#231: Free Synth Plugin Tutorial - Surge XT Strings from Scratch

Free synth plugins can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re staring at an empty patch and just want results. In this episode of Inside The Mix, Marc Matthews walks beginner and intermediate producers through a practical Surge XT tutorial, showing how to design mix-ready high strings from an init patch using this powerful free synth plugin.

Surge XT is a free, open-source synthesizer packed with features, but more options don’t always mean better results. Marc focuses on what actually matters in a real track: speed, tone, and fit in the mix. Starting with a quick interface overview, he explains how small workflow tweaks, like using Surge XT’s Dark skin, can improve focus before sound design even begins.

From there, the episode breaks down a simple, repeatable system: building the core tone with two saw oscillators, controlled unison width, and careful detuning to avoid phase issues. Marc explains envelope shaping in plain language, why octave placement matters for strings, and how gentle filtering prevents harshness without killing brightness.

The final section covers effects that solve problems at the source. You’ll hear how light chorus and plate reverb help strings sit in a dense house mix—often reducing the need to fight levels later. Along the way, Marc shares a clear framework for evaluating any free synthesizer: how fast it gets you to a usable sound, how intuitive the controls are, and whether the result works in context.

If you’re looking for a free synth plugin that earns its place in your workflow, this episode shows how to test Surge XT properly, inside a real project with real constraints.

TL:DR: Marc designs high strings from scratch in Surge XT, showing how to judge a free synth plugin by speed, clarity, and real mix results—not presets.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Surge XT

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Big Promise
• 1:13 Why Surge XT And What To Expect
• 2:33 First Look: Interface And Skins
• 3:38 Sound Goal: High Strings Brief
• 4:18 Oscillators And Unison Setup
• 5:45 Detune And Envelope Shaping
• 6:48 Octaves, Filters, And Tone
• 8:33 Chorus, Reverb, And Context
• 10:48 Recap And Practical Challenge
• 12:48 Resources, Shoutouts, And Signoff

