Greatest Software Synths Of All Time 

I don't know about influential, but Arturia's Pigments is the deepest, most flexible, and powerful software synthesizer I know of.

IMHO: 1. Synapse Audio Dune 2. Softube Model 84 3. u-he Diva 4. Arturia Pigments 5. G-Force OB-E Then there’s the whole range of synths from Cherry Audio, there’s Vital, there’s TAL-U-NO-LX and TAL-J-8, there’s Arturia V Collection and KiloHearts PhasePlant. I love them all but then the whole point of a top 5 is to really distill your absolute favourites!

Of these, you should still buy Diva if you don't have them. Don't bother buying massive or sylenth1, or serum unless you are an obsessive preset pack buyer. Serum seems to be the one everyone buys and then buys thousands of presets for. Maybe you can make money selling Serum presets as everyone seems to want to buy those. Other candidates for greatest: Phase Plant, Pigments Special category for free and insanely great: Surge XT, Vital.

If you were to pick one from Arturia, it would be Pigments with an honorary mention to the V-Collection suite. Pigments presents a lot of creative options, but presented in a way that’s not intimidating. Each version has gotten better, whether it’s adding new sources or new functions. It basically gives you the ability to create your own dream synth patch/sound. As for the V-Collection, it’s basically a synth museum in your computer and for a steal (when compared to the original list price on several of them).

Nice video woody, I would say the Ominisphere belongs on this list.

Diva still sounds terrific These days, we have some amazing stuff. Dune 3 has an amazing sound, OB-E is huge, Pigments has just about everything, and Hyperion is very powerful. Lots of others I have not tried.

For beginners: Arturia MiniFreak V For advanced: Pigments Both have a visualization of the waveforms so that you can understand what's exactly going on with the signal. So, perfect for beginners like me :)

I love both sylenth1 & diva but i find myself digging into the Korg legacy collection just for their low cpu usage & old school analog sound

I'd add Vital. It's got a lot of fresh and unique sounds and capabilities, and is a definite powerhouse.

What a surprise @1:31 China Crisis - Black Man Ray. Somehow this band went off the radar of the industry. What a brilliant band, combining multiple influences always with a certain nonchalance. Flaunt The Imperfection is must have ...Love your videos ! Thank you for sharing your insight...

Your channel perfectly shows why Roland is so amazing. I will stay with my System-1, JD-Xi, D-05 and Juno DS.

Hi Woody, I've used several Virtual Synths plugins, of various values, from free to $400, 3 free, I got great sounds; Synth 1, PG-8X and of course Dexed, but of all the ones that came closest to a real synth was the OPX-pro II! 😄 The serum is very intuitive I like it too!

1. OP-X Pro II - Classic Oberheim OB-X sounds. Amazing famous presets. 2. Pro~53 - An oldie but a classic. Load original Prophet 5 presets right in via sysex. Great presets. 3. Korg M1 - Load the original sounds in via sysex. Lot's of great sounds available. 4. VB3 - Great Hammond clone.

Great VSTs. Diva is awesome. Another that I would like to mention is HYBRID 3 🎹🎶

Love your content as always, Woody! Always so upbeat and straight forward. Keep ‘em coming.

Hi Woody! I believe you correspond with Espen Kraft. Do you know what the state of his channel recovery is? I can’t believe U-Tube’z programming, personnel and storage redundancy are so inept they can’t recover a person’s hacked channel in shorter order.

If you're talking objectively the greatest as far as features & flexibility with oscillators, I would have to include Image Line's Sytrus & Harmor plugins. Truly ahead of its time & still very relevant today

U-He Zebra 2 surely also should be added to this list. It has been used by Hans Zimmer for Film scoring.

Synth1, Spire, and FM8 deserve at least honorable mentions.

Alchemy. I know it's discontinued, but it was great.

Omnisphere! Also, what is the software you're using to display the chord info on screen?

Two more Legendary but forgotten Synths Would be Rob Papen Blue and Predator!!

Omnisphere is all Those in one.

Totally agree with the list. There are so many synths out there, but only a few are really something worth using.

The thing with Sylenth1 is that it's got every bit just right but not more.

I have an iPad Pro, and there are tons of really nice synths available….and cheap too! Worth checking out.

Have you ever tried OP-X Pro II? It sounds very analog and is more CPU-friendly than Diva.

I think with Diva, Spire and Serum, you can make 99% of digital sounds out there.

When you played Black Man Ray, I was so impressed! Love it Woody!

