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Description
Sonic Charge Synplant is a unique synthesizer plugin that pushes the boundaries of sound design with its innovative approach to music creation. Unlike traditional synths, Synplant utilizes a graphical interface that allows users to "grow" sounds from seeds, making it an intuitive and visually engaging experience. This groundbreaking method empowers musicians and producers to craft complex sounds with a simple click-and-drag technique, offering a fresh perspective on sound synthesis.
Synplant's interface is designed to inspire creativity, presenting a botanical theme where each sound is represented as a plant. As you tweak the parameters, you can visually see your sound evolve, providing an organic and interactive way of designing audio. The plugin is perfect for producers looking to experiment beyond conventional synth parameters and find new sonic landscapes.
With Synplant, you can explore countless sonic possibilities, from lush pads to intricate textures, all while maintaining a user-friendly experience. Its compatibility with major digital audio workstations ensures seamless integration into your existing setup, making it a versatile tool for any music production environment.
Key Features:
- Innovative sound design through a graphical interface
- Unique approach to synthesis using "growing" sounds
- Intuitive and interactive botanical theme
- Visual representation of sound evolution
- Compatible with major DAWs
- Ideal for exploring unconventional soundscapes
Videos
Sonic Charge
Synplant Showcase
Reviews
PROS
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Innovative interface allows unique sound creation through visual interaction
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Capable of producing highly unusual and modern sounds
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Perfect for ambient and experimental electronic music
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Excellent for creating synth risers and build-ups
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Offers a unique genetic approach to sound synthesis
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Simple, tactile controls encourage creative exploration
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Allows every key to produce a different sound
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Provides an engaging and playful sound design process
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DNA editor offers fine-tuning of synth parameters
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Versatile with a lot of character despite its simplicity
CONS
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Unusual GUI and workflow can be confusing
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Can be quiet and require compression to enhance sound
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Difficult to predict changes from tweaks
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Some users find it challenging to create chords
Owner Insights
We analyzed real musician discussions from forums and Reddit to find what players love, question, and tweak about Sonic Charge Synplant.
Features and functionality
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Users appreciate Synplant's unique modulation method, which replaces conventional knobs with a more exploratory interface, enhancing creativity in sound design.
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The gene manipulator in Synplant provides a detailed tutorial, allowing users to tweak and understand each setting's impact on sound.
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Synplant allows users to edit waveforms between sine, triangle, saw, and square in the DNA section, also supporting FM synthesis, offering extensive sound design flexibility.
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Every note in a chromatic scale can sound distinctively different in Synplant, a feature praised by Brian Eno and rarely found in other synths.
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Synplant's sound design process emphasizes auditory experimentation over traditional knob-tweaking, encouraging users to create based on what they hear.
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Use cases and applications
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Synplant is favored for sound design, with one owner citing its effectiveness in creating dub techno sounds.
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Synplant excels in creating atonal percussive synth sounds, offering unique patches per note, ideal for experimental sound design.
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Notable artists like Flume and Modeselektor frequently use Synplant, underscoring its appeal for creating innovative electronic music sounds.
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User experience
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It's noted that Synplant is missed by those who switch to computerless setups, indicating its valued role in digital workflows.
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Some users find Synplant's generative nature less useful for achieving specific sounds, making it more suited for exploratory sound creation rather than targeted synthesis.
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Users report that Synplant can produce rich, warm, and organic sounds despite some perceptions of its digital tone from initial presets.
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Software and compatibility
4.5 out of 5
Based on 16 Reviews and 83 Ratings
3982
Different
Synplant is created by Magnus Lidström, the man behind Sonic Charge, who also came to prominence with the Malstrom synthesizer included free with Propellerhead's Reason. Under the hood, Synplant is actually a fairy conventional (FM? I dunno?) synth, but what makes it stand out from the crowd of synth plug-ins is its innovative user interface. The idea basically is that the user simply pushes and pulls at graphics until they get a sound they want! The core sound is represented by a 'seed' at the centre of the interface. Each seed grows 'branches' (nicely animated wavy fern things). As the branch is pulled, it changes loads of synth parameters FOR THAT NOTE on THAT KEY only. So, in other words, it's possible to create a synth patch where every sound on every key is different, which is a departure in itself! If one particular sound takes your fancy, you can 'replant' the seed so that all the keys now share that sound. The process can be repeated endlessly until you've reached a sound you like. If you get a sound that's almost right apart from one thing, you can dive into the synth's 'DNA editor' window, which gives you finer control over things like envelopes, filter cutoffs, amplitude modulation levels and so on, like a 'normal' synth would. The global controls on the front panel control broader things like FX wet/dry level, atonality, tuning and so on. The modulation wheel often offers up surprises, and the whole plant can be spun with automation to give evolving sounds too...
