The Synths I Actually Use…

I've bought a lot of synths over the years, and most of them are basically digital dust now, I know, surprise, surprise! They are now sitting in a folder I never open. This isn't about those. This is the actual, honest list of what I reach for when I sit down to make something real. Everything else I own, and I own a lot, was (or is to my eyes) bullshit, my dear. Money spent on hype, on a demo video that lied to me, on a sale price I couldn't resist. It's not here. This is the stuff I actually did not buy becasue I thought having them would make me make more music.

I paid full price for every single plugin on this list, out of my own pocket, no freebies, no favors. Some of the links below are affiliate links, if you buy through one, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. I'm telling you that straight up instead of pretending I don't care either way. The list didn't change because of the links. I'm not recommending anything I didn't already own, use weekly, and pay for before any commission existed.

Also, this list is in alphabetical order, not ranked by preference. I'm not about to turn my own gear into a popularity contest. And if something you love isn't here, that doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it's not what I reach for, and that's fine. Your daily driver doesn't have to look anything like mine.

Acid V is where I start when a session needs something raw and unhinged before anything else exists. Easy to dial in, an absurd amount of sequencing ability, and it has never once let me down — which is more than I can say for most of other shit in my life. What keeps me coming back isn't even the acid sound itself — it's the different drive and distortion modes you can flip through on the fly, mid-idea, without losing momentum → get it here

bx_oberhausen is the answer when the mood shifts toward something classic. That filter is un-holly, unreasonably good, in the best way. It's the kind of plugin that makes "vintage" sound less like a costume and more like a fact, which is more effort than most vintage-flavored plugins actually put in → get it here

Chromaphone 3 is for something semi-acoustic but slightly wrong, a little unearthly and extraterrestrial, like a sound that shouldn't quite exist and knows it. It does that specific thing better than anything else I own → get it here

Collision Ableton stock, is worth calling out even though it's technically not a synth in the same sense as the rest of this list. It's a physical-modeling instrument built for mallet, bell, and impact-type sounds, closer to a sound-design tool than a lead machine, but indispensable when that's what a track calls for. easily everyone’s secret weapon and super underrated → get it here

CS-80 is my pad machine, full stop. I don't overthink it anymore. If I need a pad, this is the first plugin I open, and I've made peace with being predictable about it. I know that's underusing something this gorgeous. There's a whole history behind this synth, and I'm using maybe five percent of what it can actually do. But that five percent is the first thing that comes to mind every time, sorry to CS80 → get it here

Current from Minimal Audio, is powerful, mammoth sounding machine, No argument there. Just know what you're signing up for with their preset ecosystem before you commit your wallet to a subscription for sounds you could, in theory, make yourself. Powerful synth, slightly needy relationship and needless design choices here and there for their own benefit → get it here,

Drift is Ableton's answer to a simple, musical analog-style synth, does exactly what it says on the tin. Not flashy, but reliable in a way that matters when you're moving fast and don't have the patience for a synth with main character energy → get it here

Falcon is a mammoth. Genuinely! You can build almost anything inside it from scratch or from its enormous factory content. My one real complaint is the interface; it doesn't always make the power inside it easy to find, like a library with a brilliant collection and no card catalog. Once you push through that, there's very little it can't do. I love it despite the friction → get it here

Generate is for when I'm in a dark headspace, which — if I'm honest — is most of the time. I press the random button a couple of times and the sound is just there. No hunting, and with a bit tweaking you can make that randomness your own and use it in less than a few minutes. Chaos on tap, which is either the most or least therapeutic thing about my process, depending on the day I guess → get it here

Hive is my bass synth. Chunky, resourceful, fat, and of course it is completely unapologetic about it. It doesn't try to be tasteful by force. Sometimes that's exactly what a track needs, and sometimes tasteful is for people with less interesting problems → get it here

KORG MS-20 V is my idea machine. It surprises me every time, which after this many years with software synths is not a small thing. Most plugins stopped surprising me around the same time I finished the purchase. I specifically use the Arturia version because it bundles in the other units I used to run acoustically alongside it. Now it's all in one window, which saves me a stupid amount of routing → get it here

