beardo

Widely regarded as a jack of all trades soft-synth and winner of multiple ‘Best Synth of the Year’ awards, LennarDigital delivers an absolute treasure in their product Sylenth1. A number of big name artists have sworn by Sylenth for years and I would argue that Sylenth has acquired attention beyond any other synthesizer on the market. Whether you’re a beginning or a master, Sylenth has something in store for you and chances are you will be able to find at least a small modicum of success when tinkering around with it. Sylenth1 itself is has a very well laid out design. While it may not be the most visually appealing plug-in, appearances are easily deceiving when it comes to Sylenth. At the top half of Sylenth you will find that you can have a Part A and Part B of any particular sound. Each part allows you to use 2 oscillators, connected with an amplifier and in conjunction with a filter. You can then further change your sound in each part using modulation envelopes and LFO, but unfortunately you have to click through a drop down menu to link source information to a destination as opposed to just dragging them. Last, but not least, Sylenth’s main menu appears right smack in the middle of the program and allows you to manipulate your sounds by adding a variety of effects. Personally, I think some of these effects could be improved in future releases, but the effects themselves aren’t inherently bad and I find myself using the native arpeggio and distortion effects most often. I wouldn’t say that Sylenth really has any downsides to it overall. While it may not be as advanced as some of the wavetable synthesizers like [Massive](https://equipboard.com/items/native-instruments-massive-synth) or [Serum](https://equipboard.com/items/xfer-serum-advanced-wavetable-synthesizer), Sylenth is probably the most solid synthesizer on the market. I’ve never had it crash and it’s very light on CPU. The best part is that it is so widely used that there is an enormous amount of user created material available to anyone with a large enough bank account, even sometimes for free. I’m not sure if LennarDigital has any plans in the future for upgrading Sylenth, but I don’t think people would be upset if they decided not to. It gets the job done and gives you reliable results time and time again. I use Sylenth primarily for lead synths and gritty electro basslines because I find that it has the ability to give you a very crisp and clear sound, but using LFO and envelope modulations aren’t as intuitive as they are on other synthesizers. Sylenth will be around for a long time to come and, if anything, the only change it needs is an overhaul to the appearance. I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.