MATRIXSYNTH: Soft Synths

Showing posts with label Soft Synths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soft Synths. Show all posts

Thursday, March 19, 2026

ULTRAMASTER KR-106 Open Source Roland Juno-106 Soft Synth Emulation



"A virtual analog synthesizer inspired by the classic Roland Juno polysynths, with DSP calibrated from hardware measurements, firmware analysis, and factory schematics. 6-voice polyphonic.
Free and open source. AU, VST3, CLAP, LV2, and standalone."

Additional details via Reddit:

"We started building a Juno software synth in a Brooklyn loft in 2000. 25 years later, we're releasing it as open source. Meet the Ultramaster KR-106.

Back in 2000, my buddy Dave and I started Ultramaster Group with a wild idea: professional audio software for Linux. We were young, broke, working in a loft in Brooklyn, and perhaps a little bit ahead of our time.

Life happened. I went on to start a screen printing studio. Dave ended up at Google. But we never really stopped thinking about the synth.

Fast forward 25 years. Hardware is exponentially faster, DSP methodology has evolved, and we now have access to oscilloscopes, service manuals, and communities like this one. So we went back to the source code and overhauled everything.

The KR-106 is a 6-voice polyphonic Juno-106 emulation with:

Per-voice DCO, VCF (TPT cascade, IR3109 OTA-C design with 2x oversampling), VCA, and ADSR
Sub-oscillator (CD4013 flip-flop model) and noise source (2SC945 avalanche model)
PWM modes (manual / LFO / envelope)
4-position HPF (bass boost / flat / 240 Hz / 720 Hz)
Per-voice component variance modeling analog tolerances (pitch ±3¢, envelope ±8%, VCA ±0.5 dB, pulse width)
BBD chorus emulation (MN3009 modeled with Hermite interpolation)
Arpeggiator, portamento, Mono/Poly I/Poly II key modes
Two calibration modes: '1984 Mode' (firmware + schematics) and '1982 Mode' (circuit analysis + hardware measurements from my own Juno-6)
128 factory presets decoded from original SYSEX data
AU/VST3 on Mac, VST3/LV2 on Linux, VST3 on Windows, plus Standalone
It's 100% free, GPL-licensed, and we don't take donations. We just want it to be as accurate as possible, and we'd love help getting there.

Website: https://kayrock.org/kr106/"

NI Absynth 6: Dark Atmospheric Ambient Presets. Sound Demo


video upload by Anton Anru

"🌒 Native Instruments Absynth 6 'Echoes of Dawn' is a collection of 50 dark cinematic presets designed for producers who enjoy atmospheric sound design and moody textures.
The bank blends drifting pads, haunting strings, abstract layers, and deep drones inspired by sci-fi films, cyberpunk aesthetics, and dystopian worlds.

📦 The sounds are available here: https://antonanru.sellfy.store/p/absy...
The soundset includes: 13 Pads, 13 Strings, 13 Textures, and 11 Drones.
👤 The author of the soundset is Ilian.

💎 The presets explore dark tonal spaces and evolving atmospheres, ranging from distant ambient layers to heavier and more unstable textures.

🎛 Each patch includes 8 Macros controlling tone, modulation depth and speed, noise, distortion, detune, space, and effects balance.
The ModWheel controls brightness.

🎬 Suitable for dark ambient, cinematic, experimental electronic music, IDM, and industrial styles, as well as films, games, and trailers where atmosphere and tension are important.

💡 How to install the presets:
Open the menu in the top panel and select Show User Content Folder. Open the Sounds folder and place the presets inside it. Then return to the plugin menu and click Rescan Presets. After that, the presets will appear in the User category (click the person icon in the top right corner)."

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Alien 303 V2 (MONO) vs. Alien 4DX (Binaural space 3D Sound) | Acid Evolution Comparison


video upload by G-Sonique

"Alien 303 V2 (MONO) vs. Alien 4DX (Binaural space 3D Sound) comparison

Is Mono Acid dead? 🛸 In this video, we compare the legendary Alien 303 V2 with the groundbreaking Alien 4DX Binaural Topology synthesizer.


