What are the best VST plugins for progressive house music? After searching what VST plugins the best progressive house music producers use, I started seeing patterns.
It might be because these are extremely popular synths, but there’s another reason as well. The plugins I will list in this article are perfect for the progressive house sound.
Without further ado, let's explore the 8 best VST plugins for progressive house music for 2022.
1. Omnisphere 2 (by Spectrasonics)
Omnisphere 2 is an absolute giant of a synth, containing over 14,000 sounds in all types of genres. It’s a progressive house music producers dream in the sheer sound quality and types of sound. Get anything from lush or vintage pad sounds to powerful basslines, plucks, and leads. Omnisphere 2 has truly got it all.
If you can call it that, the downside is that it's massively huge – meaning it will take up a large chunk of hard drive space. To be exact, make sure you have 64 GB of free space before you install it.
However, if you have the space, you will never run out of inspiration for your progressive house music project ever again.
2. Kontakt Komplete 13 (by Native Instruments)
Komplete 13 by Native Instruments is a huge collection of samplers, synthesizers, effects, and expansions in one package and platform. These synths, especially the Kontakt synthesizer slash sampler, are a must-have for any progressive house producer.
In total, this bundle gives you over 36 000 presets in a range of genres and styles. Of course, the selection of house and electronic dance music samples is huge.
Since many progressive house music mixes analog or real style sounds with digital synth sounds, Kontakt will probably be what you use most. With everything from vocal chops to real sampled instruments and beyond, you get everything you need in one convenient package.
3. Serum (by Xfer Records)
No progressive house producer DAW is complete without Serum. At least, that’s what many of the top producers swearing by it will say. Serum is an extremely powerful and easy-to-use synth with clean oscillators and flawless quality.
For a wavetable synth, your sound design options are virtually endless. Create perfect rolling house basslines, melodic plucks – and even drum sounds. With the wide array of customization options, there’s almost nothing you can’t do.
If you want to work from presets, one upside because it’s a popular synth is that you can find incredible varieties of Serum preset packs online.
But I highly encourage you to learn the basics of sound synthesis so you can start creating any sound you envision. Because really, Serum will give you the tools to do that.
4. Diva (by u-He)
Diva, or "Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analogue synthesizer" as it's originally called, is the favorite among top progressive house producers like Ben Böhmer and is perfect for creating any house sounds.
The sound is warm, powerful, and analog, with controls for analog noise generation and easy sound design.
I highly recommend this synthesizer for plucks, leads, and pad sounds. It also works great for basses.
5. Pigments 3 (by Arturia)
If you’re looking for an endlessly customizable synth, the Pigments 3 is for you. With a highly visual interface and intuitive controls, you can craft any sound to fit your progressive house production.
Pigments 3 gives you over 160 wavetables to choose from, as well as a virtual analog engine, sampler, additive synthesis, and two noise sample players. This setup truly gives you endless ways to customize your sound. For example, add bird chirps to your pad sounds – or layer your lead pluck with a touch of beautiful analog noise.
This synth is a powerhouse – and the only limit is your imagination.
6. V Collection 8 (by Arturia)
Most progressive house music producers would love to have a massive studio with an expensive collection of hardware synths when given a choice. But the reality is, most of us can’t afford it – and probably don’t have the studio space.
Enter the V Collection 8 by Arturia, a bundle of all the world's most popular, classic synthesizers. In total, the collection offers you 28 VST synths with the interface, controls, and effects of the original hardware. Examples of synthesizers included are Jun-6 V, Emulator II V, and Jup 8 V 4 – with over 10 000 presets included.
Imagine having this kind of power right in your laptop – choosing flawless emulations of all your dream synthesizers with built-in synth tutorials. The V Collection 8 gives you one interface with an easy-to-use search function to find all your sounds with ease.
Highly recommended.
Summary
Great progressive house music needs the best sounds – and you can’t go wrong with any of the eight VST plugins of this article. But I'd like to mention that if you understand the foundation to sound design and audio synthesis, you can create virtually any sound in almost every synthesizer.
What tells these VST plugins apart is the interface, presets, and customization abilities. Some are more fun to work with than others, and some offer extra abilities that can take your inspiration to another level.
If you’re starting out producing progressive house music, I would highly recommend starting with any of the VST plugins in the article. Whatever you choose, you can’t go wrong.
Thanks for reading, and see you in the next article.
 Pelle Sundin is a Swedish music producer and writer, active with his chillout project PLMTRZ. He also produces psytrance. When he's not producing, he surfs, skates, and chugs coffee. |
Learn To Produce
Progressive House
Take your music to the next level today!
Watch the production process from Start to Finish.
About this Course:
Learn how to produce harmonically rich and melodically advanced Progressive House tracks in the style of many AnjunaDeep Artists right now.
Your tutor Julian from Bound to Divide gives you an exclusive look into his production process, shares his tips, tricks and project files and guides you from your first kick to a mastered track - as if you were sitting side by side in the studio.
What You Get:
- 4h+ Full Start to Finish Course
- 25 in depth sessions from the first sketch to a finished master
- Ableton Project Files included
- Lifetime Access
Click here to learn about the Melodic Progressive House Course.
