Enjoy making music on the move? These five free Android synth apps are a great way to stay creative wherever you are.
For many years, the immense power of smartphones and tablets has meant that music-making is possible wherever you go; with a huge range of both paid and free apps to choose from.
At dBs Institute, we’ve worked our way through the saturation of options to provide you with five free android synth apps that we guarantee will get your creative juices flowing.
5 free Android synth apps
1. AMB-R Synth - Noise Group
We’re starting with AMB-R Synth, one of the best free Android synth apps available and also one of the most recently released. Described by Noise Group as ‘FM synthesis that fits in your pocket’, AMB-R Synth has a beautiful and intuitive UI which makes sound creation a blast.
Uninhibited by ad overlays, the UI is broken down into four individual sections:
- Controls - Start sequencer, Record, Randomise, Clear, Piano Keys and Menu
- Presets and parameters - Slide left to move between the bank of presets, modulation, filtering and mix controls
- Sequencer
- BPM and bar length
We won’t get into the nitty gritty of how you can use AMB-R Synth, but suffice to say it’s an incredibly deep android synth app. We highly recommend the ‘Quickstart’ found in the menu to get to grips with its core set of tools.
AMB-R Synth can be used as an external synthesiser via USB MIDI Controllers or your DAW. At the time of writing, you cannot export directly from AMB-R Synth.
2. Ethereal Dialpad - Adam Smith
We weren't too sure what to expect from this slightly bizarre looking app when we started playing around. The sound engine is fairly limited with no option for changing the waves, two FX, timbre, envelope, octave span for the screen and pitch quantiser options.
While limited, these options manage to create a lovely sounding synth. You play the Ethereal Dialpad by dragging your finger across the screen to change the pitch of two oscillators against each other, or pitch against volume.
There are a couple of choices for the tracking around the screen [swarm was our favourite at dBs, pictured above] so that you have some visual stimulus while playing. This is by far the simplest of the apps listed here, but easily one of the best.
Please note: since this article was published, the original version of Ethereal Dialpad no longer exists on the Google Play Store, but a reupload can be found under ‘Sam.Perlow’ in the store.
Equally, Makalaster reached out to original developer Adam Smith and has an updated build of the plugin available through GitHub with instructions on how to install it on an Android device.
3. Blip Synthesiser - Tak Ota
The Blip synth-engine is fairly basic with ADSR and FM options but most of your time will be spent creating different sequences rather than playing around with the type of sound you are using.
You get 12, eight-step sequencers which have their own individual scale and tempo options. You can select one after another creating extensive sequences. Our reason for picking this app was that you can spend plenty of time building a "set" with build-ups, interesting chords and melodies, lots of time can be spent putting something together and is very rewarding when playing it back.
There was sometimes a bit of lag between switching sequences, which is evident in the audio, but Blip might run more effectively on other Android phone models depending on their power and OS version.
Blip Synthesiser is no longer available directly from the Google Play Store, but the latest version (2022) can be downloaded via Uptodown. 4. DRC Polyphonic Synthesiser - Imaginado
Download DRC Polyphonic Synthesiser
Despite its huge range of features, DRC Polyphonic Synthesiser is very easy to navigate and you’ll become familiar with its functions in no time. There are two keyboard layouts with zoom options to help you hit the notes you want.
The huge range of features include two oscillators, a low pass or high pass filter, two LFO's, three FX along with an arpeggiator and a gang of other features including MIDI capabilities should you want to play it via a keyboard.
The arpeggiator allows you to tweak away at the various parameters for an endless amount of time creating all sorts of sounds and that's just what we did! It was really surprising just how powerful this little app was!
5. Saucillator - soundandfeury
Saucillator is inspired by the Korg Kaossilator and Moog synthesiser and is effectively a ‘make your own synthesiser’ app.
Serving up waveforms that include sine, saw, square, pulse as well as some of their own custom wave shapes called Electric Eel and Starslide, these waveforms can be blended together and adding in a bit of delay, the sounds generated become very thick and textured.
One other very handy feature to this app is its looper function, allowing you to loop grooves and layer basslines and melodies.
Saucillator also has a recorder section so you are able to record your jams and export them to your computer should you wish to flesh out ideas in your DAW.