While traditional acid synths are usually mono and "flat," the new Alien 4DX uses a special 3D binaural topology that emulates analog circuits and DSP chips to place the sound directly in a 3D/4D space around your head. No quadraphonic setup needed – just your headphones or 2 speakers.

What’s the difference?

Alien 303 V2: The classic, punchy, '2D' mono acid lead that defined a generation.

Alien 4DX: A massive, organic, and harmonically rich sound that fills the entire stereo field using psychoacoustic principles (time shifts, phase distortion, and frequency modulation).


Key Features of Alien 4DX:

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Cycling '74 Introduces Cycling '74 RNBO Move Takeover - Experimental Alpha


video upload by Cycling '74

"Your custom RNBO instruments. Now on the Ableton Move.

Introducing the RNBO Move Takeover — a new, experimental feature that lets you export instruments created in RNBO onto Ableton's Move.

Completely take over the device to create and play your own sequencers, noise makers, and synths using RNBO.

RNBO Move Takeover also ships with several premade RNBO instruments including Granulator 3 and a no-input feedback simulator, as well as templates and helper patches to make it easy to start developing for the Move in RNBO." RNBO Move Takeover - Walk Through

video upload by Cycling '74

More Info: https://cycling74.com/products/rnbo/move
Documentation: https://rnbo.cycling74.com

Dirge


video upload by Anthony Distefano

"Meditative Music. All Music was done using Native Instruments Absynth. #nativeinstruments #Absynth #synth"

Monday, March 16, 2026

New Modules / March 2026


video upload by Omri Cohen

Introduction - 00:00
Basil - 00:08
Tapestry - 04:11
Ambivalent - 07:51
Teknological - 11:10
Twisted Cable - 13:26
Misc - 17:25

You can find these patches, along with many others, available on my Patreon page - / patches-from-new-152854231

Online courses about Modular Synthesis - https://bit.ly/learnmodular

Homework test 1


video upload by Giorgio Sancristoforo

"First test run of a new software"

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Komodo by Krakli - Free Semi Modular Synthesiser Demo


video upload by steve webb

"32Bit only https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2943/"



"Komodo is a semi-modular synthesizer.

It has a vast range of self contained synth engines, Virtual Analog, Physical modelling, FM, and Bell tones (Ring mod) all routable via filters, Vector controllers, and a variety of envelopes and LFOs then on to multiple effects stages.

Each sound engine can furthermore be controlled by a combination of Keyboard, Sequencers or Arpeggiators.

Things can get crazy very quickly. Its also a very large GUI so some may struggle to fit it onto their screens. Komodo has historically not been that popular as it is a dificult beast to tame but persevere and you will be rewarded."

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Lese TEURI


video upload by DATABROTH

"Read my full review here: https://www.databroth.com/blog/teuri-...

00:00 Pads
01:03 Kicks
03:24 Noise


video uploads by Lese Audio Technologies





Teuri is for Distortion Morphing.

Teuri’s “Cellular Distortion” system puts multiple distortion models at different points on an XY pad and lets you live in the tension between them. Drag through the grid and blend through textures that were never meant to coexist. ragged fuzz bleeding into clinical overdrive, soft saturation collapsing into bitcrush.

No snapping, no quantizing, just continuous, organic layers of deterioration.

Since the different models can produce sound at different levels, Teuri internally handles these differences to give you a smooth morphing experience.

Highlights
Model Selection

Teuri comes with a broad palette of distortion characters; from analog circuit models to experimental processes that have no hardware counterpart.

Whether you’re reaching for the warmth of a pushed tube stage, the grind of a germanium fuzz distortion, or something that treats your audio less like a signal and more like a material to be torn apart, Teuri’s model selection is built to cover the full range of what distortion can mean.

Distortion Cells

Different distortion models are added on an XY pad, and the internal “Positional Blending” system handles smooth blending between them, regardless of model. The “blender” also attempts to balance between the gain differences that the models have in real-time.