They all sound great, Diva and Serum in particular. Serum is probably the most visual one in showing the actual waveforms changing interactively.

One of my favourite synths Is Dune it has some awesome presets to get you started and is really easy to use and it has an excellent interface, but let’s face it we are very spoilt these days you can’t really go wrong with any of them.

It is a pleasure to listen again to my favourite ones too. Cheers

Woody hear getting sounds out of these that I never attempt (the playing mainly) makes me want to go back to sylenth for more vintage dreamy stuff. I'm a big fan of Ana especially the slate aap version with all the extra sounds. For modern dance sounds serum is amazing just the way you can screw with the waveforms and add fx. For instant nostalgia and classic sounds without as much effort the arturia stuff is great.

Title could have been "history of groundbreaking core/do-it-all/go-to-first software synths" as well. To me Omnisphere is more than just honorable mention and the brilliant Pigments UI and 3.5 update at least get it awful close to being on the list now. There are also some great focused emulations like OB-E, Repro, and U-NO-LX to name just 3, but that is not what this was about.

Thanks for doing this!

I'm curious about something Woody. Now that the whole Omnisphere 'is it a synth or a rompler' issue is resolved, whether or not you'd place Omnisphere in the above list?

reFX Vanguard was a cool synth, unfortunately it's discontinued and only 32-bit. Dune 3 is another awesome synth that I expected to see in this video.

What’s a good synth to buy that can mimic the stock vst from fl studio, it’s called sim synth. It’s a retro sounding vst synth that’s modeled after the analogue synths in the 80s. It has that Chorusy sound and it sounds dope for trap beats. “The sound is created by three oscillators, filtered by a SVF section (State Variable Filter) and amplified by an ADSR envelope. The unit includes a programmable LFO section that can control some of the parameters in the oscillator and SVF sections. Finally you can filter the sound with a chorus effect to widen the stereo panorama of the patch.”

Thank you! That’s sick

Love all those, have not had much time with diva. I’ve spent a ton of time getting to know Ableton Operator, and limit myself to the box, would love to see an all time greatest synths that ship native to a DAW.

Vital is definitely worth checking out (though given it's only a year old or so it probably doesn't have quite the same following as Serum or similar). My favourite soft-synth (that isn't an emulation) is one that rarely gets covered, ANA 2. Super versatile and while it may not be as popular as Diva or Serum, it's capabilities are definitely up there I'd argue! It has a great variety of filters & waveforms (arguably one of the big selling points of Diva I guess) Keep up the great work!

I made Patches for Sylenth1 Mate, Factory Bank 4 Starting from Patch 366 Onwards :)

Would love to see what this man thinks about Phase Plant

“Black Man Ray” sounded really nice

For me, falcon 2 and omnisphere should be in there.

Wow, so tough to think and choose which synths have gone by, there have been some unsung heroes that have a great analogue feel. You probably picked the right selection, they were all ground breaking or definitive in a way. To me, they still sound great and competitive because they have their own sound. Sylenth is Sylenth, Diva is analogue, and Massive can make increddddible soundscapes, Serum is the current staple sound design tool and it's excellent but i don't think much of the sound to be honest. I would probably add U-he Zebra, it's not really a sound but when it was released it was a leading powerhouse for sound design. Have you done a video about what are the greatest new synths ? That would be interesting. Other than Serum, Pigments might be an ovious one, but what else brings something new to the table, or a definitive progress. The hardware synth emulations have come a long way, they deserve an inclusion, but all bundled into the same category.

Just wondering if Gary N de-monetized you? 😂 but thank-you! This enlightened me to some SW synths I wasn’t familiar with, the Diva patch Ephemeral Spirit is beautiful!

Fun stuff! What is the chord analyzer running on the screen?

such nice pplaying!

@woody what software are you using that displays your chords and notes???

Great stuff, but greatest vsts may be a bit misleading and forever changing. Perhaps make a video of the most influential vsts? D16 and especially the earlier NI were really groundbreaking

Sylenth1 is still very good. Even got a recent minor update. I was recently playing Rank 1 Airwave with a preset I found in a cover of the song. Dune 3.5 is one of the best. Often overlooked. D16 Lush-101 is surprisingly good. And GForce Imposcar2 and other GForce synths are very good.. I have a zillion software synths. I use PluginGuru Unify to keep track of them Lots of good free synths from Full Bucket. If you use a PC, Viper is good for Virus sounds.

