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DUNE 3

Synth (Analogue / Subtractive) Plugin by Synapse Audio
MyKVRFAVORITE268WANT230
DUNE 3
DUNE 3 by Synapse Audio is a Virtual Instrument Audio Plugin for macOS and Windows. It functions as a VST Plugin, an Audio Units Plugin, a VST 3 Plugin and an AAX Plugin.
Product
Version
3.6
Product
Version
3.6
Instrument
Formats
Copy Protection
Online Activation (Challenge / Response)
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DUNE 3 is a powerful polyphonic synthesizer that combines VA/subtractive, Wavetable and FM synthesis with an extensive modulation system, named the Differential Unison Engine (DUNE).

A unique feature of DUNE 3 is the ability to synthesize a very high number of oscillator voices, regardless of the synthesis model in use. At full polyphony, up to 8320 oscillators can be active simultaneously.

The synthesizer output passes through two high-quality FX chains, containing EQ, Delay, Reverb, Distortion, Phaser, Chorus and Compression, in order to polish the sound yet further.

Features (excerpt):

  • Two oscillator stacks with up to 32 oscillators each.
  • Third oscillator and pink/white noise generator.
  • 8x Unison, resulting in up to 520 oscillators per note.
  • Polyphony up to 16 voices.
  • Zero-Delay feedback filters.
  • All-stereo signal path.
  • Powerful Wavetable Editor.
  • Four graphical envelopes (MSEG).
  • Two master FX busses containing 9 effects each.
  • Modulation up to audio-rate.
  • Multi-threaded processing.
  • Nice, clean HD interface with several sizes to choose from.

Compatibility Note

DUNE 2 and DUNE 3 are not compatible with DUNE 1. All versions of DUNE run just fine in parallel, however.

SoundCloud

{See video at top of page}

Latest User Reviews

Average user rating of 4.96 from 33 reviews
DUNE 3

Reviewed By zisser [all]
October 9th, 2023
Version reviewed: 3.5 on Windows

This is the one synth that going to suprise you!
Thick and lush sound and the filters.. what an amzing filters.

Here is my overview and demo
https://youtu.be/HKVYc8bNdRQ

Synapse Audio Dune 3

Read Review
DUNE 3

Reviewed By milesdeem [all]
June 14th, 2023
Version reviewed: 3.54 on Windows

Still my favorite VST synth out of everything I've tried, and I've tried pretty much all of the popular ones. Sound of the synth and its filters are so excellent, there is something special about Dune. Very easy to program as well and its almost limitless what you can do with the ability to keep adding layers.

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DUNE 3

Reviewed By Freeform [all]
December 10th, 2022
Version reviewed: 3.0 on Windows

I just bought this recently. Immediately I can hear the quality. It just doesn't sound thin and digital and that I have to add 4 effects and eq to get it to sound good in a mix. Just try the demo and listen to it, you'll immediately hear quality. Something that felt worth the money when I bought it.

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DUNE 3

Reviewed By Chipi [all]
November 28th, 2022
Version reviewed: 3.5 on Windows

Dune 3.5 is such a high-quality synthesizer that it blows up synths like Korg or Yamaha in electronic sounds. You won't find 4 GB piano sounds or real strings, but the electronic sounds are tops. Consider the price you will pay for it. The power of its leads, the character of its pads and synth basses is unrivaled in the world of synthesis. The reason is the quality and path of the 'analog' signal that it brings inside. Also the drum kicks are powerful and unique. Hopefully in the future there will be improvements and expansion of sample editing so that eventually an acoustic piano or full drum kit can one day be triggered, but maybe Synapse isn't going that way.
In complex sounds in terms of power and quality it surpasses Falcon and Omnisphere by far. Dune's sounds have a unique analog-digital grain and characteristic, nothing sounds like the Dune 3.

Thank you Synapse for such a great musical instrument for the electronic musician! An unbeatable classic in 2022.

Read Review
DUNE 3

Reviewed By lolilol1975 [all]
April 22nd, 2022
Version reviewed: 3.512 on Windows

Right from the bat, let me say this: Dune 3 is my favorite VSTi.

I own Diva, Zebra, Synthmaster, Spire, VITAL, Surge XT and Sylenth1 v1*.

Dune 3 is the one I'll reach first, and often last as well, VITAL often coming as second. Dune is not the deepest of all those (Zebra arguably still is), and its user interface isn't the best either (VITAL has). But it still has a rich feature set, and its UI is still good and rather simple to understand for someone who already knows software synths. Plus its skins look great.

But what makes it really stand apart is its sound. It just sounds better than all the other synths, and yes that includes the legendary Diva. I don't know what Synapse Audio's secret sauce is, but the oscillators sound great, the 24 filters sound great and the myriad of FX sound great. Including the reverbs, which are often not so good in synths.