Modulate More

Teuri has a modulation system, similar to the one in Glow and Smear. Offering up to four modulators which can be optionally synchronized to the DAW’s BPM & retriggered by the DAW’s playback state.

https://lese.io/plugin/teuri

Friday, March 13, 2026

A "JP-8000" in your DAW for FREE


video upload by mylarmelodies

"Meet the DSP6300 crew and 'JE-8086', part their amazing ongoing project to make the firmware in 90's virtual analogue synths run in a modern DAW as a VST plugin. FOR FREE. 🔗 https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/ 👉 / mylarmelodies 🙌 MORE LINKS BELOW

Thanks to those who sent me the lecture - it's really interesting if you'd like to understand how this was achieved!

MORE INFO
▶︎ DSP56300 Site (the plugin is called "JE-8086"): https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/
▶︎ Roland's Official JP-8000 Firmware is here: https://www.roland.com/global/support..
. ▶︎ Lecture video by the creators on how it was done: • 39C3 - From Silicon to Darude Sand-storm: ... [video below]
▶︎ The DSP56300 donation link from the app: https://paypal.me/dsp56300
▶︎ More talks from them: https://media.ccc.de/search?p=giulioz


CHAPTERS:
00:00 This sounds familiar.
00:42 The sound, the feat
02:07 How it was done
03:41 Legal implications of ROMs
04:27 A quick fiddle
06:49 How to install & support it

39C3 - From Silicon to Darude Sand-storm: breaking famous synthesizer DSPs

video upload by media.ccc.de

"https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-from-sili...

Have you ever wondered how the chips and algorithms that made all those electronic music hits work? Us too!

At The Usual Suspects we create open source emulations of famous music hardware, synthesizers and effect units. After releasing some emulations of devices around the Motorola 563xx DSP chip, we made further steps into reverse engineering custom silicon chips to achieve what no one has done before: a real low-level emulation of the JP-8000. This famous synthesizer featured a special "SuperSaw" oscillator algorithm, which defined an entire generation of electronic and trance music. The main obstacle was emulating the 4 custom DSP chips the device used, which ran software written with a completely undocumented instruction set. In this talk I will go through the story of how we overcame that obstacle, using a mixture of automated silicon reverse engineering, probing the chip with an Arduino, statistical analysis of the opcodes and fuzzing. Finally, I will talk about how we made the emulator run in real-time using JIT, and what we found by looking at the SuperSaw code.

This talk is a sequel to my last year's talk Proprietary silicon ICs and dubious marketing claims? Let's fight those with a microscope!", where I showed how I reverse engineered a pretty old device (1986) by looking at microscope silicon pics alone, with manual tracing and some custom tools. Back then I claimed that taking a look at a more modern device would be way more challenging, due to the increased complexity.

This time, in fact, I've reverse engineered a much modern chip: the custom Roland/Toshiba TC170C140 ESP chip (1995). Completing this task required a different approach, as doing it manually would have required too much time. We used a guided automated approach that combines clever microscopy with computer vision to automatically classify standard cells in the chip, saving us most of the manual work.

The biggest win though came from directly probing the chip: by exploiting test routines and sending random data to the chip we figured out how the internal registers worked, slowly giving us insights about the encoding of the chip ISA. By combining those two approaches we managed to create a bit-accurate emulator, that also is able to run in real-time using JIT.

In this talk I want to cover the following topics:
What I learned since my previous talk by looking at more complicated chips
Towards automating the silicon reverse engineering process
How to find and exploit test modes to understand how stuff works
How we tricked the chips into spilling its own secrets
How the ESP chip works, compared to existing DSP chips
How the SuperSaw oscillator turned out to work


giulioz

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/h..."

Tom 1501 from UltraRare


video upload by Futulyric

"Tom1501, based on the Soviet synthesizer of the same name, is now complete. Multichannel mode has been added. Separate chorus and sustain controls for both keyboard sections are available.
Coming soon to the store.
https://ultrarare.su/?post_type=product"

Baby Audio GRAINFERNO


video upload by DATABROTH

"Read my full review here: www.databroth.com/blog/grainferno-review

check out my wavetables and presets at https://gumroad.com/databroth
join my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/databroth

00:00 Melody and tweaking
02:56 SFX
03:54 Ambience
04:43 Chaotic Percussion"



Granular synthesis redefined

Break your samples apart to build new and unique sounds

Play any audio file like a synthesizer-in tune with your song

Explore a new world of sound design with audio as your raw material

A firestorm of granular power

Grainferno is an advanced granular instrument built around a new way of synthesizing sound from existing audio. Its next-gen grain engine breaks your samples into microscopic fragments and rebuilds them into entirely new textures.

