tempo. You can shape the transition between steps from instant to linear to convex-curved. The latter shapes are more useful for formant modulation.

If you're thinking Vocal is only good for vocal sounds, a spin through its six factory preset banks will disabuse you of that notion. This synth is great for pulsing ambient pads, honking leads, and resonant basses. The presets also illustrate a wide range of vocal effects (see Web Clip 1). Check out the free demo to see what Vocal has to offer.

Green Oak

Crystal (free, Mac/Win, VSTi/AU)
In soft-synth terms, Crystal is a bit long in the tooth, and the pace of updates has slowed recently. But it is actively supported, and up against the new, new thing, it still sounds great. Furthermore, most of the bugs are out, and a significant preset library has evolved over the years.

Crystal layers three identical synths (called voices), each of which you can disable to save CPU cycles (see Fig. 2). Each voice consists of an oscillator and filter, with breakpoint envelopes for filter cutoff frequency and amplitude. The oscillators play standard single-cycle waveforms, multicycle sampled waveforms, and SoundFonts. You can also implement rudimentary forms of FM, ring modulation, hard sync, and granular processing. The oscillators feed resonant multimode filters, a saturation processor, and a waveshaper.

Crystal's mixer is one of its most powerful and unusual features. It incorporates a 4-way crossover and four feedback delay lines. Each voice has sliders for the amount sent to the crossover, each delay line, and the final output. You can use those to set up complex multitap delays, and the delay lines are capable of very short delay times for chorus, flange, and phase effects.

Modulation is another area where Crystal shines. In addition to the dedicated filter and amplitude envelopes, you can route six general-purpose envelopes to virtually any voice or mixer parameter. Each envelope can have as many as nine breakpoints, and each segment comes in a variety of shapes such as curved, pulsed, and spiked. A 12-row modulation matrix routes both the envelopes and six multiwave LFOs.

Programming Crystal is a little daunting, but three autoprogramming features circumvent much of the hard labor. As with many synths, you can randomize all settings, and with Crystal, that produces good-sounding results much of the time. You can also breed new presets that combine settings from two selected presets, which gives you a little more control. Finally, you can assign a modulator or MIDI controller to morph between two presets in real time. The breeding and morphing features, combined with a large collection of factory presets, mean you won't run out of fresh sounds anytime soon (see Web Clip 2).

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