Free Software Friday is our regular Friday feature here at the dBs blog. We dig the depths of the music production and media webosphere and discover what downloadable plugin freebies are worth double clicking each week.
Heavyweight freeware synth Surge is back and better than ever with XT 1.0; the latest update that brings with it a few exciting new features to an already excellent subtractive hybrid synth.
For newcomers to the world of music production software, Surge has been on quite the journey. Originally developed by Vember Audio as a paid synth, it became open-source and free to download and develop. Over the years, it has continued to be refined and its user-base has grown exponentially.
Even at its inception, Surge was a great tool especially for sound design; it's easy-to-use UI hiding a complex and versatile synth. With the arrival of XT 1.0 the biggest change is the move to using JUCE as the plugins framework. JUCE is the leading audio plugin development tool, and as such, Surge is now much more stable and developers have a wider toolset for further improvements.
Feature-wise, Surge XT now includes an improved Modulation section, expanded FX, 43 waveshapers instead of 5, new filters, screen reader accessibility, patch search, favourites and greater inclusion of drag-and-drop functionality.
If you've never tried out Surge before there's been a better time to try it out.
Surge XT is available for Windows, Linux and macOS and can be downloaded for free using the link below. It's also worth mentioning that Vember Audio still archives older versions of Surge, so if you're computer isn't quite up to task you can still try out this excellent free synth.
FIND OUT MORE
https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/
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