From pristine tonal clouds to experimental digital noise, Grainferno turns your sample library into an endless source of playable inspiration.

Make a synth from any sound

Grainferno can generate grains at speeds fast enough to cross into the audio range. At these rates, grains stop behaving like texture and start acting like oscillators-turning any audio file into a playable synth voice.

Even at audio rates, traces of the original sonic character remain, giving you unique synth building blocks with the spectral fingerprint of your source audio.

Add modulation and grain-level shaping to build ready-to-use granular synth tones that stay in tune with your song like a traditional synth.

Aarhus with Kusama


video upload by copenhagennoiselab

"Inspired by the immersive logic of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, this work transforms Aarhus into a living field of light and sound. A real urban dataset is remapped into a 1-meter volumetric grid of dots, turning streets, facades, and terrain into a shimmering, porous city body.

Viewers enter a synchronized walk: wherever you join from, the system places everyone at the same point in the loop at the same moment in time. The city is shared, but the experience is personal. Dot groups pulse in slow, shifting color relations, and no two listeners hear identical spatial balance.
At irregular intervals, simulated litter-like impacts strike the environment. Instead of decay, each collision produces resonance: expanding waves through the dot matrix and bell-like modal tones tuned to a constrained scale with slight detune. Impacts can ricochet across surfaces, and terrain now influences bounce direction, coupling topography to rhythm.

Built with public geospatial data, procedural animation, modal synthesis, and iterative AI-assisted development, the piece sits between urban memory, ecological friction, and collective choreography: a walkable score where city form becomes light, time, and vibration.

Check it out at:
https://www.unusable.ai/aarhus-with-k...
(Best experienced on big screens / projection)"

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Dronage Terminal


video upload by Fedir Tkachov Music

"Simple ambient composition consisting of 3 drone layers and one sad sequence"

Dronage Terminal: Basics Tutorial

video upload by Bruce Menace

(Teaser) Taneler v0.1.0 - An ambient loop workstation in your terminal

video upload by Bruce Menace



via https://boorch.itch.io/dronage-terminal

A drone workstation for the terminal, featuring 4x famously open sourced macro oscillator synth module whose name must not be spoken, extensive modulation capabilities, and custom tailored effects including a granular delay.

The screenshots demonstrate how the tool looks like when it's launched through Rio Terminal, an amazing terminal emulator that supports RetroArch shaders. For clarity, Rio Terminal is NOT a requirement.

I highly recommend downloading a Nerd Font (like JetBrains Mono Nerd) and using it on your preferred terminal emulator to make sure all special characters used in the UI id splayed as expected though.

There's a README.md file included in the downloads. It's in Markdown format. It's human-readable with any text editor, but I strongly suggest using an app that supports Markdown format to view it with better formatting. Worst case scenario, you can paste it into a Markdown viewer website like this to read it properly.

Free Phuturetone G R8 Synthesiser Demo


video upload by steve webb

https://phuturetone.com/

Free Nils K1V Synthesiser , Good For Dark Sounds


video upload by steve webb

"Great for crunchy 8bit type pads strings , bells and other dark sounds https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3148/"

Free FullBucket Tricent MK III Synthesiser Demo


video upload by steve webb

Also see: FREE VST SYNTH FULLBUCKET TRICENT MKIII - KORG TRIDENT EMULATOR

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

DiscoDSP Releases Retromulator Based on The Usual Suspects dsp56300 Engine


via DiscoDSP

[Note: although DiscoDSP gives credit to The Usual Suspects, it's my understanding TUS is not happy about it. From a forum:
"He basically took our source, put his own wrapper on it and is trying to sell it and use it to promote his own business. Can't prevent it, but frankly this is reprehensible IMHO.

