Soda Devices has announced the release of Lith, a freeware virtual analog synthesizer in VST, VST3, and AU plugin formats for compatible digital audio workstations on PC and Mac.
The product page on Soda Devices’ website describes Lith as a “Virtual Analog Wavetable Synthesizer”. This description is somewhat misleading, as Lith doesn’t fit the common definition of a wavetable synthesizer. Generally speaking, a wavetable synthesizer generates the sound from a wavetable which consists of a sequence of single-cycle waveforms. Instead, Lith is a virtual analog synthesizer which simply uses static sampled single-cycle waveforms of a real analog synthesizer as the sound source.
Naming conventions out of the way, there’s no denying that Lith is a capable virtual instrument. It features two detunable oscillators with four waveforms (triangle, sinewave, square, and saw), a pair of sub oscillators, dual filters, and multiple modulation sources with conveniently positioned modulation target controls. The developers have implemented oscillator drift and noise saturation capabilities as tools for achieving a more organic sound. Lith comes with a wide selection of factory presets, sorted into categories for easy browsing. The presets cover a range of bass sounds, leads, pads, and sound effects.
One big drawback with the current version of the plugin is the user interface design. It is too small and cluttered for comfortable use, with tiny parameter labels which are hard to read. Hovering a parameter with the mouse pointer will increase the font brightness in that section of the UI, but this is more of a distraction than a workflow enhancement. To make things worse, the interface features an overly bright, low-contrast color scheme which is simply hard to look at. Thankfully, the developers are working on a GUI redesign, as noted on the product page.
In summary, Lith is more than just a standard subtractive synthesizer plugin, but it’s held back by the lackluster user interface. Hopefully, the announced update will take this promising virtual instrument to the next level. In the meanwhile, we highly recommend checking out the recently updated T-Force Alpha Plus 2 synthesizer by Mastrcode Music.
Lith is available for free download via Soda Devices (1.8 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/VST3/AU plugin format for Windows & MacOS).
7 Comments
Rob
onVirtually analog 😂 (ie digital)
Mathew Eldridge
on“Analog wavetable” is literally the most BS I’ve heard all year.
OTT
onPut OTT on this and you’ll be fine! 😂 😂 😂
Soda Devices
onThank you for pushing Lith.
Today, it has changed a lot since a new version was released.
We are happy to tell you.
Regards,
Soda Devices.
Juan María Solare
onLith
mini review after only 30 minutes
+ points:
potentially powerfull and flexible. Stable (of course!)
random button (remids me of the “lazy” button of HG Fortune’s software)
some presets
The waves “move” when modulated
– points:
some functions are not precisely intuituve (for instance, how to turn on LFOs … one would expect something when clicking on the colored square – but not, you must go to the corresponding function elsewhere (for instance “tune”, tight click, and assing the modulation to the LFO))
one could expect a minimal help with “mouse over” as for how to use the corresponding function
The GUI is somehow nasty, possibly that “milky” aspect
My screen is way larger than Lith’s maximum screen. Also in the VST3 version there is a small limit to the scalability.
Things are quite hidden. I assume this is the consequence of having a relatively clean surface. You can imagine this surface as a 3 dimensional body of instructions, or perhaps even 4-dimensional
A handbook/manual/first aid would be welcome. The online “document” shown in the page is a good first step, that however can be understood by uses that know a lot already. And I ask myself: would an experienced user quit using other synthesizers and start using Lith? What does Lith ofers that others don’t?
Better presets would be welcome. Some are attractive, however most sound “old” and possibly don’t show the full potential of the software.
I couldn’t find real “wavetables”. I would expect them where I see “sine/triangle/sqare/saw”.
Desirable features would be:
– import microtonal scales
– morphing beetween presets
– copy/paste parameters of (for instance) osc1 to Osc2
– Arpeggiator? Portamento?
Juan María Solare
Tomislav Zlatic
onI agree. The synth needs work but definitely good potential there. The default skin is not nice to look at. You can change it to the dark skin from the menu (and also enable the crop mode to remove the edges).
Raven
onPersonally, the new skin sucks harder than the old one. i like digital glowy sci fi interfaces… even if they seem broke
Bugs the hell outta me that no one else likes the old fonts or the glowy look. things are also arranged better in the old skin