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:28

If you've ever opened your DAW, scrolled through hundreds of plugins, and still had no idea which one to use, you my friends, are not alone. And the problem isn't that you don't own the right plugin. You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews. Welcome to Inside the Mix, the podcast where beginner music producers learn how to turn rough ideas into polished mixes without feeling overwhelmed. I'm Mark Matthews, and each episode breaks down music production and mixing concepts into clear practical steps you can actually use in your own tracks, no jargon and no guesswork. So if you want to understand why your mixes, your productions sound the way they do, and how to improve them one step at a time, you, my friends, are in the right place. Hit follow and let's dive in. So in this episode, I am going to be using a new free VST plugin for the first time, and it is Surge XT. So a quick disclaimer on this this show, this episode is not in any way, shape, or form sponsored by the folks at SurgeXT. This is just my initial thoughts, opinions on the product, the uh software synth itself. And this came about through a comment left on episode 209, which is where I actually had a look at Vital for the first time. And the comment was uh it was my go-to before it crashed a few times on my weird Linux setup, and I dove into Surge XT instead, which is another excellent free open source synth. Never used it before. This is me, by the way. So I thought, you know what? I will dedicate an episode to Surge XT. I love helping producers find free software synths, or just free plugins in general, to be honest, to enhance their music production arsenal. And uh by the end of this episode, you won't just know what Surge XT can do from a foundational level, you'll know how to decide whether any plugin deserves a place in your workflow, and in particular, Surge XT. I'll put a link to the actual website where you can download Surge XT in the show notes. Upon opening Surge XT for the first time, the interface, there's quite a lot going on to be fair. You've got your oscillators, you've got your envelope section, there's the LFO section, modulation section. There is a lot of going a lot going on. There are a lot of dials. I say dials, it's mainly sliders to be honest. I can't really see any dials. So mainly there's a lot of sliders to contend with. And the first thing I actually did was if you go to menu and go to skins, you've got Surge Dark, and it looks infinitely better for me. And I use it in Logic Pro, and it seems to suit the aesthetic of Logic as well. But for me, it just looks a lot more sleek and professional with that particular skin. So if you are using it for the first time and you're anything like me, I do find that the GUI, the interface itself, does help with regards to my navigation of the product. Go to the menu, bottom right, go to skins and then surge dark. You'll also find uh tutorials here as well. So using it for the first time, I thought, you know what? I won't go through the patches, I'll just go straight in to creating a sound. And I was working on a tune, it's kind of this uh old school house with a bit of dance pub, quite a dark EDM tune. And I thought, you know what, I want some high strings in the build. So what I did was I just got I loaded Surge XT and then one MIDI note in the this is in the key of A minor, and at the moment it sounds like this. Let's create some high strings using Surge XT. So at the moment I've got the initialized preset. So if you go to the main menu at the top where you it will say in its saw, you can click on initialized patch. And uh I said preset, but it's patch in uh in this instance. And I've got my oscillator, and I've got I'm gonna select if you go to classic under oscillator, uh, we've got modern sawtooth. So let's go with that. So I've got modern sawtooth and I'm gonna play it. And I'm gonna increase, you've got unison voices. Now, the great thing is when you do create um a patch in a software synth, for the most part, you can take what you've learned in other, because I use serum a lot. I'd probably say 75 to 80 percent of my sound design is in serum. But a lot of what I do in there I can take over to other software synths like SurgeXT. So I'm just gonna increase the Unison voices to about four. Okay, so that's what I've got so far. So, what I'm then gonna do is I've got my second oscillator, and you need to come down to this oscillator section to the right of the oscillator window, which is on the left, and unmute it. And again, in fact, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go with classic sawtooth this time. So I've got some slight variance in the two sawtooths that I've used, and then then I'm gonna put that uh with four voices as well. So let's give that a play. Next, what I want to do is slightly detune each oscillator. So looking over here, we've got Unison Detune. So I'm gonna drag that to I've got it set to 12 cents for oscillator two, and oscillator one, I'm gonna set it to let's go to 13, see how that sounds. Oh, that's way out. Let's go, let's drag that back a bit. I'm gonna go to nine for oscillator one. Probably gonna drag it back a bit as well for oscillator two. Let's go to let's go to seven, around about seven for oscillator two. Okay, I dragged that up to about nine there, so that's detuning it, which it's it's starting to take shape now. So let I'm just gonna play it again. Cool. I'm just gonna play with the envelope a bit. So we've got this amplitude envelope section. Um, you can switch between a digital and an analogue by the looks of things. Envelope. Oh, I'm gonna go, let's go with analog, and I'm just gonna increase the attack just a touch to about six milliseconds. I'm gonna bring the sustain band down a bit. Yeah, the sustain's at about 90% there. Um next, what I want to do is I want high strings right. So let's increase the oscillator. Let's go up a couple octaves. Oscillator 2. I've gone up to two octaves. Oscillator 1, let's go up two octaves. I'm gonna bring the global volume down because I don't want to destroy your ears. That wasn't quite what I want it to be, so I'm gonna increase it to three octaves, or plus three basically, on oscillator one and the same on oscillator two. So let's play that now. I'm gonna bring the global volume down again because I don't want again, I don't want to uh destroy your ears, because it's gonna be quite high, right? It's I've gone up three octaves. So it's getting there. What I'm gonna do now is I'm just gonna use the filter envelope. So we've got this envelope section. You've got filter one and filter two basically. So for filter one, I'm going to select a low pass 12 dB filter on this one here. So let's enable that. And I'm gonna let's I'm gonna play it, and obviously it's it's a low pass, so it's gonna remove it's the the preset on this is just above 500 hertz, so I'll play it. Very quiet. Well, I don't know if you can hear that. I'm just gonna gradually open open that filter up now, so I'm gonna drag it to the right. So the cool thing is you could modulate that if you wanted to using the LFO. I'm not gonna do that today, but you could do that. It does also have macros in here as well, which I probably would create a macro for the filter cutoff. But um, I do like just to roll off a bit of the top there for that filter. So the the final thing I kind of want to add here, in fact, let's play it as it is before I add any time-based processing to this, which would be my next step. So I'll play it in context in the context of the mix, and it probably will be too loud. So I'll drag it down if it is. So I'm gonna solo it again now. I'm just gonna increase the the global volume on this as I that's at the top right. And what I'm gonna add now is I'm gonna add some chorus. So in this effects section, I'm still playing around with this and getting used to how all this works, but if you click on insert effects two, it's got set here. I want one. There you go. So you got it's got like this routing matrix you can click on. You can then select the uh effect that you want to go in that particular position. So you can see actually how it's gonna run through the signal chain. And I want some chorus. What have we got in here? There's there's a number of presets. Let's go like a pad, let's see how that sounds. Probably too much. I'm just gonna increase the global volume again. So I settled on about 27% there. The next one I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add some reverb. This is gonna be my second effect. I like to use a plate reverb. What have we got? There's a silver plate. A dark plate. I probably don't want a dark plate because it's I'm gonna hazard a guess and say that'll roll off the top end and it's high string, so I don't want that. Repro plate. Let's try that. The reason I'm using reverb is just to soften it. So I'm gonna it automatically comes in at 100%, so I'm gonna drag it down until it gets to where I want it to be. And that's about 30%. So let's play it in the context of the mix. Nice. So what's happened there is because I've had the time-based processing, now I don't have to reduce the volume so much because it softened the sound and pushed it back in terms of the mix itself. So probably need to boost it a bit more. So that sounded quite cool, and that really is uh a quick way to create high strings in Surge XT. There's a lot of flexibility in this soft synth. And uh in this episode, today when I'm recording this, it's the first time I've ever used it. But I did want some high strings for this project, so I thought I'll give it a go with Surge XT. And I'll I'm gonna continue with these, so these probably will end up in the final um track when it's released with a bit more tweaking. So uh let's play this whole build section with these with these high strings. So, folks, as a quick recap of what we've done, we've gone from this to this. There we go, folks. That is a whistle stop walkthrough of creating high strings in Surge XT. And it's a very, very nice software synth. I really do like what I've seen so far, particularly from a visual perspective when you change the skin to the dark mode, as it's uh, I think it was called. So, do do that. I do recommend doing that. It just it looks a lot better. And for me, I don't know what it is, it's a psychological thing, but it makes it more accessible for me. So, my challenge to you this week: replace one synth in one of your productions with Surge XT and see how you get on. Click the link in the show notes and download Surge XT. Remember, this episode is not sponsored by the guys at SurgeXT. It's just my thoughts and opinions. So please, this is not a sponsored episode. They don't know that I'm putting this together. But hopefully they'll enjoy it nonetheless. So, my question to you as well what free plugin do you actually use, not just own? Click the send send message, send me a message in the show notes and let me know, and I'll give you a shout out on a future episode. And if you've enjoyed this episode, check out episode 209 where I use Vital for the first time, another free software synth. So, do so do go and check out that episode as well. And don't forget, click the link in the episode description and grab my free weekly music production and mixing tips direct to your inbox. No fluff, no automated email chains. It's just a nice short email from me once a week with some tips and tricks to enhance and kick on with your music production. So until the next episode, keep creating, keep mixing, and I'll see you in the next one.