r/musicproduction • u/Accomplished_Put2608 • 10h ago

Question What synth vsts are crazy considering the fact they are free?

81 Upvotes
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96% Upvoted

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106

u/allgoodnamesrgone11 10h ago

Vital

30

u/spawnthespy 9h ago

Vital is kinda wild, as a beginner its a blessing to have such an expansive tool for free.

3

u/Existing_Natural_632 1h ago

I've had it for years 😖 even with tutorials I get lost, then it crashes my laptop. Need a new one already

10

u/Professional-Ant4599 9h ago

Question - I can't seem to make anything that I love/that works well in my tracks with vital. I'm also very new to sound design and have only been using free presets. Been debating splashing the money on serum

Is it mostly my inexperience and/or shitty free presets that's holding me back? Any good dubstep/bass preset packs you can recommend to buy?

23

u/EmotionIll666 8h ago

My two cents: If you're new to this, Serum might feel just as overwhelming unless you're purely relying in presets. I'd recommend trying to learn how to use Vital to get the sounds you're looking for.

If you can't find anyone making the types of sounds you want in Vital but you can find those tutorials etc for Serum, I'm not saying stay away from Serum or anything but if you feel like what's holding you back is your own familiarity with the process/concept, buying a more expensive soft synth won't fix that.

5

u/Albus_Harrison 3h ago

I mostly second this take. I’ve never used Vital so I don’t have that frame of reference, but I think Serum is one of the more intuitive soft synths out there. I learned how to build my own sounds using Serum. It’s a great beginner-friendly synth (imo) with an incredibly high ceiling.

I still agree that you should try to learn the tools you have before throwing more money at a new one.

4

u/returnFutureVoid 3h ago

I’m not new to this and Serum feels overwhelming. I’ve bought a couple of packs for it and they have been great to get things rolling but when I try to break down what they did with them I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s an amazing synth.

8

u/Faafkdkdkdkd 8h ago

Every single sound, even the most cringe and weird one is gonna work in some form. You don't make yourself like the sounds, you choose sounds you like and then try to find others that fit them.

There were a couple presets I hated so much, I would literally close my daw for a couple hours after hearing them cuz I would feel disgusted. And then at some point I was making a melody at which I felt the need to have something contrasting in it so felt the urge to add that weird plucky sound I always hated and it turned out amazing.

Just experiment and listen to your own taste, nothing else matters. A lot of presets are also supposed to be tweaked to properly fit the song

6

u/StrangeSniper 8h ago

yes, it is mostly a skill issue. I don't use vital so i don't any good preset packs but you can find some free ones here https://presetshare.com/presets?query=&instrument=2&genre=&type=&orderby=relevance

getting serum won't make ur songs better or your sound design any better. it is my go to and favorite synth though. watch some basic videos on synth design or videos that recreate synths from your favorite songs.

2

u/hardypart 4h ago

Vital is a subtractive synth like any other synth. The only difference between synths is mostly the workflow.

2

u/Hitdomeloads 3h ago

That is cause of your inexperience.

It’s like saying you dont know how to make an omelette and asking if you should buy different eggs

2

u/Nice_Background_9919 2h ago

When you get to that point just play your parts yourself. I understand when you coming from and a lot of the presets are cookie cutter presets if you're trying to just drag in basslines and cords etc it's not going to be what you looking for.

3

u/TruSiris 6h ago

Vital is basically Serum 1. Just stick with learning Vital there's really no reason you need Serum at this point.

39

u/Bred_Slippy 10h ago

SurgeXT. 

3

u/MT4K 9h ago

Any really good presets though?

5

u/International_Box193 5h ago

Idk if it answers your question that this reads like satire to me. It has a massive amount of community presets, and many great defaults.

1

u/MT4K 5h ago

I mean Surge XT looks like a great synth (permanently installed on my computer), but I never heard really good presets made with it.

1

u/KLNmusik 7h ago

Facts

1

u/Accomplished_Put2608 10h ago

Omg absolutely

29

u/Chemical-Drawer852 9h ago

Dexed

Essentially a free dx7 and most patches from that era work well

2

u/Hitdomeloads 3h ago

This flies under the radar for dance music producers but it has a ton of options

18

u/M1ntyMusic 8h ago

All you need is Vital and Surge. You can literally make any sound between those two.

1

u/Fye_Maximus 4h ago

yup, I use these 2 the most

17

u/the_phantom_limbo 10h ago

Cardinal
tyrell n6
Vital

13

u/iLikeTheUDK 9h ago

Surge XT, Vital, Helm

3

u/EngelbertImpromptu 9h ago

The Surge team also have the OB-Xf vst which is an amazing continuation of the Oberheim emulation OB-Xd which was abandoned I believe

1

u/Kilox_Devastator 3h ago

And all FOSS! I came here to suggest these 3.
You can find presets online too, I downloaded a few for each from a random site after a quick search

7

u/Airport001 8h ago

The Green Oak Crystal synth! Only gangsters and thugs know.

3

u/Efficient-Aerie8611 9h ago

Definitely Vital.

4

u/barkingcat 6h ago edited 6h ago

VCV Rack is incredible for being free.

2

u/warmboot 1h ago

There is a fee for using it as a VST, though.

3

u/Guard_Familiar 9h ago

Vital and Freeclip

3

u/Icy-Bar-5882 8h ago

The Deer, the fox and the guitar. Best free guitar kontakt library, blows my mind

7

u/El_Hadji 7h ago

Full Bucket's KORG emulations. Better than KORG's own ones.

6

u/KulshanStudios 9h ago

...OsTIrus

3

u/StretchWatson 7h ago

Great synth and loadsa useable presets

3

u/KulshanStudios 7h ago

Don't have to tell me twice lol

I'm making a fresh batch of them on the OG TI2 as we speak 😎

4

u/StretchWatson 7h ago

Nice, do you share the ones you make?

5

u/Faafkdkdkdkd 8h ago

Definitely Alchemy (not really vst anymore tho). Best synthesizer out there, 4k presets all different, all have 8 variations and also sub-variations with included fx and arp system+granular and spectral engines+literallg everything else. Considering Logic Pro is possible to get for 3 dollars only, it's the best stock plugin out there

3

u/Ant12-3 5h ago

Tree Dolla? Where you get? Fuyo good result nephew

2

u/hanola_the_egg 7h ago

Vaporizer 2 synth

2

u/AthertonWing 6h ago

Zyklop from dawesome has some crazy boundary pushing stuff (sample based spectral processing of some kind, just try it it’s wild)

Zebralette 3 is also top tier and incredibly powerful (some of the best and most powerful spline editing + additive)

Vital as already mentioned

2

u/Minimum_Comedian694 6h ago

Charlatan 3 (Best Overall) Full Bucket Music (Best Emulation) Dead Duck Classic Instruments (Best CPU Efficiency and Ease of Use) Digits by Extents of the Jam and Regency by Nakst (Best Phase Distortion) Apricot by Nakst (Best Hybrid) Fluctus by nakst and Exakt Lite (Best FM)

2

u/illuminatiisnowhere 3h ago

pg-8x, the jx8p vst.

2

u/hanix56 3h ago

Voxengo span

1

u/Mike-In-Ottawa 7h ago

Oatmeal, back in the day.

1

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1

u/Evanduril 3h ago

Pneuma Pro

1

u/ilovepotter 2h ago

Gonna have to check all of these out.

1

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-2

u/Purple-Breadfruit541 5h ago

everything’s free if you want it to be :)