Loved the Gary Numan nods. How are you generating the note/chord graphics? A very musical presentation

Seems like everyone got here before me :-) Mentions of Vital and Omnisphere of course, both are great. Not sure Arturia stuff would belong on this list as it's a great collection of vintage sounds, but generally not unique. Same with Kontakt - good sampler, not really a synth most of the time. I would put the Roland VST's into the same bag as the Arturia, good stuff but more useful as a collection. Gigasampler, while not used anymore, was huge in it's time (no pun intended... or was it?) And I suspect you're going to find a lot of Zenology going forward as it's so versatile.

Z3TA+ is one old synth I'll always be subconsciously sad about because I don't own it. Never got around buying it and when I finally decided, Cakewalk stopped selling it. I only have the demo on my Cakewalk account.

How do you like the Kontrol keyboard? Do you prefer it over the Korg you were using?

There are no Softube emulations here. That’s crazy.

Avenger from vengeance-sounds is my first pick, furthermore Hive 5 and of course vital.

After getting Omnisphere I would have to say this is it. Its amazing.

Are all the serum presets you used stock? I loved all of them, especially the one that says PD D_Pad 1

OMNISPHERE

regrettable, but expected . . . the Albino synth by Robert Papen and LinPlug . . . is Not on the list 😇😊 But after using it for almost 19 years, I'll be using Albino for the REST of my life. That thing is just OUT of this world. The problem with Albino of course, is that while it was a hit upon its release, its marketing and the feud between Robert Papen and the LinPlug team, caused it to end up going the unfortunate route and landed it in the graveyard. But buuuoyyy, the sounds and synthesis capabilities from the Albino synth . . . = remain almost irreplaceable 😛😛.

pigments. and i'd say absynth as well, for its completely novel approach to sound design.

Zebra 2 and UVI Falcon. Beasts that aren't for everyone.

HI, Woody. What plugin did you use to create notes and chords in the bottom left corner?

good work as usual, time for your symphony, or something . . .

I tried only Massive and Diva from the shown synths. I still have Massive. Diva was killing my CPU. I need many times more powerfull computer to be able to make music with Diva. Unfortunately.

what software(the one that shows the clefts and chords) are you using?

No Nexus on the list?

I have them all but would include pigments, omnisphere and spire….

I'd add Falcon to the list.

Dune - Rapid - Omnispere - Falcon

U-he diva is insane plusi i like dune and that's it

what about Omnisphere ?

No Love for Dune 3?

Muy genial

I guess these are the most used plugins in modern day productions, but of course "greatest" is very subjective. I like these plugins, but there are others I prefer to use way more :). But that's not the point of this video of course.

All good synths but, I think Omnisphere deserved more than an honourable mention. And no Zebra?! Woody, you be trippin’! :) All grist for a follow-up video, eh?

These are certainly popular, but I think there are much greater ones. For example, Steinberg/Wizoo Hypersonic 2 is the best virtual workstation plugin, with every kind of sound you could ever want. Spectrasonics Omnisphere has been extremely important in synthesized music as well. And for actual synthesis, I consider UVI Falcon the best ever made.

I would say Spire and Sonic Academy ANA2

Tone 2 synths and Rob Papen.

No Omnisphere?

You have to try tone 2 vsts

Hi Woody, I understand what you’re aiming for here, and my two suggestions don’t make this list perfectly but deserve recognition (in a similar manner)… Reaktor. Not exactly a soft synth, but an incredibly powerful platform (?), like if you could have only one VST this might be it. Pigments. Too new to have the rep (yet) for this list, but one of the recently developed VSTs that will prove itself over the test of time (in time).

i feel like Nexus and fm8 deserved a spot on the list, especially Nexus because you could hear it all over late 2000s and early 2010s hiphop, pop and dance music its was like the Korg M1 of its time

Dexed

DUNE, bruh ;)

Good synths but I think AAS Ultra Analog VA-3 is a must have on the list!

Reaktor

I've always found Diva very boring and extremely overrated, I'd remove it from that list and add Dune 3, Spire, ANA 2, Arturia V Collection, KORG...

NI Kontakt probably is used more on modern songs than most of these great synths. Then again, is it a sampler more than a synth? The synthesis options in it are vast anyway. Rolands cloud offerings also sound great, maybe the closest to the real analog thing out there. But then again, the cloud thing with subscription is really, really bad!

be sure to check access virus new free emulation ;) i still love zebra 2 phase plant 2 is also amazing and if you want to have maximum power, but dig in a hard GUI check out tranzistow... its like having a solaris ,andromeda etc checkout my new midiverb emulation "UBERVERB", great for all classic synth fx