Mensla MS-2 is a new free Synthesizer plugin for macOS and Windows featuring a hybrid mix of subtractive, FM, and other techniques.
You can never have enough Synthesizer plugins. Each plugin has its charm and sound character. Today, a new developer released a new free synth plugin with an eye-catching design.
It comes from the dev Angelo Fazari, aka Mensla, and is called MS-2.
Mensla MS-2
On the website, the developer thanks, among other things, three people for the synth modules as well as the synth edit community. Does the plugin was designed using Synth Edit?
MS-2 is a suspicious name for a synth. There’s a popular vintage analog synth with 0. Don’t worry, it’s not another emulation of Korg’s MS-20. It’s an original polyphonic Synthesizer with an intriguing concept. It starts with the very bizarre GUI, which may be visually striking but is completely unintuitive.
Sorry, I’m honest. It looks like a circuit board, but it hurts my eyes to work longer on it (tiny feature symbols…). Plus, it is not scalable at all. Help, I need a magnifying glass. There is still a lot of work needed to make the interface attractive.
On the synthesis side, it uses a hybrid mix of different synthesis types. It features three multi-wave oscillators, each with a dedicated ADSR envelope, volume, pulse-width control, and more. You can also pan each oscillator.
Who likes it easier leads the signal directly into a filter with the usual parameters (cutoff, resonance…) and built-in LFO and ADSR envelope. For those who want to delve deeper, there is an FM matrix where you can use the oscillators as operators. Classic FM or even crazy, wild sounds can be created here. Then you can also find filter FM for all three oscillators in the same section.
At the bottom right, there is a tweakable distortion, delay, and reverb processor. An arpeggiator and chord generator are also built-in. Everything can only be seen with my magnifying glass. We urgently need a scaling option or another GUI. A nice extra is an oscilloscope that graphically represents the produced waves.
Beta
Presets also seem to be built in. I tried the plugin on macOS with an Apple Silicon processor, and the presets were not found. It also had many crashes in Ableton Live 11. But okay, it’s a beta version, so there will be updates in the near future.
From the available demo, the synth sounds very varied. If the bugs and GUI get fixed, this could become a nice free plugin.
The Mensla MS-2 beta is available now as a free download from the developer’s website. It runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on macOS (Intel + native Apple Silicon) and Windows.
More information here: Mensla
Very, very cool synth! There is something from KULT, but it also has its own character and for free.
gui looks nice but little bit pain to use
Hello Community, is there a procedure to install it on mac?
I moved the source in library –> audio –> … but without success.
Can you help me ?
THANKS.
Kind Regards,
Michael
this synth is great. it fascinated me after a long period of being bored by synths: https://youtu.be/_SOEfnqv8SY
SOO GOOOOD! Deep Sounds GALORE thank you to this dev