You have to be able to judge for yourself which virtual software synthesizer you can handle. If you really want to learn sound design, you have talent and understand all the technical aspects. That's pretty rare! You can get frustrated just opening the manual because you don't understand anything.

The question from @Sackbut, I quote:

"Hi All, just wondering what your thoughts are on these two synths.
I have both installed but might like to focus on only one of them but am unsure which.
If you had to choose, which would you and why?"

is very vague – what is his goal? Does he want to learn sound design?

I think both are good for learning. If you spend a little time with each synthesizer, listening and playing for several hours, you'll quickly find out which one you prefer. Ideally, try both three: first the Virus, then the Surge, or vice versa. And even then, there are hundreds of other good virtual software synthesizers waiting for you online.

Having too many choices can be a burden.

 

I'm not sure where you seem to get the idea that a finished hardware synthesizer and all of the proprietary software included with it is suddenly "abandonware". I'm actually uncertain as to where Motorola actually relinquished their IP ownership of the 563xx chipset which is emulated to even run the factory rom binaries from. Be that what it may. If you happen to swing past the website https://virus.info and attempt to create an account to download the firmware which the binary is part of; you will encounter the problem of needing a valid serial number from a unit. Now obviously, that is not very difficult to acquire information; nor is the ability to extract the .bin file from the software installers.

Maybe you do not know the impact of copies, clones, and emulations of hardware; and for a long time many original hardware owners also thought they would negatively impact resale values. Of course, all you have to do now is look at the most desirable Roland drum machines and also the tb303 to see that thinking is not reality. The more copies have just perpetuated the legends of these little machines and the higher the prices have climbed. There are many more factors in what affects resale values of "vintage" synths and gear, but one thing is for certain. Emulations alone do not negatively impact them.

Obviously, the Kemper brothers do not really care about the emulator existing and being made freely available. The 56300 chipset was never their product to begin with, and Motorola probably do not have a clue about it being emulated. To such a manufacturer, the money involved in the synthesizer market is nothing more than a piss hole in the snow. When someone decides to take a ROM binary apart, reverse it, and then use any of it to generate a profit purposed product from it; it is very likely their attitudes about it would quickly change. I've even seen mention that if a user discusses anything about reversing on the Usual Suspects discord channel, they will be quickly banned.

So, as someone already told you; while your content farming thread here (because who actually debates free plugins seriously) has gotten to a few pages now; simple statements like this one make it very clear that you do indeed have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Exactly they have to be discussed seriously, mainly by developers, though, cuz they are thing that can get them out of the business. A few more different synthesis methods vstis on the level of Vital or Surge and producers don't have to use commercial stuff.

 

I've made tunes with entirely with both the TI (hardware) or Surge XT. If I had to choose one it would OsTIrus, but Surge XT is still good and has it's own unique features. It does have a bit of an overwhelming GUI though and does not have the breadth of presets as the TI.

Both lack a proper voice mod feature so neither are top tier VAs, but this is a feature that they will implement in Surge XT 2 so there is potential there.

 

You appear to be referring to my response to PulseWave about Surge, not Virus, and about abandonware in general. And AFAIK, Surge was never hardware.

But that's not what we-- Slavestate and I-- were on about. We were on about the binary file. You cherrypicked and nitpicked/'strawmanned' my somewhat-casual 'emulator' quote to the AI and ran with that, kind of bringing it into the aforementioned context while attempting to speak for Slavestate to boot.

If one is going to browbeat people for 'accuracy' or whatnot, perhaps it might help to provide shining examples of it themselves.

"The Usual Suspects is a group known for creating highly accurate software emulations of classic digital synthesizers that were built around the Motorola DSP56300 series of digital signal processors (DSPs). Their work includes emulations of the Access Virus B/C (Osirus), Waldorf microQ (Vavra), and Nord Lead 2X (Nodal Red 2X). The group’s core technical achievement lies in reverse engineering the DSP chip itself, not individual synthesizers as complete hardware units."

~ Brave search consolidated results quote

Language Is A Virus, by Laurie Anderson
(I think Laurie may have used the Synclavier, incidentally.)

____

"When you need to resort to selective reading, it says a lot." ~ clone (to Synclavier)

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2025

Vember's story is more analogous to Camel Audio's though IMO. But with the ending people had hoped for. The first open source release of Surge (not XT) by the new team was less than a year later IIRC.

