VOSK

A darksynth / cyberpunk synthesizer, built for bass violence and searing leads.

VOSK is a subtractive virtual-analog synth (VST3 / AU / Standalone) aimed squarely at darksynth, synthwave and cyberpunk — the Carpenter Brut / Perturbator / Magonia end of the spectrum. Three band-limited oscillators with per-oscillator super-saw unison, hard sync and phase mod feed a driven, oversampled Moog-ladder or MS-20-style filter, a full modulation system, a global FX chain, an output saturation stage and a tape/VHS colour. It ships with ~60 ready-to-play patches and gets nasty fast.

Built with JUCE. Free and open source (GPLv3).

Download

Grab the latest build from the Releases page.

• Windows — VOSK-*-Windows.zip (VST3 + Standalone). Put VOSK.vst3 in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\, then rescan plugins in your DAW.
• macOS — VOSK-*-macOS.zip (VST3 + AU + Standalone). Copy VOSK.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ and VOSK.component to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/. The macOS builds are unsigned, so on first launch right-click → Open (or run xattr -cr /path/to/VOSK.vst3) to get past Gatekeeper.

Factory presets are built in — nothing else to install.

Features

Oscillators

• 3 identical oscillators (Saw / Pulse / Triangle / Sine), band-limited so they stay clean all the way up the keyboard — no digital fizz on high notes.
• Per-oscillator super-saw unison (up to 7 voices) with musical non-linear detune, stereo spread and random/fixed phase.
• Hard sync and phase modulation for growl and metallic grit.
• Sub oscillator (sine/square, −1/−2 oct) and a noise source with a white→dark tone tilt.

Filter & drive

• Pre-filter drive with an asymmetric soft-clip, feeding a choice of two filters: a smooth Moog-style 24 dB ladder or a nastier MS-20 / Sallen-Key. Both self-oscillate. Everything runs oversampled to stay clean under heavy drive.
• Dedicated filter envelope, key tracking and a live filter-response graph.

Modulation

• Two envelopes and two tempo-syncable LFOs (6 shapes incl. sample & hold).
• An 8-slot modulation matrix routing anything to pitch, level, PW, sync depth, PM, unison, cutoff, resonance, drive, pan and more — ships pre-wired for the classic envelope-swept bass growl.

Output & FX

• Global output character stage — Tube / Diode / Fold / Crush saturation, the amp-distortion grit that makes it sound like a record.
• FX chain: Juno-style chorus, tempo-synced ping-pong delay, and a dark reverb.
• Tape / VHS stage: wow & flutter, tape saturation, vintage hiss and roll-off.

Voicing

• 8-voice poly, plus mono and legato with exponential glide and pitch bend.

Interface

• Custom darksynth UI with live visual feedback everywhere: oscilloscope + stereo meters, ADSR envelope curves, filter-response graph, LFO phase indicators and mod-matrix routing highlights.
• Resizable UI scale (75–150 %), an on-screen keyboard, and an embedded font so it looks the same on every machine.

Presets

• ~60 factory patches across Bass / Lead / Pluck / Keys / Stab / Pad / Arp / FX, all level-matched so browsing won't blow your ears out.
• MUTATE button that generates usable darksynth patches on demand.
• Save your own, and import / export single presets (.voskpreset) or whole banks (.voskbank) to share.

Build from source

Requires CMake ≥ 3.22 and a C++17 compiler. JUCE is fetched automatically, so a clean checkout builds anywhere:

git clone https://github.com/mantisvex/VOSK.git
cd VOSK
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release

Build products land in build/VOSK_artefacts/ (VST3, Standalone, and AU on macOS). An Inno Setup installer script and a quick local install helper are in installer/.

Want to hack on it? See CONTRIBUTING.md for the architecture, DSP notes and dev workflow.

Credits

• Built on the JUCE framework.
• Super-saw unison follows Adam Szabo, "How to Emulate the Super Saw" (BTH, 2010).
• Filter designs after Vadim Zavalishin's The Art of VA Filter Design and Will Pirkle's Korg35 model.
• UI font: Rajdhani (SIL Open Font License).

License

VOSK is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE. Copyright © 2026 MantisVex. The embedded UI font is licensed separately under the SIL Open Font License (see Resources/FONT-OFL.txt).