Yes. He knows he cannot legally "sell" it due to the licensing model our code is published under. Therefore he sells "support" of "his development efforts" to include difficult things like "git clone" and other Arcane and extremely difficult stuff. sigh... I'd strongly advise anyone using it not to actually pay him for it, but that is just my opinion.]
What isn't clear is whether the UI is just the player above or includes the full editors by The Usual Suspects. I'm hearing it's just the player, which in effect might be an upsell for the full editors by The Usual Suspects.

That said:

"Retromulator brings legendary hardware cores back to life through authentic low-level emulation. The virtual analog synths are powered by a faithful recreation of the Motorola DSP 56300 processor, the Yamaha DX7 runs a full emulation of its original chip set, and the Akai S1000 sampler plays your SF2, SFZ, and Bliss sample banks with studio-quality interpolation. Each core runs its actual firmware or sample data — delivering the unmistakable character of hardware that defined electronic music from the early 80s through the 2000s.

Unlike traditional software emulations that recreate synthesizer behavior by approximation, Retromulator emulates the original integrated circuits at the hardware level. The virtual analog synths run on a cycle-accurate Motorola DSP 56300, the Yamaha DX7 runs a full emulation of its Hitachi HD6303R sub-CPU and Yamaha YM21280/YM21290 EGS/OPS chip set, and the Akai S1000 sampler runs on the SFZero v3.0.0 engine with 8-point sinc interpolation supporting SF2, SFZ, ZBP, and ZBB sample banks. Each core executes its authentic firmware or sample data exactly as intended.

Load the ROM firmware from your own hardware or sample banks from your library, place them in the designated folder, and Retromulator takes care of the rest. The result is not an approximation — it is the real hardware running inside your DAW.

Retromulator is built on Gearmulator, an open-source synthesizer emulation project by the dsp56300 team. We are grateful for their extraordinary work in bringing these classic instruments back to life."

You can find demos of the dsp56300 engines in previous posts here.

Featured synths:

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Rave Generation VA-1000


video upload by Heiner Kruse - The Green Man(TGM) - sound.report

"Rave Generation VA-1000
#soundreport #tgm #thegreenman #thegreenmantgm #tgmthegreenman #heinerkruse
#basswerk #soundofcologne #soundcologne #modularesynthesizer #modularsynthesizers
#synthesizercloud #greenmansound #amazona"



via https://www.proaudiostar.com/

"VA-1000 is a 16-voice virtual-analog synth built for speed: JP-style Ultrasaw, deep unison, a 9-mode filter with audio-rate LP FM 12, expressive LFOs and three envelopes, plus chorus / delay / reverb with ducking, all on a clean one-page UI. Software Download (NO HARDWARE INCLUDED)"

Monday, March 09, 2026

FREE SYNTH: OB-Xf (Oberheim OB-X Emulation) - No talking demo


video upload by ADL-MusicLab

"Hi, everyone!

OB-Xf is a continuation and modernization of the last open source version of OB-Xd by 2DaT and later discoDSP, bringing together several efforts going on in the audio space and combining them inside the Surge Synth Team infrastructure.

It is an amazing freely downloadable virtual synthesizer inspired by the venerable Oberheim OB-X.

The original Oberheim OB-X is one of the best analog poly-synths ever, used by Rush, Van Halen, Queen, Japan, Eurythmics, Ultravox, Tangerine Dream and many others.

It is a classic synthesizer with a timeless sound that continues to captivate musicians and producers alike. With its rich, full-bodied tones and expansive sound design capabilities, the OB-Xf is the perfect choice for those looking to add a vintage touch to their music.

The OB-Xf is a synthesizer that has been designed to recreate the sound and behavior of the Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8. However, the architecture of the original instruments was limited in some ways, so the OB-Xf includes a number of additional or altered features. Overall, the OB-Xf has been designed to produce a sound that is as good and as rich as the original OB-X.

Also, like many synths of the OB-X's generation, the OB-Xf has no internal effects so its sounds and textures can be greatly enhanced by the use of additional processing like chorus, reverb, delay, etc.

In this demo I will just let you hear what some amazing sound designers have made for this stunning synth simply by scrolling and playing some beautiful presets.

No additional effects or outboard processing here. What you listen is what you get!

More info here:
https://surge-synth-team.org/ob-xf/
https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/..."
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