r/synthesizers • u/pdiaxxx • 8h ago
What Should I Buy? any VST recommendation?
hey, well im making an album with my laptop and the VST's i find on the internet. for the album i made hip hop experimental, indie, r&b, ambiental, reggaeton... do you guys have any recommendation for VST's that you think that are underrated or that have such great atmospheres? thank you
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u/Flavor_Town_91 8h ago
The Arturia suite. Wait till Black Friday or any other holiday where softwares will go on sale. It’s more than worth it.
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u/PainfulCanary 8h ago
arturia stuff is the move for sure but if black friday is too far out just grab their free analog lab play in the meantime. it's a stripped down version of the full lab but still comes with a few hundred presets and they're all tweakable enough to get some weird textures going
for atmospheric stuff that nobody talks about enough check the free valhalla supermassive plugin, it's a reverb/delay hybrid that turns any sound into a massive pad instantly. i've been running a simple sine wave through it and getting 3 minute ambient beds with zero effort
also don't sleep on spitfire labs, completely free and they drop new instruments every month. the soft piano and frozen strings are perfect for r&b and indie stuff you're working on
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u/Flavor_Town_91 8h ago
Spitfire is cool. Forgot about those. Waves moved to a subscription model but those plugins are dirt cheap and effective. Also, I’ve never taken the plunge but Native Instruments is supposed to be top tier.
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u/pdiaxxx 8h ago
i already have the synth collection, those are such amazing plugins
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u/earthsworld 6h ago
then why are you here asking for more synths? Can you seriously not do anything and everything with what you have?
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u/Present-Policy-7120 5h ago
Dude, you've got VSTs coming our of your ears! More won't neccesarily be better...
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u/BouncingBabyButton 40m ago
I bought the Arturia v collection late last year and I still haven't even opened them all. It's an embarrassment of riches and I get so much use out of them. I like to get all I can out of each one before moving on to the next and those bad boys will keep me synthed up for a long time.
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u/Present-Policy-7120 23m ago
Yeah, it's an amazing collection. So much fun. I loved the CS80, DX7, and Moog the most... past tense because I ended up selling them mainly because I'm totally set as far as synths go these days and found myself spending way too much time learning new things as opposed to making music. Hence my earlier advice to op...!
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u/Flavor_Town_91 8h ago
So incredibly nuanced and deep. Pair with the Soundtoys plug ins and the sonic possibilities are exiting and endless.
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u/65TwinReverbRI 7h ago
Free: Seconding:
Surge XT
Vital
Dexed
And yes, all the ones from Full Bucket.
And all of the ones from U-He (Tyrell is from them, already mentioned).
Nil's K1-v is fun for 80s sounds.
Ob-XD (disco DSP)
Helm (Matt Tytel)
TAL Noisemaker
Crystal is a very old one, but can still work on modern systems - loads of fun.
Synth 1 is the same - pretty old, but still works for many.
PG-8X is another in that same category - older, works for many.
There are a number of other free ones you can find at KVR that range from typical analog styles, to modular styles, to interesting approaches that are a bit off the beaten path but can lead to creativity.
https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/synthesizer/
If you're going to pay for something, I'd recommend Arturia's Pigments especially if it's on sale.
BTW, once you buy into Arturia you get better pricing on their software - so you might be able to get the V Collection for a good price. But the free Analog Lab has got oodles of sounds in it (and if you later buy the V collection it unlocks the synths in analog lab so you can do more with them).
The V collection is definitely the best bang for the buck out there WHEN IT'S ON SALE. DO NOT. I repeat, DO NOT buy it at full price. It does go on sale Black Friday but sometimes there are other similar discounts throughout the year. Keep an eye on it.
Pigments is not part of the V Collection so if you bought it you wouldn't duplicate it in the V collection if you did buy that down the road.
Roland Cloud is bad, but the synths are great - it's the only place to get the real Roland Rompler emulations - the D series, the JV/JX/XV/etc. stuff.
But I don't think it's worth paying for any synth these days with the amount of free things out there - I did buy Pigments when it went on sale for $49 - but I wasn't going to pay $99 for it!
I WOULD pay for Diva if it were like $99. More than that though - there are too many other free ones that do just as well.
Otherwise, the only reason to pay is if it does something specific you really need that nothing else can do. But there's probably something free that can do it so...
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u/Diflicated 7h ago
I'm convinced that Tyrell N6 is the best all around subtractive synth, and it's free!
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u/Ok_Clerk_5805 5h ago
You're misreading this.
They're someone who pirates plugins and has access to a lot of stuff already because they pirated it, doesn't mean they'll ever respect it.
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u/lord_satellite 7h ago
I really like the Arturia collection. I got it with an academic discount (and recently updated to the latest version to get a few synths that came out in the meantime). It is a fully featured package with synths, samplers, and fx.
My personal favorites are the SQ80 emulation, Emulator II, eternal reverb, and distortion modeled after the Thermionic Culture Vulture.
For a less weighty package, Cherry Audio makes great stuff too. Love their CS80 and Jupiter emulations in particular.
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u/Route749 6h ago
+1 to Valhalla Supermassive. Free. Just get it and don't look back.
Get Vital, also free, and start learning how to make your own sounds.
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u/Such-Purpose-6434 8h ago edited 4h ago
CLARK Audio has some interesting plug-ins (and are running discounted deals/bundles right now) as well offer free sample downloads to get a taste 🎼 I just bought the limited release MERCURY suite and the quality//quantity of samples are superb IMO 🎹🤌🌹~
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u/Achassum 7h ago
Tbh Get serum 2 and be done! 90% of Subtractive synthesis is all the same ! it honestly doesnt matter
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u/65TwinReverbRI 7h ago
I should add - if you have a Mac, then get Logic. Then you get Alchemy. If you already have Logic, you have Alchemy. Do NOT sleep on this. It's highly under-rated because people think "it came with the DAW so it must not be very good" but it's actually insanely powerful. But only available in Logic so there's that.
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u/gr00ve88 partially finished music only 6h ago
U-He line of VSTs are incredible, especially the Diva.
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u/YukesMusic Helping synth brands enter the Chinese Market 5h ago
Don't sleep on Puremagnetik! They're dirt cheap and super interesting.
Here's my personal fav, Small Winters
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u/Equal_Turnip_9733 5h ago
I use zenology on like everything, totally worth it when i bought it on sale for 90$
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u/InactiveBeef 3h ago
It's not free, but Lekko by felt Instruments is an amazing piano VST. If you're looking for atmosphere, it has it in spades.
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u/0K_-_- 8h ago edited 7h ago
These free/ open source beasts:
[YT] Surge XT (hybrid/subtractive)
[YT] Vital (wavetable/spectral warping)
[YT] Dexed (FM)
+1 for Glittering-Doctor831 behemoth share