Synful Orchestra is an orchestral VST plugin, and it is now freeware.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not much for orchestration. While I enjoy listening to orchestral and symphonic pieces, my brain isn’t wired to write music that way.
Still, there is always some fun to be had when using orchestral elements. Synful Orchestra, a symphony orchestra simulator, is now available free of charge.
So what is Synful Orchestra?
What is Synful Orchestra?
Synful Orchestra is an orchestral VST created by Eric Lindemann. It received Electronic Musician magazine’s Editor’s Choice award in 2006.
However, despite its old age, Synful Orchestra received numerous updates over the years and still remains a useful virtual instrument.
So, imagine having a full symphony orchestra at your fingertips, but you can adjust things like the tonality of each and every individual section. That’s what Synful is striving to accomplish.
To this end, you can access orchestral elements like strings, woodwinds, and horns. There are some neat features to aid in increasing the realism of a given performance as well.
Solo instruments readily become sections, with dynamic positioning depending on how many simulated players are on stage. You can access natural divisi, which is great for chords and more complex harmonic passages.
It is less akin to a multi-sampled orchestral library and more like a deep physical modeling suite. You can adjust things like the transient of each sound while tuning the harmonic tilt of a sound.
The sound demos are convincing, but I’m not a classical musician. Some passages don’t sound natural, but the strings do a convincing job.
Download Synful Orchestra for free
Synful has been set free after 19 years, marking a new beginning for this particular software suite.
This isn’t a limited giveaway. It looks like being freeware is just the new normal for Synful Orchestra going forward.
So, you can download to your heart’s content, and a wide variety of systems are supported. Windows users will need Windows 7 or newer, and it is readily available in VST and AAX format.
Mac users aren’t left out of the fray either, with native support for Intel and Apple Silicon-based processors. Supported plugin formats for Mac are VST3, AU, and AAX.
I can’t speak much on the realism of Synful, but it looks to be a fun piece of software worth experimentation, at the very least. It might not replace your standard film scoring suites, but it could make for a compelling enough addition.
Download: Synful Orchestra (FREE)
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7 Comments
bbb
onAs a user of some “professional” sample libraries, I have to acknowledge that this is a very interesting alternative or a welcome addition, especially because of the completely different approach of sound generation. And it doesn’t need much space on the hard drive!
A small note: to listen to the DAW-examples, I had to change the permissions of the example folders to listen to them as a standard user.
Dee
onThis is great! I could care less about realism (though many of the sounds sound pretty decent in a mix). There is definitely an “uncanny valley” vibe about them and they work extremely well with fx for sound design. Drench the horn sounds in Solaris reverb and you’re in Blade Runner territory without spending a dime! Awesome.
Darryl Lim
onSounds a bit unnatural in places, but the most impressive thing about this for me, are the natural-sounding quick transitions between notes (legato & such) of each instrument, which is hard to find properly replicated on sample-based instruments (at least with the free ones).
Numanoid
onI note that the original plugin was released as far back as 2004/2005
There seems to have been little development done on it during the last 10-15 years, it is still useable of course, but a bigger GUI is needed now
Rafael
onWish it’d let me choose where to install the files. Is there any way to put them anywhere else and choose where the vst should point the files at?
Tsunekio
onBizarre! This plugin has been clearly been maintained past the 2000 era. It installs with a clean VST3 JUCE interface that doesn’t look out of place at all in FL Studio. Size is just fine on 4k display following FL GUI scaling. I don’t know why this review or the developer site shows a screenshot of an ancient version. 146MB download and auto installed in “C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\SynfulOrchestra.vst3”
Looking through the documentation, the architecture is of this plugin fascinating. It’s an advance sampler that performs re-synthesis to get live expression. The horn rips / glissandos this can perform are impressive.
I don’t understand how this plug-in has never come across my radar before. Even for someone not interested in orchestral patches, the re-synthesis engine can bend the built-in patches into really unique sounding instruments.
I think it would be worth doing a follow up review article after installing and testing the software (or at least update the screenshot for this article.)
Looks like a hidden gem. Thanks for highlighting this!
Mike
onI mean it DOES sound convincing and it feels so usable, I am really shocked!
I mean, big thanks!