The latest release has added a patch generation feature based on a genetic algorithm: choose 2 or more patches and Dune 3 will combine them to generate as many new patches as you want. The result is often surprising. After playing with it, I think every synth should include a patch generator.

Is Dune 3 perfect ? No of course. The browser, right now only has a few categories. You can add new categories but a patch cannot belong to more than one category (for instance a gated pad has to belong to the gated category or the pad category). This improvement alone and the possibility to search several categories would be the functional equivalent of a search by keywords.

Also I wish Dune 3 allowed to input real time audio from the DAW instead of an oscillator. Finally, it lacks a granulator, but I guess that will be added to Dune 4 ?

Apart from that, there is really not much downsides to this synth. Due to the awesome sound combined to the super easy UI and the fact it's light on the CPU, Dune 3 is the definition of a workhorse.

* That's way more software synths than I need. But I simply never use Sylenth1 any more. I also own Dune 2 but I uninstalled it because Dune 3 is equal or superior in pretty much every way, and it comes with all the Dune 2 patches. BTW Dune 3 can read Dune 2 patches, contrarily to what is said in another review.

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Comments & Discussion for Synapse Audio DUNE 3

Discussion
Discussion: Active
PUSHA
PUSHA
6 May 2014 at 11:08am

Synapse Audio you did a killer job on Dune 2. Sound, Look and Function are superb and I would love to get the full version.

jendakub
jendakub
12 May 2014 at 8:12pm

I am really impressed with DUNE2. The direct unison voice editing is huge improvement now allowing to take advantage of the unison engine fully.

Yorrrrrr
Yorrrrrr
14 May 2014 at 9:07pm

I cannot express how much love I got for this amazing synth.

miaousse
miaousse
23 May 2014 at 6:02am

Hi,.

For me it's not just an version 2. It's a whole new synth, and a good one.

lsc9x
lsc9x
14 July 2014 at 11:42pm

Agreed! DUNE II is now in my top 3 favorite VST synths list along with Blue II and Sylenth1. It has also fixed some serious limitations with DUNE and made the whole interface much better. It's really easy to use, it sounds GREAT (think hardware), and the patch save/load system is freaking genius! Each patch is it's own file, and the VST automatically numbers them when loading from a folder, so theoretically a single patch folder can contain up to 999 sounds. Even if it's limited to only 128, that's still simple to expand by creating another folder and starting to drop sounds into it. This also makes backing up patches very easy. Highly recommend this one!!.

foster911
foster911
28 July 2014 at 10:01pm

Great job but Image-Line's Synths are much better than this. I think the only advantage of Dune 2 is its Arpeggiator supporting Chords via MIDI import. I have used lots of synths till now but the capability of micro tuning provided by Image-Line's Sytrus and Harmor synths and also their fast loading is fascinating that I have not seen in other synths like Dune 2. The other facility of Dune 2 is its supporting of 8 parallel channel of oscillators that is included in LuSH-101 too. After all I prefer Sytrus and Harmer. They are my goddesses.

peteman
peteman
8 August 2014 at 8:00am

I bought Dune2 yesterday and I gotta say it sounds absolutely fantastic! Very versatile synth and the internal effects (especially the reverb!) sounds awesome.

clipnotic
clipnotic
27 August 2014 at 5:49pm

Dune 1 I tested and tested again over the years but didn't like it. Dune 2 I'm only testing since one week and still love it.

- great user interface
- great synthese features
- great effects
- great MSEG envelopes
- great OSCs
- better sound quality
- better filter quality.

OK, the LFOs and the standard envelopes could react a little bit finer and noble and the stepsequencer could have 64 or better 128 steps and the option to save own presets, too (!) ... but this are only little wishes, this synth still is wonderful.

Thank you, great work.

Logictree
Logictree
17 November 2014 at 11:43am

I agree with all the positive reviews. I've tried many synths all those years. the biggest problem for me is that all those synths are all boring to use. Imagine if you have an acoustic piano, which has only one sound - the piano sound, but you can play it all day without boredom. Any synth I've tried always has hundred sounds, but almost none of them has the power that could make me play whole night. So what really happens is that I would spend few hours just browsing presets, every preset for few seconds. Dune 2 did something really different, the presets are amazing. Not all of them is my kind of sound, but still there are many of them have the power that could make me play for at least one hour before I got bored. It is definitely something different. The soft synths are no compare to acoustic instruments so far, no matter how many companies already have been trying for all those years. But Dune 2 is very close to be one. That is something really incredible.