SXT is for anyone who likes tinkering, experimenting, understands synth sounds and likes the workflow. It's fine if that doesn't fit what 99% of people want from a synth.

Success always depends more on the user than the developer, but more so with "here's all the things, go nuts and figure it out yourself, lol" style synths, like SXT.

That's the vision the developers (Surge Synth Team) are going for. SST is a collection of independent building blocks for building synths (filters, osc modules, distortion, effects and so on, go check out their github). Which buildings blocks people take from that collection is up to them. SXT is just one possible synth made out of those building blocks.

IMO much better if you get your hands dirty instead. You're not going to learn a synth's capabilities from 3 minute showcases.

Out of those, I can only imagine what you might mean by static. It's up to you to make your patch more dynamic. Hook up a random LFO to pitch and another one to your filter for a start?

Which a scientist is happy to be proven wrong about. Otherwise, they're just part of the "did my own research that conveniently confirms all my suspicions... again" crowd.

That's why, as part of the Surge->Surge XT transition, the project inherited from Vember was broken up into separate building blocks (osc, filters, distortion, ..).

After spending so much time and effort on getting accurate low-level emulation working (The Usual Suspects' mission statement btw), throw all of that out of the window and start decompiling the firmware to introduce your own software additions that break accuracy and sound just like any other synth out there? Also: legal issues.

I agree with your core points, but many of your earlier posts read like Surge is a lesser synth with less capabilities, and that's not true. SXT will be worse in most people's hands, no doubt. But not everyone is the same, one synth doesn't fit all.

I don't think they'd have a legal basis in any case, even if they did care. Similar to how no one's challenged chip level emulators used in video game console emulators. Or Apple's Rosetta or Microsoft's x64-to-ARM equivalent.

 

Is Cloning the 56300 Chip Legal?

Cloning a chip like the Motorola DSP56300 (a 24-bit digital signal processor from the 1990s, used in many vintage synths such as the Access Virus, Waldorf Microwave, and Clavia Nord Lead) involves recreating its hardware functionality, typically through reverse engineering or emulation in software. Based on available information, this is generally legal in most jurisdictions (e.g., the US, EU), but with important caveats. Here's a breakdown:

Hardware Cloning (Physical Reproduction):

The DSP56300 was developed and patented by Motorola (now NXP Semiconductors after spin-offs from Freescale). Patents on its core architecture were filed in the late 1980s/early 1990s and have long expired (US patents typically last 20 years from filing). For example, key Motorola DSP patents from that era (e.g., US Patent 4,998,267 for DSP instruction sets) are no longer enforceable.

Who Holds the Patent?

• Original Holder: Motorola Semiconductor (now NXP Semiconductors). The DSP56300 family stems from Motorola's 56K DSP line, with core patents assigned to them in the 1980s–1990s (e.g., US 5,054,942 for enhanced DSP cores).
• Current Status: All relevant patents have expired. NXP owns the legacy IP but doesn't enforce it on emulations. No active patents cover the 56300 today.

 

1. Vember Audio releases Surge v1.0.1 --> 17th October 2005

Surge is available as a VSTi for Windows and costs €/$180.

2. Vember Audio releases Surge as open-source on GitHub --> 1st October 2018

Claes Johanson says.

"As I'm too busy with other projects and no longer want to put the effort into maintaining it myself across multiple platforms I have decided to give it new life as an open-source project."

"It was originally released in 2005, and was one of my first bigger projects. The code could be cleaner, and at parts better explained but its reliable and sounds great. And beware, there might still be a few comments in Swedish."

 

I never said that Surge lacks capabilities. What I said is that the Virus is close to the ideal balance of synthesizer architecture for most tasks. You work with it without long “workflow stalls,” and it has very well-designed filters, envelopes, and basic effects (at least for pop and electronic genres). It doesn’t matter at all how it looks from the standpoint of “aliasing or digital character” if you can get the result you need quickly and without major corrections afterward. Surge is more of a tool for hobbyists who enjoy spending time experimenting, rather than for professional musicians.

 

Surge is a virtual synthesizer, an instrument.

It's suitable for all users, from beginners to advanced musicians, and offers significant added value for music making. Surge offers a wide range of presets from renowned and creative sound designers, and you'll find numerous patches from all musical genres, as shown in the attached image.

