This is the ninth in a regular feature in which we will highlight some of the excellent news, articles, tutorials and competitions we have on our sister site Synth Expert. This week we feature a synth with 100 oscillators, a free plug-in from U-he, the winner of the Novation UltraNova and the round up of Synth news from the last week.

This Is What a Synth with 100 Oscillators Sounds Like

YouTube synth blogger "Look Mum No Computer" is nothing if not high-energy. That energy has reached new heights in his latest project, a homebuilt modular synth with 100 oscillators. One. Hundred. Each with its own filter and envelope. 

Right now it mainly does swarm and drone-type sounds, but he's adding a real-time means to control the pitch so it can be used to generate riffs and bass lines. 

Check his video. We're wondering, can we get this guy to do videos for us? 

Read the rest of the story on Synth Expert.

Friday Free Plug-In - U-he Tyrell N6

For this Friday's freebie plug-in were taking you back to a not-so-oldie but definitely goodie! And not merely because we can't resist anything that makes a Blade Runner reference. The Tyrell N6 was originally conceived as a hardware synth, whose features would be crowdsourced by the German synth community Amazona.de. The design was essentially to be a sort of Juno on steroids, but the challenges of getting hardware out the door in anything like a timely fashion proved daunting.

Enter Urs Heckmann, founder of U-he, and generally considered one of the most genius designers of software synths in the world. In particular, his products are known for sounding very authentically analog. He coded all the concepts brought forth from Amazona as a freeware soft synth, and though its most recent iteration is 2013, you wouldn't know that to listen to it. It's also one of the few free soft synths available for Mac or Windows, as usually freeware developers only have time to focus on one or the other.

Get it for free. head over to Synth Expert to find out how.

Novation UltraNova Winner - Michael Woods

Synth Expert and Novation are pleased to announce the winner of the UltraNova synth in our October-long prize drawing: Michael Woods of East Greenbush, New York, USA. 

Read the rest of the story on Synth Expert.

The Week in Gear - October 2017 Week 4

Here's our latest synth and studio gear recap, looking back at week 4, October 2017, including Pro Command for Maschine, the Output Sounds Platform studio desk, Vienna Symphonic Synchron Strings and the Moog Sub 37 upgrade.

Read the rest of the story on Synth Expert.

More About Synth Expert

Our new Synth Expert website is where you will find news, reviews, and how-tos about all things synthesizer. the editor is Stephen Fortner who is a lifelong keyboard player and synth enthusiast and got his start in music technology journalism when Keyboard magazine published a writing sample he had sent them in the late 1990s. He became the technical editor at the beginning of 2006 and the magazine's editor in chief in 2009 through to 2015. Stephen , what are your aims for Synth Expert?

SF: It's my intention that Synth Expert becomes a "big tent." Analog and digital. Hardware and software. Mono and poly. Keyboard synths and modular gear and the musicians who prefer one or the other. 

That's not to say we want to be, or can be, all things to all people. DJ technology and culture, for example, will not be a main focus, digital pianos meant for the living room? Well, once in a while, maybe a few of the more synthy ones. 

We will maintain a permanent and ever-growing list of free synth plug-ins from third parties. Like the other sites in the Production Expert family, Synth Expert also has Facebook and Twitter feeds to help you keep up to date. Thanks for joining me on this journey, and I hope we have a lot of fun together.