The classic subtractive layout, and nothing you have to hunt for. Two oscillators with independent waveform, octave and detune, feeding one resonant low-pass filter and one ADSR. Delay and reverb after it, an oscilloscope above it, eight patches that already sound like something.
Two oscillators into a mixer, a resonant low-pass filter, an amplifier under an ADSR, then delay and reverb. It is the standard subtractive chain because it works, and here every stage is on one screen.
Nothing exotic - just the controls that make a subtractive synth sound the way it should.
Sine, sawtooth, square and triangle, chosen independently per oscillator, with their own octave and detune. Saw against saw, detuned a few cents, is where every fat analogue lead starts - and the mix control decides how much of the second one you actually want.
Cutoff and resonance, no mode switching, no menu. Pull the cutoff down until the sound darkens and push resonance until it starts to whistle - this single pair of knobs does more for the character of a patch than everything else combined.
Attack, decay, sustain and release. Fast attack and short decay gives you a pluck; slow attack with full sustain gives you a pad. The same two oscillators cover both, which is the whole point of an envelope.
A delay with adjustable time and a reverb, both after the filter. Enough to place a sound in a space without leaving the synth, which matters when you are sketching rather than mixing.
The waveform is drawn live above the controls. Detune the second oscillator and you watch the phase drift; open the filter and you see the harmonics come back. It is the fastest way to connect what a knob does to what you hear.
Classic lead, fat bass, warm pad, pluck, bell, brass, organ and strings - all playable polyphonically from a MIDI controller, the computer keyboard or the on-screen keys.
Every one of these is the same two oscillators and one filter, set differently.
Detuned saws, filter open, short release. The sound that cuts through a mix without being processed - start here to hear the raw voice.
Saw plus square an octave down, cutoff low, resonance moderate, fast envelope. Sits under a kick without competing with it.
Slow attack, long release, both oscillators detuned wide, reverb up. Hold a chord and it keeps moving on its own.
Sine and triangle, sharp attack, long decay, high cutoff. Delay adds the repeats that make it sound bigger than a two-oscillator patch has any right to.
It is the most neutral of the eight. Play a few notes and get used to what the raw voice sounds like before you change anything.
A few cents is width, a lot is dissonance, an octave is a different instrument. This one control accounts for most of what people mean by "analogue".
Cutoff down until it darkens, resonance up until it sings. If a patch sounds thin, this is almost always where the problem is.
Decide whether the sound should snap, swell or sustain, then set attack and release to match. Add delay and reverb only after that is right.
| Synthesis | Subtractive, two oscillators per voice, polyphonic |
|---|---|
| Waveforms | Sine, sawtooth, square, triangle - independently per oscillator |
| Oscillator controls | Waveform, octave, detune, mix |
| Filter | Resonant low-pass with cutoff and resonance |
| Envelope | ADSR - attack, decay, sustain, release |
| Effects | Delay with time control, reverb |
| Metering | Live oscilloscope |
| Presets | Classic lead, fat bass, warm pad, pluck, bell, brass, organ, strings |
| Input | Web MIDI, computer keyboard, on-screen keys, mouse and touch |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio. MIDI input needs a browser with Web MIDI support. |
Modern soft synths hide a great deal behind tabs and pages. Analog Synth puts the classic subtractive chain on one screen - two oscillators, one filter, one envelope, two effects - and nothing else. That constraint is the feature: with this few controls, every knob has an audible job, and you can hear what each one does before you forget what you touched.
The reason old hardware sounds warm has less to do with circuitry than with two oscillators that were never exactly in tune. Detuning the second oscillator by a few cents produces the slow beating that reads as width and life. Push it further and you get chorus, then dissonance - and the oscilloscope shows the phase drift while it happens.
Classic lead, fat bass, warm pad, pluck, bell, brass, organ and strings are not decorative. They cover the parts most tracks actually need, they are all built from the same architecture, and reverse-engineering one of them is the quickest sound-design lesson available.
Analog Synth shares the studio audio graph with the drum machines, sequencers and effects, so a patch made here can go straight under a beat or through the vocoder as a carrier. One subscription covers every app, and a 7-day free trial covers the deciding.
Yes - you can hold chords and each note gets its own voice, with its own envelope. That is why the pad and string patches keep their movement rather than collapsing into a single shape.
Yes. The synth requests Web MIDI access, so any class-compliant USB or Bluetooth controller plays it. If the browser blocks MIDI, the app tells you how to re-enable it from the address bar. The computer keyboard and on-screen keys work regardless.
Two oscillators that can be detuned against each other, and a resonant low-pass filter. Slight detuning creates the beating that ears read as warmth and width; the filter with resonance is what gives the sound a character rather than just a tone.
It draws the output waveform live. Detune the second oscillator and you can watch the phase drift; open the filter and you see the harmonics return. For anyone learning synthesis, seeing the change while hearing it is worth more than a manual.
Quantum is the bigger instrument - sixteen voices, a four-slot modulation matrix, multi-mode filter and a six-effect rack. Analog Synth is deliberately smaller and faster to understand: two oscillators, one filter, one envelope. Use Quantum for sound design, this for playing.
It is part of the GOONS Studio subscription (€9.90/month), which unlocks every app in the catalog, the 5000-sample library and cloud projects. New accounts get a 7-day free trial with full access and no card required.
Analog Synth comes with the GOONS Studio subscription at €9.90/month, alongside every other app in the catalog. Start with the 7-day free trial - no credit card, cancel whenever.
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