Free easy-easy-easy to use softsynth?

Hello friends,

I have always been a firm advocate of using hardware devices. But a couple of weeks ago I bought myself a Mac, and it would be a pity not to utilize it to its fullest. Thus I intend to embark on the adventure of using software synthesizers.

I am not even remotely an expert on subtractive synthesis, but through the now two years that I have worked in this area I have gathered some knowledge, and so I suspect I will be able to find my way around a basic synthesizer, and for my own uses, I probably intend to find something really good sounding - have heard great things about Sylenth1 and Zebra.

However, me and my classmates just made a great arrangement to compensate for our conservatory having to cut costs - we'll just teach each other. So I will be receiving drum lessons, and will be teaching two friends of mine subtractive synthesis. These two are starting from absolute scratch, and even though learning synthesis would be ideal on a hardware device, asking that they purchase one for the sake of twenty minutes weekly is hardly feasible. So I am looking for a very, very basic and easy to use software synthesizer for kicking off these classes. Sound quality is unimportant at this stage. Thanks, folks!

Niels

Tal-U-No-62.

Simple, basic, free. Sounds pretty decent too.

Crystal is worth a look as well http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/Crystal/Crystal.html

Here's a couple of sites to start with:

Not all are on the Apple OS so you'll have to check the sites they show.

VSTi - FreeMusicSoftware.org

Not all are free but at least they show the OS.

KVR

Good luck!

For The Win of EASY

Crystal is not easy at all.

Thanks for the input guys

Hello friends, I have always been a firm advocate of using hardware devices. But a couple of weeks ago I bought myself a Mac, and it would be a pity not to utilize it to its fullest. Thus I intend to embark on the adventure of using software synthesizers. I am not even remotely an expert on subtractive synthesis, but through the now two years that I have worked in this area I have gathered some knowledge, and so I suspect I will be able to find my way around a basic synthesizer, and for my own uses, I probably intend to find something really good sounding - have heard great things about Sylenth1 and Zebra. However, me and my classmates just made a great arrangement to compensate for our conservatory having to cut costs - we'll just teach each other. So I will be receiving drum lessons, and will be teaching two friends of mine subtractive synthesis. These two are starting from absolute scratch, and even though learning synthesis would be ideal on a hardware device, asking that they purchase one for the sake of twenty minutes weekly is hardly feasible. So I am looking for a very, very basic and easy to use software synthesizer for kicking off these classes. Sound quality is unimportant at this stage. Thanks, folks! Niels

Without a doubt Ishro Toda's SYNTH 1 - http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/

Low CPU, sounds great, is really quite flexible, super stable and loosely based on the Nord Lead 1.

xXNWRSioI5E

TAL Noisemaker

More advanced but great

Linplug alpha free

Zebralette

Here is another idea for you. Go buy one electronic version of computer music magazine number 182 (the latest issue) for $4.99 or just subscribe for $39.99. Starting with this issue, all the content on the DVD that ships with the papaer magazine is available to download. That includes CM versions of many commercial synths that are "lite" compared with the commercial versions but still very, very good synths. Some of the CM versions have features that are not unlocked on the developer's free version (if there even is a free version). There are also some rather excellent effects plugins and usually an issue-specific freebie. For example issue 182 comes with Tone2's "BiFilter" effect plugin which is quite good in my opinion. Each issue also comes with a set of royalty-free samples that you can use, mangle, etc if you want.