Hi friends ^_^

Any ideas, opinions, reviews of Acustica Synth plugins?

I've just watched a yt of Squid... sounds & looks nice!

 

They are really good. Squid especially. Like all things Acustica they have some "quirks" lol. The highest quality setting is nearly impossible to use without immediately freezing. The low quality setting is fine cpu wise, but audio quality takes a noticable hit. There are 4 quality settings so you can pick what you need depending on the situation.

There are some additional quirks, but nothing deal breaking. I would say recommended if you want excellent sound, and don't mind some quirky behavior. They really sound like the real thing. Run a demo and see for yourself. If you do like it, don't pay full price, they do absurd amounts of sales, so just wait for one.

 

I didnt find them to be anything special. And when compared with the more accomplished synth plugins (u-he for example) the Acustica synths fail to impress given their high CPU and clunky UI issues.

I think you can get u-he Diva sounding every bit as good as Squid with no problem at all.

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2026 at 9:28 AM

This is the first time I have ever seen Diva proposed as a lower-cpu alternative. Equal or better sound, certainly.

 

The Acustica Audio synthesizers are too expensive; they don't offer enough customization options for my liking.
Arturia has done a better job, adding a step sequencer, more polyphony, and usable effects to their hardware clones.

Acustica Audio - SQ3 - Squid-3 = €199, Acustica Audio - Expanse5 = €169, Acustica Audio - Alice9 = €249, Acustica Audio - Thing = €229 They even sell T-shirts, The Marea Collection Classic Tee for €54.77—if that isn't a rip-off, I don't know what is!

{Review] Acustica Audio SQUID-3: a superstereo MUST-powered analog modeling Synthesizer plugin
Whether we really need another subtractive analog-style Synthesizer is a matter of personal preference. It’s a bit pricey, but if you’re interested, you should grab it during the intro sale.
https://synthanatomy.com/2025/12/ac...superstereo-must-powered-analog-modeling.html

Install the demo and form your own opinion: Experience all our plugins for 30 days without spending a dime. It's super easy to get started. Just create an account and use our Aquarius Desktop to download and activate any product you want to try. Happy testing!

Spoiler: The "U-HE - Zebra 3" is more advanced.

The "U-HE - Zebra 3" is more advanced.

There's no firm release date yet. It could take two months, or perhaps even a little longer, until the release version is ready.
The beta version is now available for macOS, Windows, and Linux in the KVR forum, where you can also provide feedback.

There is a pre-order offer of €179; the regular price will be €249.

Playing with my favourite Zebra 3 presets

FM in ZEBRA 3

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2026 at 12:42 PM

I bought Acusticas Thing (Jupiter-8) and Expanse5 (Prophet-5), got them for good price because of introductory discounts + customer coupon. To be honest haven't had time to play with them that much but they sound pretty good. Not sure if they're better than competition but definitely good or very good even. I got to play with my friends real Jupiter-8 around new year for few days (he also has real Prophet-5). It sounded so freaking good... I was really taken aback by it

 

Back when i tried them i got the same general idea from all of them. They sound like they want to be on the spotlight, they have a more midrange-y sound (compared to other emulations of the same synths), you have easy access to effects, including saturation that doesn't suck.

I got the feeling they'd be really good IF you wanted to make them the main feature on a track. Other than that, nothing special.

 

I don't want to trash them
I was very exciting as well when I saw Gianfranco Carone's preset bank for SQ3

I was like wow nooo way so it was around xmas time when Acoustica still had their intro price so I installed their 14 day or 30 demo can't remember
I'm a huge PC nerd & tweaked my whole life nearly 18 years+
So my PC is very well optimized for very low latency gaming & lowest ping time and of course well optimized for audio production
I have Ryzen 5600x, SSL2+ interface, 7.2GB/sec read SSD, etc so it should handle most audio stuff
They have like "Eco mode, Normal and maybe Ultra" can't remember so I was testing their factory SQ3 presets and most of them made my PC choke...when I was playing 4 notes or more at the same time doesn't matter which setting Eco-normal etc SQ3 is unusable for me
The weird thing about it is when it made my PC struggle the typcal ASIO buffer crackle/glitching my Ableton session was around 22% use so it was very strange I couldn't figure out why it can't handle SQ3's poly voices from like 4 and up

...back to Gianfranco's preset bank for SQ3 (which he never released just promised) I realized after digging a bit that he actually has the exact same preset bank for moog SUB37...so this is where things got interesting
In my opinion he just put/edited the original sound from his SUB37 and pretended that is coming from Acoustica's SQ3 no wonder why it sounds exactly the same
That's his release for SUB37

Just compare the 2 sounds from his SQ3 and SUB37 videos...exactly everything is the same I think he faked the SQ3 preset pack

 

The two audio tracks do not entirely cancel out even after sample accurate timings, but it is close enough that it might just be due to different transcodings by Youtube, or the first being transcoded again, by mistake or on purpose.

If the grand idea is to say "See, my shitty synth sounds just like the first audio", then yeah, it very much does. But that is not evidence that these are not coming from the same source.

 

Sorry, but I don't want to waste my time with a developer who even Isn't able to make one responsive, sharp, usable GUI although they have tons of releases. Why should their algorithms be better?

 

That's pretty crazy if true! Leaves for sure bad taste in the mouth, wonder why he did this ... Maybe he just programmed same sounds on both synths though It does sound slightly different to me but only slightly, like slightly different timbre

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2026 at 3:08 PM