Arthur Freye and Jannis Müller (who go by AJ) have released a new free synthesizer plugin called Qsynthi.
Over the years, we have seen a wide variety of free synthesizers, including the popular Vital and Surge XT, which we have covered before.
Some work with wavetables, while some may work with simple waveforms or sample-based synthesis. However, it’s not often that we come across a quantum synthesizer.
With Qsynthi, you get to “Uncover Quantum Soundscapes: Experience the Sonic Potential of the Schrödinger Equation.”
If you’re into quantum mechanics and how exactly AJ created this synth, you can read their paper on the topic.
But for the sake of this article, we will just talk about the synth itself, and how you can use it in your productions.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a synthesizer that generates sound through quantum mechanics.
According to their website, Qsynthi translates a “quantum simulation into dynamic and evolving sounds.”
That might sound complicated, but I have to say the UI is well-designed and not too complex. The visualizer looks great as well.
The right side of the UI might look familiar to synth enthusiasts. You’ve got your amplitude ADSR controls as well as an envelope-controlled filter.
There are also general settings like voice count, glide time, and global volume.
However, the left controls are pretty strange and unique to this synth. Yet, based on this demo from a user, the controls have an obvious enough effect on the sound and seem fun to mess around with.
First, you’ve got your Wave Settings with a variety of waveforms to sculpt the tone.
There are the usual sine, square, and sawtooth waveforms. But you also get Cosine, Gaussian, Parabola, and Barrier which I haven’t seen in other synths.
Then there is Simulation Settings which I’m honestly not too sure what they do. It does create interesting sounds though, especially in “imaginary value” mode which can sound almost atonal.
“Potential Settings” tends to cause some modulations in sound. Depending on the waveform you use, it can have an effect similar to LFOs and random generators on a typical synth.
Also, there are two of those “potential” modulators which give you a whole bunch of sound possibilities to explore.
I gotta say I love this synth and the concept behind it. If anything though, I wish there were presets to quickly check out what this synth can do, and go from there. But alas, the synth is still fairly new.
Qsynthi runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on Windows and macOS machines.
Download: Qsynthi (FREE)
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