Software Alternatives & Reviews

Surge XT VS SuperCollider

Compare Surge XT VS SuperCollider and see what are their differences

Surge XT logo Surge XT

Open-source subtractive-hybrid synthesizer formerly sold commercially as Vember Audio Surge.

SuperCollider logo SuperCollider

A real time audio synthesis engine, and an object-oriented programming language specialised for...
  • Surge XT Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31

Surge XT is an open-source hybrid synthesizer and the synth which started the Surge Synth Team project!

  • SuperCollider Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-04-25

Surge XT videos

Free VST - Surge Synthesizer plugin

SuperCollider videos

Making Music with SuperCollider

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Surge XT and SuperCollider)
Email Marketing
100 100%
0% 0
3D
0 0%
100% 100
Work Management
100 100%
0% 0
Music Generation
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Surge XT and SuperCollider. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Surge XT should be more popular than SuperCollider. It has been mentiond 178 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Surge XT mentions (178)

  • Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment
    Good stuff! I started getting in to this at the start of the year. Already had an old, dusty MicroKORG and MIDI interface to use it as a controller, but recently splashed out on a bigger controller as the Korg's tiny keys were hurting me - plus, I wanted something bigger to get better at piano! A couple of free soft synths I'd recommend are Surge XT, and Vital. https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Obsolete (or not) DAW recommendations for windows 8?
    Https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ and https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ should work like a charm. Source: 10 months ago
  • Hi, I'm new
    To get the equivalent of a symphonic orchestra in your computer, the solution is basically money; you buy the instruments you need. In the case of synthesizers, things are much cheaper - if you put in the effort yourself. https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ is excellent and could even be used if you wanted to make a more retro-style soundtrack. Source: 10 months ago
  • So is serum worth the money? Can someone ELI5 why I should buy it rather than use a free synth like synth one?
    Instead of Synth1, try https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ . It's pretty much better in every aspect except for the UI which is going to look a lot more daunting to you ;). Source: 10 months ago
  • These just appeared in my Facebook, anything to be excited about? I’m waiting on prices.
    For the DW-8000, check https://www.fullbucket.de/music/fb7999.html . Alternatively, https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ can use single-cycle waveforms (basically wavetables that don't change) which can get you close. Source: 11 months ago
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SuperCollider mentions (31)

  • Harnessing Screams with Tidal Looper
    Since then, I've been working more and more with TidalCycles. TidalCycles is an open-source live coding framework for creating patterns written in Haskell. TidalCycles uses SuperCollider on the backend, another language I've been using for live coding. Recently, I started using Tidal Looper for live vocal processing. This blog post will walk you through what you need to get started with vocal looping with Tidal... - Source: dev.to / about 16 hours ago
  • Csound
    Csound is... "interesting". If you want to play with something more modern, have a look at https://supercollider.github.io/ instead. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • MuseScore 4.1 is now available
    For the intrepid, especially those annoyed with the purported input-sluggishness of musescore et al, an interesting text-based alternative is LilyPond https://lilypond.org/ My dad wrote an opera using LilyPond in vim, though I believe these days he's actually doing more with supercollider, which skips sheetmusic and goes right to sounds: https://supercollider.github.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Why'd you choose programming?
    Weirdly enough,I got into programming through music. I got into making experimental electronic music and ended up learning SuperCollider. Figured I’d have to get a real job at some point and I liked learning Supercollider enough that I figured I should try to go back to school and learn some more useful programming languages. Source: 12 months ago
  • 13 Years of History Teaching - Now Thrown Into CS.
    So you’re wondering what would making music with code look like? The tools I’m familiar with are TidalCycles, Sonic Pi, and SuperCollider. I’m having a hard time describing what it’s like to make music with tools like these so here’s a video of a performance. One person is live coding the music and the other is live coding the visuals. I think it’s super cool how the music is improvised and built over time by... Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Surge XT and SuperCollider, you can also consider the following products

Vital - Vital is a spectral warping wavetable synthesizer with drag'n'drop modulation workflow and animated preview of the synth's inner workings where needed. Comes with many modulation sources (including audio-rate), MPE support and FX chain.

Pure Data - Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical...

Serum - VST for FL Studio, Ableton Live, and many other VST supported DAWs. Heavily utilized in EDM.

Sonic Pi - Sonic Pi is a new kind of instrument for a new generation of musicians. It is simple to learn, powerful enough for live performances and free to download.

ZynAddSubFX - ZynAddSubFX is an open source software synthesizer for Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

ChucK - A strongly-timed music programming language