Product Reviews by KVR Members

At this point in time Surge is (by far) the most versatile free polyphonic synthesizer:

• many versatile oscillator options, including suboscillator, wavetables (with import), shaping, horizontal + vertical skewing, saturation, selfsync, unison with spread and FM).
• mixer with Gain (over)drive before the filter section (and AM).
• noise generator with a dedicated own HP/LP filter slider for noise "colour".
• great (dual) filters of different types, slopes and characteristics (features a separate global HP filter too).
• several Wave Shaper functions.
• various audiopath routings (with feedback).
• several MONO modes (with or without legato and/or amp/filter envelope retrigger).
• 3 operator/oscillator FM matrix (and 2 or 3 operator in the FM2/3 oscillators).
• almost any continuous parameter can be modulated (including oscillator shapes).
• great and versatile modulation sources (that can modulate each other too).
• ADSR envelopes with different curves (and more complex DAHDSR envelopes in the multiple (G)LFO sections).
• even has audio input.
• various FX in chains.
• Win, Mac, Linux, 32/64-bit.

Not much you can really not achieve with Surge. Sure, specialists will be better at their speciality. But versatility is Surge's strongpoint.

Hopefully it will live long and prosper in the hands of the open source community.

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

Just had a quick look. Nice update. Simple and quick workflow. Enough versatility (more then many free alternatives)..

Sine, Ramp (Saw), Saw (Inverted Saw), Triangle and Pulse oscillators. Saw and Inverted Saw sound quite different. Therefore they both have their own spectrum and uses. Still usefull to mix both for some PWM effects though. And it has FM options.

Huge (configurable) polyphony. It has Unison on all 3 (synced or free running) oscillators with Detune, Spread and Pan (and Volume).. PWM and Phase control. Some different (A, D, R) envelope curves.(with envelope invert option).. Portamento (mono only). Seperate Noise (with HP + LP) oscillator..

Diode, Ladder (A, B, C), Sallen Key (Korg) and State Variable filters with various slopes. I would have liked 12 dB/Oct for all.filtertypes (SVF LP12/HP12/BP12 only)..There's just a single filter in the audiopath..So, no serial/parallel options..

It has a nice trance gate (gate patterns) and effects: Phaser, Distorion, Delay, Bit Crusher and Reverb.

Easily generates great basses, plucks, strings, pads and more. Again: a nice update. Considering it's free, you can't go wrong with this one.