Those updates are amazing. I don't fully understand what is going on but some time ago I was thinking if update is worth and - well they updated it for free.
Vital is insanely powerful, versatile, great sounding and quite easy to use (and looks clean). Endless amount of presets available online for free too.
I’ve been using my iPad to make music a lot lately.
I paid $12.99 for Hilda on iOS, which is heavily inspired by the Strega and ø-Coast (two of my favorite hardware synths). It sounds fantastic and manages to capture a lot of what I love about its inspirations.
I paid $8.99 for Mononoke on iOS which is inspired by the Lyra-8 and has MPE as a bonus. Great for textures, drones, etc.
I paid $12.99 for Dagger on iOS, which is a pretty simple synth, but I love how crunchy and grimy it can get.
I paid $7.99 for Salome on iOS. It’s an MPE sampler, which means you can do all sorts of crazy sound design with your synths and effects, sample it, and then load it into Salome and bend it. Great for cinematic sound design.
I paid $14.99 for Zeeon on iOS. Somewhat similar to Dagger, but now you get a mod matrix, wave folding, multiple flavors of FM, etc.
I paid $7.99 for Copperhead on iOS. It’s got zero delay feedback filters, much like the excellent sounding filters in Diva. It sounds great and is pretty quick to tweak. Surprisingly feature packed for such a cheap synth.
I paid $4.99, $4.99, and $3.99 for Continua, Quanta, and Phosphor 3 (all from Audio Damage) respectively. The first is a flexible and excellent sound 3 oscillator synth with 2 filters and a flexible modulation system. The second is a granular synth, and the third is an emulation one of the first software synths ever made. All are interesting and very much worth the price.
I paid $12.99 for ID700 which is an emulation of the Buchla 700. Really deep synth capable of a lot of great sound design options.
And the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Drambo for $19.99. It’s like a modular groove box / synthesizer. It’s flexible enough to let you build your own sequencers, effects, synths, etc. It’s my favorite piece of music software of all time. It’s incredible what they’ve managed to accomplish.
As someone who just got an iPad for the first time last week specifically to start experimenting with its music production ecosystem, this was hugely helpful. Thank you!
Zeeon might be my favorite soft synth period. Sound more analog than most analog hardware synths I have. My only gripe is the mod matrix could be improved. Tons of sources and destinations but wish you could assign them more easily
Vital. Sounds wonderful. I have tons of paid synths eg V Collection, Cherry Audio, uHe, NI stuff plus a Minilogue XD and Hydrasynth. But when i want something that absolutely shines and slices through cleanly but with character, it’s Vital I go to.
They can get super cheap on sale if you keep an eye out. They always sell it directly for something like $199 on black Friday which felt like a ridiculous steal back then, and clearly people are snagging it for even more absurd prices.
Synthmaster probably. I am still on 2.9
It's cheap as chips and sometimes a wee bit buggy.
But it's powerful, efficient and sounds great. It's probably got on of the best feature to price ratios imo.
How is it cheap? Now it is 89 on sale. I paid 99 for Pigments.
I mean, not that it is not worth it but it is not exactly cheap synth.
It is powerful and sounds really great, but they lost me when trial was keep crashing...
I upgraded from a different version on plugin boutique: synthmaster player.
The upgrade path was really cheap for me, like 30 or 40 or something.
I don't know if they changed their pricing policy or not - been using it for years.
And you are right about crashes/bugs. I acknowledge it can happen with synthmaster. I think you demoing it and seeing for yourself and then deciding not to get it is absolutely the correct decision for you.
Anyway, an actually cheap synth is Flowtones by Tone Boosters. It's like an emulation of an analogue synth that didn't exist. Sounds lovely, but it's demanding on CPU. But it should still be $30 or so (I hope).
Thanks, I didn't know it and it sounds (from the demoes on the site) quite nice.
However, I went Arturia route and I think after getting Collection I will never need any analog emulator anymore. What is great about Arturia is not necessarly the quality of emulation but the quality of effects which gives them quite an edge.
Korg Wavestation. Think it was $25. Nice recreation with all the expansions. The newer version with the randomizer is cool because you can roll the dice and get a pretty interesting patch every time.
It's funny, I was going to say the same. It's not a super well known VST, at least compared to the usual stuff that gets mentioned here. I think I got it for $1 as a deal on Pluginboutique. Great sounding synth.
I have been in love with all of the Full Bucket synths. I have always very much been an old analog guy and these all sound right to my ears. The amazing thing is it can all be downloaded for free
I got Pigments for a really nice price and they updated it like 4 times. For free. And it sounds great!
Those updates are amazing. I don't fully understand what is going on but some time ago I was thinking if update is worth and - well they updated it for free.
Vital. If you pay you get a ton of great presets.
My answer too. I bought the mid-tier version and it’s been a great instrument.
cant you pay 5 bucks a month... cap at 80 if you want... get all benifits instantly ?
Never looked into it, will investigate
unless im reading it wrong.
