5 must-have freeware synths

Phase Plant is something of a ‘sandbox’ synth, presenting users with an empty space in which to build a synth however they’d like. This empty space can feel a little daunting for first-time users, but once you’ve got the hang of how it works, building patches in Phase Plant is incredibly simple. Let’s knock up a vintage poly emulation to see how it works…

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Phase Plant’s Generators area is where it loads sound sources. Here let’s start with an Analog, which gives a classic subtractive oscillator connected to an Output module with ADSR amp envelope. This gives us a choice of classic waveshapes, plus controls for sync, PWM and unison.

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The next thing we need to add is a filter, which is also loaded into the Generators space. By default this will appear routed after the Analog’s amp section. We need to drag the filter into the Analog device between the osc and amp for it to take effect.

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Next, let’s use an LFO for some authentic vintage vibrato. These are found in the Modulators area at the bottom of the UI. Click in this space and add an LFO. Click the orange + to display modulation destinations. We can now click/drag the osc Semi/Pitch parameter to assign it.

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The bouncing modulation indicator on the right of the LFO lets us adjust modulation depth (although this can also be set by the routings themselves). The tiny blue arrow in the upper-right corner lets you switch between bi-polar, unipolar and inverted modulation.

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To create a classic synth setup, let’s add another oscillator. If we use alt-drag on our current oscillator, we can duplicate it above the filter with all existing modulation intact. Let’s also add a noise generator after these oscs. We can adjust each module’s level control for balance going into the filter.

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To finish off, let’s use an ADSR envelope to control filter cutoff. Add an envelope to the Modulators section and route it, as before, to our filter’s cutoff frequency. Now we can finish our synth off by adding effects…