Plugin comparison
Specs, price and the Dubspot Score, side by side — with our verdict on which synth to buy.
Independent score / workflow fit / buying signal
Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, Dubspot may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects our scores or what we recommend — read our policy.
Contenders
Melatonin Sine Machine is a friendly additive synthesizer with 10,000+ oscillators, a zero-knob visual interface, additive reverb and filters, MPE, and MTS-ESP.
Phase Plant is a semi-modular software synthesizer combining wavetable, sample, and noise generators with modular modulation and built-in effects.
Score verdict
On the Dubspot Score, Phase Plant comes out ahead (8.7). That said, the right pick depends on your workflow and budget — read both reviews before deciding.
Technical matrix
| Signal | Melatonin Sine Machine | Phase Plant |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Pay-what-you-want, suggested $75 | $199 |
| Dubspot Score | 8.4 | 8.7 |
| Formats | Standalone, VST3, AU, CLAP | VST2, VST3, AU (Audio Unit), AAX |
| Type | Additive (time-domain) software synthesizer | Semi-modular software synthesizer (softsynth) |
| Engine | 20 voices x 511 oscillators (10,000+ total), 20,000+ LFOs | — |
| Editing | Bulk per-harmonic ADSR, volume, and pitch LFO; zero-knob interface | — |
| Effects | Additive reverb (1,000 sine waves), additive brickwall and Gaussian band-pass filters | Three effects lanes; includes Kilohearts Essentials effects |
| Expression | MPE, per-harmonic Gaussian pitch noise, absolute pitch glide | — |
| Tuning | MTS-ESP microtuning, mappable partials to arbitrary frequencies | — |
| Presets | 140+ factory presets, hackable plaintext JSON | — |
| Plugin formats | macOS VST3/AU/CLAP/standalone, Windows VST3/CLAP/standalone, Linux VST3/CLAP/standalone (no AAX) | — |
| Licensing | Pay-what-you-want, up to 3 installs per licence, online activation, 14-day demo | — |
| Generators | — | Regular waveforms, wavetables, samples, and noise |
| FM/Modulation | — | Cross-modulate and self-modulate volume, frequency, and phase between all signal generators |
| MIDI | — | MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) support |
| Operating systems | — | Windows and macOS, 64-bit x86 with SSE3; macOS Apple M-series supported |
See the full plugin database for more comparisons.