I love Synplant mainly for its sound; it's sort of cold, digital, but somehow organic and quirky at the same time. It also sounds very 'modern' in the sense that it's not trying to slavishly recreate a MiniMoog or whatever; it sounds like something that could only really exist in the 21st Century. It's almost impossible to predict how tweaking the branches will affect the timbres, and it's very liberating to just use simple tactile controls and your ears to create new sounds. Sometimes it's worth just hitting the 'create new random seed' button and seeing what it can come up with!
It can be a bit quiet and weedy sounding, which I usually fix with compression. Still, this makes a change to a lot of modern soft synths which immediately blow out your channel strip (yes, looking at you, Arturia!) and you have to instantly turn them down...
815
Fascinating
Bought on a whim as a deal when I bought micro-tonic to use with the Teenage Engineering Tonic Pocket Operator. Fooled around with it a bit and it does produce very unusual sounds that I could see being useful but a very unusual GUI and workflow made it hard to be sure what your input would result in. If you dig deep into the DNA of this it could be rewarding.
428
Sonic Charge Synplant
Grow Synplant is a software synthesizer with a genetic approach to sound creation. Instead of creating patches the conventional way by turning dials and knobs, Synplant lets you explore a world of organic sounds by planting seeds that grow into synth patches. Mutate Once you are ready to get your hands dirty and dig deeper into the anatomy of Synplant you will have the option to crack open your sound seeds and modify their underlying genetic code. Create The purpose of this product is to move focus away from the sometimes intricate and difficult process of sound synthesis and instead let you develop sounds by simply using your ears. You will find that creating synth patches with Synplant will be as easy as listening and deciding what you like and then having the sounds evolve in the directions you desire. Although Synplant is exceedingly easy to use, whatever you do, do not let its relative simplicity fool you. Beneath its straightforward and playful interface you will find a versatile synthesizer of the utmost quality with lots of character.
281
absolutely out of this frequency spectrum
Ha Ha bit of an exaggeration possibly ... Like the cliche says though " all that can hinder you is your own imagination " I use it all the time despite my want to try something else ... Vital for experimental electronic dabbling
Preferred Settings + Usage:
I throw digital die with this one as the serendipity is amazing ... Instant Push button fun
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Best Synth For Risers
This synth is awesome for doing synth risers in the build up for a track! Thanks to @nicky_romero for showing this in his video of how he made "Toulouse". Thats the reason why I bought this synth because I loved the sound of his rising synth a lot! And I've been able to replicate my own very awesome sounding version of this riser so this synth really does work awesome for that! Highly Recommended
141
FX
Really use it when i wanna some crazy fx sounds, i really don't know how to make chords out of this plugin.
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41007
I believe you, who would lie about that? More reviewing in future reviews please....
Artist usage
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Zedd used a preset from Sonic Charge's Synplant in his record 'Lost at Sea'. The preset is called 'AZ Piano Detuner' and can be heard at the beginning of the track. The preset is located in the factory bank.
Axwell talks through the making of the Swedish House Mafia track "One" in this video interview. At 2:46 he says, "We got some chords, courtesy of Synplant... [it] makes interesting sounds."
In tracks 48-52, in this photo of Flume's screen running Abelton Live, Synplant can be seen.
In a Future Music (issue 298) interview, when asked whether she is seeking “inspiring new sounds and effects plug-ins”, she responds: “There’s this synth that’s like a plant you can grow, called Synplant … it has all these weird parameters where you can take a sound and throw a plant arm around it. It’s really visual, so you’re not really working with numbers … It’s very intuitive and you can mess with the sounds without having to know that much about how it works.” It’s not clear from the interview whether Grimes has actually used this synth in any of her recordings.
While being escorted to his hotel in Jakarta, Dannic talks about producing a new track and at 3:33 you can see the project running on his laptop together with the Sonic Charge Synplant.
"@soniccharge Thank you! Think you indirectly feature in half the tracks on it. Synplant for a lot of 'As I Need You'"
This article on the recording of the "Barking" album describes the band's then-current studio setup. It states, "Underworld relied on both software and hardware synthesizers. Soft-horses included Logic ES2; GForce ImpOSCar, ImpOSCar2, String Machine, and Oddity; Sonic Charge’s Synplant; Synthogy Ivory (piano); Rob Papen BLUE; and Native Instruments’ Battery 3, FM8, Reaktor 5, and Massive."
Album Usage
The Sonic Charge Synplant has been featured on the following albums:
Genre Usage
Based on how artists on Equipboard use this gear, it is most commonly found in the following genres.
Used With
Based on how musicians on Equipboard use Sonic Charge Synplant, it is most commonly used with the following gear.
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