The Best Synth VSTs

As requested, a concise list.

There are so many synths on the market offering similar features with a different take on visual interface, fx processing techniques, and sound sources.

Below is my preferred list of synth VSTs. I have separate lists for orchestral sounds and drum software.

Overall Versatile Synths

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 – Still the greatest of all time, Omnisphere ages well, and has the best hybrid offering of samples, wavetables, and standard waveforms from popular synthesizers. They have unmached browsing and sound matching user experience.
Arturia Pigments – A highly versatile synthesizer that makes sound design fun.
Kilohearts PhasePlant– A new twist on synthesis with some truly interesting UI/UX for sound designers. They include popular fx that are not always included in synth VSTs (e.g: Tape Stop, Convolusion, Reverser).
Xfer Serum 2 – Serum’s latest revision has made a comeback, adding sampling features, extra oscillators, and additional mixing features. As a free upgrade to previous owners, I have a lot of respect for the quality and generosity of their work.

Vintage Emulations

Arturia V Collection – The best collection of popular hardware emulations with additional fx and features for the modern age. While each instrument exists as its own plugin, their Analog Lab software combines them all into one interface and allows you to stack two presets as layer or split. Simple preset management and organization make it a pleasure to import, export, and backup your libraries.
Roland Zenology – A nostalgic collection of Roland’s most popular hardware synthesizers packed into a single VST. Newer sounds are added and available to subscribers over time.
Korg Collection – A handy software collection that keeps their classic synths authentic and relevant today.
U-HE DIVA – Acclaimed for sounding very “analogue”, Diva does sound great and delivers on quality.
Cherry Audio – Offering very convincing emulations at the expense of retaining some limitations.

Notable Sample-Based Synths

UVI Vintage Vault 4 – An excellent collection of sampled classic with their own sophisticated interfaces. The sound quality is good. The preset browsing experience is better than most plugins on the market..
IK Syntronik 2 – A direct competitor to UVI, IK offers high quality synth samples. I really like how it sounds. I don’t like the browsing experience, but if you can look past that, its a good product.
Nexus 5 – While I have my reservations of Nexus, it has been used in many hits and provides a straight-forward approach for simply finding a sound and using it right away. There’s a market for that and Nexus delivers. Their latest revision expands the possibilities of sound design, but there is still work to do in that department.

Best Bundles

UVI Sonic Bundle – Everything in their current catalog for a single price, with upgrade pricing on owned products and new releases for existing customers. This is probably the best offer that competes with Native Instruments Komplete Series.
Arturia V Collection – As stated earlier, its a great selection of highly capable synthesizers.
Native Instruments Komplete Series – There’s still value in this collection from s standpoint of sound, depending on your needs.

Awesome Free Synths

Vital – A modern take on open source development, build on the JUCE framework, Vital is a high quality synth with generous features. It works with Mac, Windows, and Linux!
Surge XT – One of the earliest advanced open source synths with a lof of development contributions. it sounds good and encourages involvement in the project.

Short Rant

In my opinion, the success of a VST is going to depend on the attractiveness to sound designers, unless the developer has in-house staff to do that. For example, IK Multimedia and UVI do not provide a great experience for independent sound designers to build on their synths, but their internal team has put in respectable work to design great presets.

In another example, Arturia’s attention to the sound design experience is top-tier and enables sound designers like myself to ENJOY the process. This is why you’ll notice my JBlongz Arturia Editions are extensive…I have spent hundreds of hours making over 2000 of those presets because I love doing it.

Omnisphere also has been ROCK SOLID since day one. The team has mastered both sound design and user experience. When Spectrasonics released their expansions (Sonic Extensions), they showed that innovation is possible without breaking the familiar experience.

You know what these mentioned products have in common that I love? Backing up and moving my custom presets between computers is relatively easy. That is something to think about if you upgrade machines often or use some method to keep your presets in sync between multiple computers. XLN Audio makes this effortless with their Addictive series of plugins, leveraging their cloud server (although I’d prefer to use my own cloud). I hope newer developers are paying attention to that.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of great sounding VST synths out there, new and established (I have a bunch!). However, due to much of the overlap in features and various design implementations that affect user experience, I have narrowed it down to the above. Don’t let me stop you from exploring more. This post is just to point you in a good starting point or help you find something you want to invest your time (and money) for the long term. At the same time avoid having too many plugins and not learning one really well. It’s an common mistake in the new world of easy access, variety, and clever marketing.

Make-More-Music!

-JBlongz