Original author(s) Written in C++ | Development status Active | |
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Developer(s) Mark McCurry, Harald Hvaal Initial release September 25, 2002 (2002-09-25) Stable release 3.0.1 / November 29, 2016; 3 months ago (2016-11-29) | ||
ZynAddSubFX is a free open source software synthesizer for Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
Contents
For sound generation it has three hybrid synth engines that combine additive, subtractive, Fourier and other synthesis methods. No external samples are used to produce the sound; everything is done by synthesis. The synthesizer has effects like reverberation, echo, chorus, distortion, equalization and others, and supports microtonal tunings.
The author of ZynAddSubFX is Romanian programmer Nasca Octavian Paul. The project was started in March 2002 and the first public version (1.0.0) was released on September 25, 2002.
A limited Mac OS X version was released by Ben Powers. It has been reported however that this port is PowerPC only (G4-G5 chips).
A Virtual Studio Technology (VST) port implementation is available. The VST version is still in beta development. The latest version features a 'MidiLearn' mechanism (which enables users to assign CC messages to various controls), native VST parameter automation and multiple outputs.
Sound generation
ZynAddSubFX combines several different methods of audio synthesis in order to create sounds: additive synthesis by the ADSynth engine, subtractive synthesis by the SUBSynth engine, and an original algorithm used to generate wavetables in the PADSynth engine.
Music made with ZynAddSubFX
ZynAddSubFX was featured in the KVR One-Synth-Challenge contest.
In November 2013, unfa released an album that was entirely made with ZynAddSubFX. Slavonic pagan ambient project Svitlo albums were created using zynaddsubfx as synthesizer.
Support
The official support page is featured on the KVR Audio forums: ZynAddSubFX support
Windows version
The latest Windows version (as of October 2015) [1] is dated 2005-04-08.