Meld the most interesting native synth Ableton has released in years. The dual-engine design (wavetable and virtual analog rubbing against each other) gives it a character that's genuinely its own, not just a Serum understudy waiting for its big break → get it here

Mini V4 is, and I say this with zero embellishment, the synth. It doesn't need a story. You know what it is. If you don't, that's a you problem → get it here

Noisy2 is the best thing I own for working with my Osmose. I lose real time in it, in a good and tasty way, shaping textures and feelings. It's morbidly efficient at generating new material; I go in for one idea and come out with five, and several hours I will never get back → get it here

Omnisphere changed everything when it came out, and it's still, somehow, amazing. Not much else to say. It's earned its place through sheer consistency → get it here

Operator Ableton's own FM engine — is still one of the cleanest around, and criminally underused by people who already own it and never open it. Perfect for basses, keys, and tbh every freaky sound you need without needing a third-party plugin open, and free real estate for anyone who already paid for Ableton Suite and forgot → get it here

Phase Plant annoys me a little, honestly! Because of how good it is. I've had it for a while now and I'm still finding new stuff in it. Not in a "wow, magic" way, just in a "how have I not tried this yet" way. That shouldn't still be happening this far in. Most synths I've figured out within a few months. This one keeps showing me I haven't → get it here

Pigments has it all. The granular engine specifically is gorgeous, one of the best-sounding granular implementations I've used anywhere, hardware or software → get it here

PunchBox isn't a synth in the traditional sense, but it's my go-to for kicks and weird, mangled basses. Never disappointed me once, and the 2.0 update pushed it even further. If your kicks still sound thin after this, that's not the plugin's fault → get it here

Serum 2 is so good I genuinely resent it a little. What else is there to say? Easy, beautiful, capable, and a CPU-hungry beast that eats your voice count for breakfast and your laptop fan for lunch. I have complicated feelings about how good it is, the way you resent someone for being right all the time → get it here

Synplant from Sonic Charge, is where I go for sounds I couldn't have imagined starting from scratch. It's pleasing just to look at, gorgeous to hear, and has enough going on under the hood to keep me hooked every single time I open it, the plugin equivalent of a plant that grows into something you didn't plan for and are somehow fine with → get it here,

Tomofon is underrated in a way that borders on criminal. If you want surprising results out of deceptively simple sounds, this is your machine, quietly doing more than instruments twice its price and reputation → get it here

Wavetable Ableton's general-purpose wavetable synth is still a completely valid choice for pads, plucks, and basses when I don't need the horsepower of something like Serum or Pigments. The reliable, slightly boring friend who's never once let me down, which I always valued more than the exciting ones → get it here

That's the honest list. Not everything I own, not everything that's good — just what actually gets used, week after week, paid for in full, no strings attached, no hidden favorites, no synth harmed in the making of this post except possibly my CPU.

Yes, I know! A blog in 2026?

Why Am I writing these? Especially in an age that everyone is watching videos online? I've tried social media. Genuinely tried. Instagram, the whole "post a reel, video some stuff, sell your soul in fifteen seconds" circus. I'm bad at it. Not bad in a charming, self-aware way either. Bad in the way where I record something, watch it back, and feel the specific shame of a man who just watched himself try to be likeable on camera. My brain does not work in fifteen-second bursts of personality. It never has.

But my brain does work in sentences. Give me a page and enough coffee and suddenly I have opinions, way too many of them, about synths, gear, music, and whatever else is rattling around up there at 2am. Turns out I had a lot to say, I just needed the right format to say it in, and it wasn't a ring light.

So this is that. Not a personal brand, not a "content strategy," just me trying to write the way I actually think, because apparently that's the only version of me that shows up fully formed. Some of it'll be useful. Some of it'll just be me getting something off my chest. Either way, it's real, it's mine, and nobody had to watch me dance for it.