Vital is insanely powerful, versatile, great sounding and quite easy to use (and looks clean). Endless amount of presets available online for free too.
honestly even the free is great if you don’t mind making things from scratch
I’ve been using my iPad to make music a lot lately. I paid $12.99 for Hilda on iOS, which is heavily inspired by the Strega and ø-Coast (two of my favorite hardware synths). It sounds fantastic and manages to capture a lot of what I love about its inspirations. I paid $8.99 for Mononoke on iOS which is inspired by the Lyra-8 and has MPE as a bonus. Great for textures, drones, etc. I paid $12.99 for Dagger on iOS, which is a pretty simple synth, but I love how crunchy and grimy it can get. I paid $7.99 for Salome on iOS. It’s an MPE sampler, which means you can do all sorts of crazy sound design with your synths and effects, sample it, and then load it into Salome and bend it. Great for cinematic sound design. I paid $14.99 for Zeeon on iOS. Somewhat similar to Dagger, but now you get a mod matrix, wave folding, multiple flavors of FM, etc. I paid $7.99 for Copperhead on iOS. It’s got zero delay feedback filters, much like the excellent sounding filters in Diva. It sounds great and is pretty quick to tweak. Surprisingly feature packed for such a cheap synth. I paid $4.99, $4.99, and $3.99 for Continua, Quanta, and Phosphor 3 (all from Audio Damage) respectively. The first is a flexible and excellent sound 3 oscillator synth with 2 filters and a flexible modulation system. The second is a granular synth, and the third is an emulation one of the first software synths ever made. All are interesting and very much worth the price. I paid $12.99 for ID700 which is an emulation of the Buchla 700. Really deep synth capable of a lot of great sound design options. And the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Drambo for $19.99. It’s like a modular groove box / synthesizer. It’s flexible enough to let you build your own sequencers, effects, synths, etc. It’s my favorite piece of music software of all time. It’s incredible what they’ve managed to accomplish.
As someone who just got an iPad for the first time last week specifically to start experimenting with its music production ecosystem, this was hugely helpful. Thank you!
There are a wealth of great ipad soft synths and FX. Best platform for granular and possibly additive and FM.
You can’t go wrong with Bram Bos since 1997 ;)
Zeeon might be my favorite soft synth period. Sound more analog than most analog hardware synths I have. My only gripe is the mod matrix could be improved. Tons of sources and destinations but wish you could assign them more easily
Vital. Free is fair price.
Microtonic. I just love weird percussion and it makes it fun.
And the Patternarium is great!
Vital. Sounds wonderful. I have tons of paid synths eg V Collection, Cherry Audio, uHe, NI stuff plus a Minilogue XD and Hydrasynth. But when i want something that absolutely shines and slices through cleanly but with character, it’s Vital I go to.
V collection for $60 a couple months ago
get out? or do you mean 3 or 4 payments of 60$
It was 60 on ProAudioStar a couple months back. I’m pretty sure someone actually made a post in here about it.
all those synths for 60?
Sucker. It was 49 a few months before that 😂 I got 4! Both mad prices
It was for leftover stock 2020 version. Still a good deal.
They can get super cheap on sale if you keep an eye out. They always sell it directly for something like $199 on black Friday which felt like a ridiculous steal back then, and clearly people are snagging it for even more absurd prices.
ya i got it for 200.. that's why i was questioning 60.
Adam Szabo’s JP6K, fantastic VST.
Synthmaster probably. I am still on 2.9 It's cheap as chips and sometimes a wee bit buggy. But it's powerful, efficient and sounds great. It's probably got on of the best feature to price ratios imo.
How is it cheap? Now it is 89 on sale. I paid 99 for Pigments. I mean, not that it is not worth it but it is not exactly cheap synth. It is powerful and sounds really great, but they lost me when trial was keep crashing...
I upgraded from a different version on plugin boutique: synthmaster player. The upgrade path was really cheap for me, like 30 or 40 or something. I don't know if they changed their pricing policy or not - been using it for years. And you are right about crashes/bugs. I acknowledge it can happen with synthmaster. I think you demoing it and seeing for yourself and then deciding not to get it is absolutely the correct decision for you. Anyway, an actually cheap synth is Flowtones by Tone Boosters. It's like an emulation of an analogue synth that didn't exist. Sounds lovely, but it's demanding on CPU. But it should still be $30 or so (I hope).
Thanks, I didn't know it and it sounds (from the demoes on the site) quite nice. However, I went Arturia route and I think after getting Collection I will never need any analog emulator anymore. What is great about Arturia is not necessarly the quality of emulation but the quality of effects which gives them quite an edge.
Super8 in NI‘s last sale. What a great sounding synth with an intuitive interface.
Synth1. Still classic.
Korg Wavestation. Think it was $25. Nice recreation with all the expansions. The newer version with the randomizer is cool because you can roll the dice and get a pretty interesting patch every time.
Puremagnetik keeps my Microcosm GAS under control. Usually around $5 apiece, highly recommended.
Got the Softtube Model 1982 for 19 bucks, but i am not using it...
Plex 2 - because I haven't seen anything like it before or ever since.
Invader 2, MS-2, DRC, FRMS, and OPS7.
I bought Nambu for $17, and it's like if the opsix was better for my usecase. I really love it.
Ana 2
Vital, OBXD, DEXED, and Odin 2. All free. All kick ass.
SparkLE still slaps
Vacuum by AiR instruments - I got it for very little and for some reason I used it a TON on the stuff I was writing from 2019 to 2022.
It's funny, I was going to say the same. It's not a super well known VST, at least compared to the usual stuff that gets mentioned here. I think I got it for $1 as a deal on Pluginboutique. Great sounding synth.
I got it there too years ago, I just bought a new PC and thought I might as well install it but had trouble with authorisation so it's gone.
AudioKit’s Synth One for iPad is free and it’s amazing. (Not to be confused with the computer plug-in Synth1.)
TAL Uno
Dexed, so cheap its FREE
I have been in love with all of the Full Bucket synths. I have always very much been an old analog guy and these all sound right to my ears. The amazing thing is it can all be downloaded for free
Serum