Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware in software. Thousands of plugins exist, both commercial and freeware, and many audio applications support VST under license from its creator, Steinberg.
Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd. is a British musical equipment manufacturer, founded in 1992 by Ian Jannaway and Mark Thompson as Novation Electronic Music Systems. Today the company specializes in MIDI controllers with and without keyboards, both analog and virtual analog performance synthesizers, grid-based performance controllers, and audio interfaces. At present, Novation products are primarily manufactured in China.
Ableton Live, also known as Live or sometimes colloquially as "Ableton", is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton.
A rompler is an electronic musical instrument that plays pre-fabricated sounds based on audio samples. The term rompler is a blend of the terms ROM and sampler. In contrast to samplers, romplers do not record audio. Both may have additional sound editing features, such as layering several waveforms and modulation with ADSR envelopes, filters and LFOs.
The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.
Waldorf Music is a German synthesizer company. They are best known for the Microwave wavetable synthesizer and Blofeld virtual analogue synthesizer.
The RolandJuno-60 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1984. It followed the Juno-6, an almost identical synthesizer released months earlier. The Juno synthesizers introduced Roland's digitally controlled oscillators, allowing for greatly improved tuning stability over its competitors.
Arturia is a French electronics company founded in 1999 and based in Grenoble, France. The company designs and manufactures audio interfaces and electronic musical instruments, including software synthesizers, drum machines, analog synthesizers, digital synthesizers, MIDI controllers, sequencers, and mobile apps.
The Access Virus is a virtual analog synthesizer made by the German company Access Music GmbH. It was first produced in 1997 and has since been upgraded frequently, with the company releasing new models about every two years. Early models include the Virus A, Virus B, and Virus C series, each available in various hardware configurations. In November 2005, the Virus TI series was released, including the 61-key Virus TI Keyboard and the 37-key Virus TI Polar. A small desktop model was released in February 2008 called the Virus TI Snow. A revision of the TI series called TI2 came out in March 2009, featuring faster digital signal processing (DSP) controllers, additional polyphony, more effects in the effect section and a slightly changed design. The Virus series also has come out with two software plugin versions: TDM for Pro Tools and VST for TC Electronic Powercore series. The term Access Virus can be used to refer to any one of these synthesizers.
Palm Products GmbH was a manufacturer of audio synthesizers. Founded and owned by Wolfgang Palm, PPG was located in Hamburg, Germany and, for 12 years from around 1975 to 1987, manufactured an acclaimed and eclectic range of electronic musical instruments, all designed by Palm.
Vanguard was a VSTi and AU software synthesizer created by Canadian independent publisher reFX and Markus Krause from Tone2 Audio.
LMMS is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, entering notes via mouse or by playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers. It is free and open source software, written in Qt and released under GPL-2.0-or-later.
In computer music and professional audio creation, a DirectX plugin is a software processing component that can be loaded as a plugin into host applications to allow real-time processing, audio effects, mixing audio or act as virtual synthesizers. DirectX plugins allow the replacement of traditional recording studio hardware and rack units used in professional studios with software-based counterparts that can be connected together in a modular way. This allows host manufacturers to focus on the conviviality and efficiency of their products while specialized manufacturers can focus on the digital signal processing aspect. For example, there are plugins for effects boxes, such as reverbs and delays, effects pedals, like guitar distortion, flange and chorus, and for mixing and mastering processors such as compressors, limiters, exciters, sub bass enhancers, stereo imagers and many more.
Discovery is a software synthesizer VSTi and Audio Units plugin designed and distributed by discoDSP originally released on February 10, 2003. On September 4, 2008, discoDSP released a version for Linux marking the first commercial VSTi plugin available on Linux platform. Discovery is also available for Windows and Mac OS X.
The PPG Wave is a series of synthesizers built by the German company Palm Products GmbH from 1981 to 1987.
SynthMaster is a semi-modular software synthesizer and effect plug-in in VST, Audio Units and RTAS formats, developed by KV331 Audio.
Massive is a commercial wavetable software synthesizer plugin manufactured by Native Instruments for use in professional audio production. It utilizes several wavetables and oscillators in the creation of synthetic timbres. The software can be used as a VST plugin within a digital audio workstation, or as a standalone program. Released in 2006, the plugin has gained widespread popularity in the electronic music field, and is one of the most popular synthesizer plugins for modern dance music production.
Synth1 is a software synthesizer designed by KVR user Daichi. It was originally designed as an emulation of the Nord Lead 2 synthesizer, and has since become a unique Virtual Studio Technology instrument and one of the most downloaded VST plug-ins of all time. The software used to be a DirectX instrument plugin, but became solely VSTi from version 1.08 on. Version 1.13 was the first version to introduce a native 64-bit version of the plugin.
The Korg OASYS PCI is a DSP-based PCI-card for PC and Mac released in 1999. It offers many synthesizer engines from sampling and substractive to FM and physical modelling. Because of its high market price and low polyphony, production was stopped in 2001. About 2000 cards were produced.
The Korg Collection 4 is one of the largest collections of VST instruments from Korg and was released in 2004 with updates and more Synths added over time. The original 2004 release consists of the Korg MS-20, Korg Polysix and Korg Wavestation, and LegacyCell, a VST which layers combinations of any of the past 3 synths mentioned. In 2006, they added the Korg Mono/Poly, Korg M1, and Korg MDE-X Multi FX processor. On December 21, 2017, the ARP Odyssey was made into a VST and added to the collection, and the Korg Triton was added on for Christmas 2019. All of these synths were revamped in the spring of 2020 and renamed, collectively, the Korg Collection 2. With the addition of the Korg Triton Extreme, MiniKORG 700s and Korg Prophecy, it was renamed the Korg Collection 3.
