Every build we put up gets the next release number, and the
number is part of the file name (synthmax-0.1.0-r27-x64.msi), so you can
tell your downloads apart and keep the ones you want.
| Release | Date | What's new | Files |
|---|
| 27 (current) | November 3, 2026 | New CHORAL TEXTURES: 50 layered patches and presets built to be played with velocity, each with a synthetic choir filling it out, a chorus and a light reverb. Velocity shapes far more than loudness: soft notes bloom slowly and hard ones speak at once, bells and plucks ring longer when struck harder, the choir opens from 'oo' to 'ah' and spreads wider, and some layers fade out as you dig in while others only arrive when you do. Their presets send to the new fx-choral-wide FX bus, a chorus and Haas-delay widener that spreads the sound well past the speakers and still sums cleanly to mono. Grand piano: a sweeter, rounder treble; the unison strings now start in phase, for a cleaner attack; more even velocity response and balance across the keyboard; bass tuning closer to a real concert grand. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 26 | October 31, 2026 | Smooth preset changes: notes you are holding or that are still ringing keep their old sound (release tails, reverb and echo included) while new notes play the new preset. Presets: up to 8 patch parts with a shared FX bus, a preset browser and a SET LIST; 394 factory presets, many of them growing heavier and brighter the harder and faster you play. New modules: QUANTIZER (keeps a voltage on a scale, with per-note calibration), LADDER FILTER (24 dB classic ladder, self-oscillates in tune), SAMPLER (SFZ, Decent Sampler, GigaStudio and audio files), PATCH (plays a whole patch inside a patch) and SOUNDBOARD (piano soundboard and sympathetic string resonance). MIDI CONTROLS gains ACTIVE and INTENSE outputs that follow how busily and how hard you play, and the OSCILLATOR gains a PM CV input. ROOM takes stereo sources and can LINK one room across several plugin instances. New patches: FAT SYNTHS, FM SYNTHS, ELECTRONIC, JAZZ, TEXTURE LAYERS and MOTION. The piano tone was reworked to sound closer to a real concert grand. Look and feel: a theme system with 10 themes, including slider and ridged control styles; larger module titles; a workbench with no edges; author and description fields when you save a patch. Performance: up to 41% less CPU on layered presets. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 25 | October 22, 2026 | When a cable can't be connected, a message over the jack now says why, instead of the jack only flashing red. The mixer's main output is now labelled MAIN OUT, so it isn't mistaken for an effect's output when patching an FX return. Fixed a crash in the standalone app when a patch file is refused. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 24 | October 22, 2026 | Fixed: the first note on each voice of the guitars, basses, harp and harpsichord used to start up to a semitone flat and bend up into pitch. Every note is now in tune from the start. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 23 | October 22, 2026 | New CRYSTAL CLANG PAD patch: a clangorous metallic pad with high bell tones twinkling on top. The envelope editor's graph is 50% taller, with a grid line every 0.1 second and every second, a time scale in seconds, and a labelled level axis. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 22 | October 22, 2026 | Envelope editor: dragging a point sideways now changes only the segment that ends at it. Every point after it moves along, so the sustain zone and release keep their lengths. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 21 | October 22, 2026 | Envelope editor fixes. Zooming can no longer leave the envelope off-screen. The buttons have plain names (SUS START, SUS END, NO SUSTAIN, TIME CV and the output ranges), the sustain zone is labelled on the plot, and a help strip under the buttons says what to do next. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 20 | October 22, 2026 | Envelope editor improvements. The sustain zone can no longer be lost by accident: deleting one of its points leaves a one-point hold on the other, and double-clicking that point splits it into a zone again - drag the new end point to the right to open it up. The mouse wheel now zooms around the mouse, so you can zoom into the middle or the end of an envelope, and the time scale is larger and easier to read. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 19 | October 22, 2026 | Brassier brass. The bell now radiates the way a real bell does, so the harmonics carry the sound rather than the fundamental. The lips shut once per cycle, which is the buzz. High notes blare more, as on a real trumpet. The trumpet plays a straight orchestral tone, and its spectrum now matches published measurements of real trumpets. The trombone, horn and tuba are brighter too, each in proportion. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 18 | October 21, 2026 | A detailed sweep of the orchestra against real instruments' acoustics. The bassoon no longer plays an octave too high, and the oboe no longer jumps octaves or chokes when played hard. Brass now speaks with a tongued attack, gets brighter the harder it is played (new BLARE and BELL controls), plays in tune and stops cleanly. Strings speak sooner and stay in tune to the top of the violin. The clarinet has real even harmonics (new EVENS control), the woodwinds have real breath, and the harp is in tune to its top string. The grand piano is warmer, voiced after a Steinway D. New IMPERIAL GRAND (Bösendorfer voicing) and STUDIO GRAND (Yamaha C5 voicing). |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 17 | October 19, 2026 | Fix: a stereo module (reverb, delay, ROOM, mixer) patched into the OUTPUT's LEFT jack alone played in mono, because its right channel was dropped. It now stays in stereo. A sound patched into RIGHT alone now plays in both speakers instead of one. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 16 | October 19, 2026 | New patch HI-TECH ROCK JAM, built for velocity. Soft notes are clean, round and slide up into pitch. Dig in for drive, bite and FM growl, and accents add a pinch-harmonic squeal. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 15 | October 19, 2026 | Fix: reopening a DAW project showed the patch as UNTITLED. The project now remembers which patch file it came from, so the patch keeps its name, shows as loaded in the palette, and SAVE writes back to it. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 14 | October 19, 2026 | ROOM fix: its stereo image was buried. The reverb tail came out about 18 dB too loud in the bass (and 8 dB in the mids), always leaned toward source 1's side, and was often out of phase between the two microphones. The tail is now at its proper level, equally loud in both microphones and decorrelated, and the default microphones stand closer (1.4 m) for a clearer image. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 13 | October 19, 2026 | The patch list is grouped by category (pianos and keys, organs, synths, guitars, bass, orchestra, saxophones, mallets, drums and more) and sorted by name within each group. Your own patches come first, under MY PATCHES. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 12 | October 19, 2026 | New LOGIC module: AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR and NOT gates for 0 V / 1 V gates, clocks and LFOs, with a light on every jack. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 11 | October 19, 2026 | Two 70s prog-rock keyboard patches: PROG HAMMOND (a C3 driven hard into a fast Leslie) and MODULAR LEAD (fat detuned sawtooths, a steep swept low-pass, portamento). |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 10 | October 19, 2026 | PIPE ORGAN: the swell box now moves smoothly, and the organ patches' expression pedal has its full range (about 11 dB). Before, their compressor flattened it. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 9 | October 19, 2026 | New PIPE ORGAN module: a large church organ with real stop tabs (principal chorus, mixture, flutes, celeste, trumpet and bombarde, 32-foot pedal) and seven organ patches, from a single principal to a huge full organ in a cathedral. New harpsichord patches. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 8 | October 19, 2026 | Cleaner, more articulate playing: bowed strings are damped when a note ends (no more open-string ringing), timpani are muffled when the key comes up (hold to let them ring), and the reed, brass and string models tongue / re-bow each separate note. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 7 | October 19, 2026 | Fix: in the orchestra's section patches (and the split / layer patches), every player after the first kept playing after the key was released. Sections now stop as they should. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 6 | October 19, 2026 | More realistic instruments: new physical models BOWED STRING, REED and BRASS, and a resonant BODY (violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar). The orchestra's strings, reeds and brass are rebuilt on them, and every player's intonation and timing now varies a little, as real players' do. Oscillators are band-limited: clean high notes. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 5 | October 19, 2026 | New ATTENUATOR module. A new ROOM starts as a treated music room (about 0.9 s of reverb instead of 2 s), so sounds keep a clear left-right position. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 4 | October 19, 2026 | Fix: in the plugin, a newly placed ROOM came up with every setting at its minimum and its microphones missing. It now starts with its proper room, materials and microphones. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 3 | October 19, 2026 | STEREO DELAY: stereo, ping-pong and LCR
delays with DAW tempo sync, plus three example patches. SAVE and SAVE AS confirm when they are done. ROOM:
the microphones are clearly marked, and a CONSTANT or an LFO now moves a sound whether or not notes are playing. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 2 | October 18, 2026 | Percussion: rock, Latin and
African kits, talking drum, steel drum, balafon and kalimba. Every knob now has a
scale in its own units, and the smallest panel text is larger and easier to read. |
Windows ·
Linux |
| 1 | October 17, 2026 | First beta release. |
Windows ·
Linux |