Get that classic sound with these 5 free synths for Mac & Windows!
The Minimoog is probably the most important synth in history. It was the first compact synth which musicians could easily use on tour. Combined with an easy to use interface and warm sound it quickly became the top synth in the world. It was used in countless hits - for example in Michael Jackson’s Thriller as the bass.
Search results showing free instrument VST Plugins, VST3 Plugins, Audio Units Plugins (AU), AAX Plugins and Rack Extension Plugins for Windows and MacOS. The results are sorted by most popular with KVR members (Data from MyKVR 'Favorites' Group). The Best Free VST Instrument Plugins. Many of the most popular VST instruments, such as Massive or Omnisphere, come with a fairly high price tag.If you’re a music production beginner, you may not be ready to fork out hundreds of dollars on various production effects.
I was surprised by how good Steinberg's emulation sounds. It’s a nice free alternative to Arturia’s Mini V.
Here’s the bassline from Thriller recreated in Model E:
You can download the Ableton Live rack with this sound in our freebies section.
Download Model-E: Mac / Windows
Trying to learn sound design with the Minimoog? Check out our article on tips for the Arturia Mini V3, which is another Minimoog emulation. Some of them apply to Steinberg's Model E.
Yamaha’s DX7 was the world’s first FM synthesizer. FM synthesis works by modulating oscillators with oscillators to create more interesting timbres. The most famous FM synth sound is probably the cheesy E-Piano sound, used in countless 80’s hits.
Dexed is a free emulation of the famous DX7. It can be tricky to figure out, but works well for the classic DX7 E-Piano sound.
Here’s a “Dexed” version of the DX7 E-Piano from Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”:
For this sound I used a stack of Dexed presets panned in different directions to get that full sound. You can get the Ableton rack with this sound in our freebies section.
Download Dexed: Mac / Windows
Check out our article on the top 5 free piano plugins.
The Juno-60 is one of the most famous synths which shaped pop music. Back in the 80s it won with the Korg Polysix thanks to its 56 presets bank. It has a 6 voice polyphony and produces very warm, yet “modern” sounds thanks to its DCO (Digitally Controlled Oscillators) - the Minimoog had a VCO (V for Voltage) which would cause pitch drifting at times.
The Tyrell N6 is a brilliant free plugin for classic Juno sounds.
For this demo I used the “TUC - Basic Boogie Bass” built-in preset along with some modwheel action.
Download Tyrell-N6: Mac / Windows
Tip: To make this plugin look like a Juno you need to download this skin and if you’re on Mac, replace the folders in Library>Application Support>u-he>TyrellN6.
Another tip: To access the preset list click the Load button.
Check out our article on the top 10 most popular synth VSTs.
The Oberheim OBXa is another famous synth from the 80s, known for its fat unison option. It was a successor to Oberheim’s SEM synthesizer which wasn’t simple enough to use. With the OBXa you could easily create a supersaw - the sound used by Van Halen in “Jump” and in countless other classics.
The OB-Xd's presets sound very warm and retro. If you’re looking to throw in some 80s brass synths into your tracks, this one is for you.
To access its awesome library of presets you need to right click anywhere on the synth and select the right bank. Then, in Ableton, you choose presets from the “Preset selector” on the device (above the X-Y Pad). Once you choose a preset, you can switch between them using the down-up arrows.
For the demo I recreated the Oberheim synth sound from Van Halen’s “Jump”. I used the “BzBRS Hyper Trumpets” preset from the “Breeze_Meat-n-Potatoes rev3b-ALPHA” bank (along with some Ableton reverb). The bass is a slightly edited BzBSS Warm Jet patch from the “KVR Bass” bank.
Download OBXD: Mac / Windows
Tip: To get the retro look of the OBXD, right click anywhere on the synth and select the “Totolitoto Classic Blue” skin.
The SH-101 was released by Roland in 1982 but lost the mainstream battle with the DX7 and got discontinued in 1986. However in the 90s the synth became popular again - it was used by artists such as Boards of Canada, Autechre, Luke Vibert or The Chemical Brothers.
Vst Synth For Mac Free Downloads
The Tal-Bassline is a pretty cool little synth, but it won’t create crazy complicated bases. It’s nice for some warm pulse wave & saw wave retro patches. Unfortunately it comes with no presets and for Mac it comes as a 32-bit version only, so you're going to have to use a program like 32 Lives to use it.
Free Synth Vst Synthesizer
Boards Of Canada famously used this synth in their track “Roygbiv”, so I recreated it using the TAL-Bassline. It’s not the same, but for a free plugin the result is nice!
Download the Ableton Live rack with this sound in our freebies section.
Vst Synth For Mac Free Download
Download Tal-Bassline: Mac / Windows
Tip: The “Modulator” section is great for creating that “LFO detune” effect in the style of Boards Of Canada.
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Full Bucket Music has introduced the Fury-800, a freeware emulation of the Korg Poly-800 hardware synthesizer in VST and AU plugin formats for compatible DAW software on PC and Mac.
Fury-800 emulates the Korg Poly-800 hardware synth. The original Poly-800 was an affordable eight-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer from the 1980s. It featured digitally controlled oscillators and an analog filter, along with 64 patch memory slots and a subtractive synthesis engine with 50 editable parameters. Even more importantly, the instrument supported MIDI technology, which was still a rarity back then.
Being a big fan of the original Korg Poly-800 synthesizer myself, I’d say that its most beautiful quality is its lo-fi sound. Yes, the synth is analog, but it isn’t what you’d expect from an analog synthesizer. Its digitally controlled oscillators, noisy paraphonic filter, and the even more noisy pseudo-stereo chorus effect, all add up to create these wonderfully lo-fi, unstable sounds that almost sound as if they were captured from a VHS tape. Add some dusty plate reverb to the Poly-800’s output, and you’re in 80s synthwave heaven.
As for Full Bucket Music’s emulation of the Poly-800, it gets very close to the original. The developer has developed a number of highly detailed emulations of Korg’s analog synthesizers in the past (check out the Tricent Mk III plugin for a more recent example), and the Fury-800 is no exception in terms of quality. Both the feature set and the GUI design come very close to that of the Poly-800. You get all the synth engine features of the original and a few smart add-on options like the “God Mode” for full polyphony and 64 voices of polyphony with full velocity support.
Fans of the real Korg Poly-800 will feel right at home with the Full Bucket Music Fury-800 plugin. Fans of 80s synth music who haven’t had the chance to play the original instrument should undeniably give the Fury-800 a try. It delivers instant 80s nostalgia, much like the legendary SQ8L plugin by Siegfried Kullmann and the wonderful PG8X by Martin Lüders.
Fury-800 is available for free download from Full Bucket Music’s website. The plugin can be downloaded completely free of charge without registration. It is available in VST and AU plugin formats for 32-bit and 64-bit plugin host applications on PC and Mac.
More info:Fury-800(9.2 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU plugin format for Windows & macOS)
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