Surge offers a vast array of settings and sonic possibilities. Here's just a small selection:

Oscillators:
- 12 versatile oscillator algorithms: Classic, Modern, Wavetable, Window, Sine, FM2, FM3, String, Twist, Alias, S&H Noise, and audio input.
Classic oscillator is a morphable pulse/saw/dual saw oscillator with a sub-oscillator and hard sync.

Filter Block:
- Available filter algorithms: Lowpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Legacy Ladder Lowpass (6-24 dB/oct), Vintage Ladder Lowpass (2 variations, each with and without gain compensation), Highpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Bandpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Notch (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 2 variations), Allpass (3 variations), Comb (positive and negative), S&H.

Modulation:
- 12 LFO units available, 6 are per voice and 6 are global for the whole scene.
- DAHDSR envelope generators on every LFO.
LFO shapes consist of 7 deformable LFO waveforms, step sequencer, a fully-fledged multi-segment envelope generator (MSEG) with various curves and up to 128 nodes, and last but not the least - a formula modulator which utilizes Lua scripting language to provide completely custom modulator output.
- Voice LFOs allow envelope retriggering in step sequencer mode.
- Extremely fast and flexible modulation routing. Almost every continuous parameter can be modulated.

 

I get a sense that BaconPaul and/or whoever devs decided that Surge XT would benefit from extending and/or isolating its 'modules' from/for a (more flexible) 'signal-path' standpoint within VCV-R and Cardinal. Remove it from its own current front-end 'limitations'.

I'm unsure the self-contained/front-end Surge XT has, at this point, the best 'signal paths' or that the average shmuck can do as much with it or its broken-up modules in VCV-R/Cardinal (than working with something else on the front end). Of course not even the best modulars, signal paths or front ends can help some people.

Curiously, or maybe less curiously at this point, I seem to have noticed that the overwhelming majority of Surge XT videos on You Tube are less about any fantastic sounds it might produce and more about tutorials, about learning the thing, like it's a classroom or training-wheels synth or something and each student is assigned their own at the beginning of their first semester.

'Well the sounds/presets are kind of shite... but you can learn synthesis with it!'

But, yes, ostensibly one can open up the Edit feature in Reaktor and wire up all kinds of modules together to make something like a shitty Razor knockoff (that nets 78% in Electracoustics 101's final exam), say, or one can use the heat-n-serve Razor from its front-end and bypass all those modules, wires, eggs and flour entirely. Except for those pesky dials/buttons/sliders, in which case then one could always try Synplanting it, hiring an orchestra, or ordering a complete song with AI.

Or one can go even further in/down and write something like Reaktor, or program something using assembly or some other 'higher-level' programming language, or even get the funding to build a computer manufacturing and/or software company. Or a mining company that digs for rare earths for those circuits.

Surge XT is the relative new kid on the block. Where it goes seems up in the air, but it's not ready for my prime-time even though it might be ready for you or already yours.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2025 at 9:33 AM

'To Know Thyself Is To Know Thy Tool & Vice-Versa'

Of course, Surge XT, or most anything else, is also what one makes of it, if they have the time, desire and opportunity. More than the sum of its specifications, but at the same time, modulated by them.

One keyword in this whole argument is modulation...

As such, we are 'modulated' in a very real sense by our tools and their designs, constraints and parameters... in a bit of a self-reinforcing feedback-loop perhaps... where, over time, we achieve a kind of mindless Zen with them, where, We are One.

From there, we can ask a simple question: How well does this or that tool 'modulate' us in directions we wish/hope to go?

How excited are we about using our tools, about the ones we ultimately choose?

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2025 at 9:38 AM

I wanted to like Surge because it can do so much, but the sound.... is fuzzy and flimsy and I can't escape that feeling, but it's not actually a feeling at all because all synths sound different and I dont fancy what Surge sounds like What's funny... I like Bitwig and what it can do, all the modulation! Of course, it's the same author as original Surge......... Sooooo did that fuzzy and flimsy sound come over to Bitwig? Since it's the same guy and all? Yes of course it did

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM

Hello @dashfiss, at least you trust your ears and your first impression, because that's all that matters. You can write entire books about Surge, read hundreds of posts, but that won't make Surge sound any better to you.

Delete the plugin; you've gotten to know another synthesizer, gained some more listening experience, that's positive, but you have to move on, there are still many synthesizers waiting for you and you'll delete many because they don't suit you.