DJ Warmonger
DJ Warmonger
6 December 2014 at 11:41am

Next time someone asks me "how to make it sound big", I will answer Dune 2. Sick unison for dummies, just out of the box. Also, it has great syntheis possibilities despite simplicity. I think I'll cut my wishlist just to fit Dune in.

brainpacemaker
brainpacemaker
14 January 2015 at 8:07pm

Would love to see visual representations of oscillator, ADSR and LFO's etc but sounds great.

aaron aardvark
aaron aardvark
13 June 2015 at 4:12am

I was able to put Ghost Dog and Cubrick Soundset soundbanks into Dune 2 folders. Wasn't able to figure out the other two. Haven't tried them yet, but thank you for the patches, I'll try them in the near future.

Yorrrrrr
Yorrrrrr
23 December 2015 at 5:56pm

Amazing new analog envelopes and filters in version 2.5.

djavemcree
djavemcree
11 January 2016 at 5:22pm

one of the best VST synths on the market PERIOD.

SunlightSpirit
SunlightSpirit
12 January 2016 at 3:11pm

I had saved up the $169.00 but found out there is 20% VAT to add on top bringing this to $200 mark.

Richard_Synapse
Richard_Synapse
12 January 2016 at 11:58pm

Hi SunlightSpirit, .

the VAT is now inclusive regardless of location, we changed our pricing model recently. So you should see exactly $169 when adding DUNE 2 to the shopping cart.

Best Regards, .

Richard / Synapse Audio.

kevvvvv
kevvvvv
3 February 2016 at 3:07pm

I love the new Dune 2.5 Kevin Schroeder and Cuebrick presets.

I use them in everything.

Any more planned soon?

secretsmilemusic
secretsmilemusic
8 February 2016 at 7:39pm

impressed with DUNE2, really looking forward to buy the Cuebrick preset.

kevvvvv
kevvvvv
8 February 2016 at 8:24pm

Cuebrick presets are free.

The recent Dune upgrade is brilliant for presets.

like bags of Kevin Schroder presets, and a couple of hundred Ambients by someone I don't know.

The only shame is that the MIDI files in Dune presets can't be exported as midi. But that's a very minor thing. Dune just keeps getting better.

arseniy2
arseniy2
22 March 2016 at 2:00pm

Good sounding synth, but the interface is terrible. How anyone can like this interface...

Still it's worthy for good sound.

Vospi
Vospi
17 May 2016 at 3:08pm

Can't really imagine what's exactly terrible about it. Everything is clear, no clutter, tweakable colors, very fluent envelope editing — I just love it.

100F
100F
5 September 2016 at 1:13am

I for one cant stand multipage synths. i like dune 1 cause you can have most things in one single screen.

I just wished 1.4 had al the filters from dune 2. those sk filters are sweet.

Richard_Synapse
Richard_Synapse
5 September 2016 at 6:52am

Yeah it's nice if everything can be fit on one screen. But Dune 2 has many more parameters than Dune 1. Synths of this complexity are always multi-page, there is simply no other way. In Dune 2 all the key areas like the Oscs, Filter, Mixer, ADSR etc are always visible though, so the need to switch pages is greatly reduced.

Richard.

100F
100F
8 September 2016 at 3:53pm

I realize dune 2 is more complex than dune 1.

So... its alright i guess, .

Have you thought of maybe adding the extra filters to dune 1 for an upgrade price? Id buy it.

xtreme sounds
xtreme sounds
12 September 2016 at 11:03pm

Dune 2 is due for an upgrade IMO. It sounds good though.

StealthVice7
StealthVice7
14 March 2018 at 12:29am

First comment of 2018.

Clifton
Clifton
5 November 2018 at 8:54pm

I think Dune2 has changed my whole life around and I'm going nuts over this amazing synth. What make it better if you have a wave editor you can copy wave forms from any old hardware synths into dune2. Look what you'll be having? Truly amazing.

djanthonyw
djanthonyw
12 December 2018 at 5:39am

The copy protection that's mentioned here says "serial" but that's very misleading. Typically when this is mentioned it means it's strictly simple serial via offline registration. Dune 3 is unlike version 2, and requires either online authorization with your serial, or offline challenge / response which is based on your specific system hardware configuration.

Richard_Synapse
Richard_Synapse
12 December 2018 at 8:45am

You're right. The page was from Dune 2, hence it inherited a lot of information from there.

It seems Ben has now updated the copy protection to "Online Activation" which is correct. It is a one-time authorization with a given serial. Note that after successful authorization, the plugin will never connect to the internet. Furthermore, Offline activation is available as well.

Biome_Digital
Biome_Digital
13 January 2019 at 2:59pm

Dune 3 is an amazingly power synth with a great sound! Very versatile and capable of a wide range of sounds. From cinematic pads, to hard dubstep basses, to trance arps, and loads more.

The Dune 3 sound bank by New Loops has a good audio demo and a free demo pack to download - https://newloops.com/products/universal-dune-3-presets

NatLife
NatLife
22 January 2019 at 1:36am

IMO Best VST at the moment with no compromiss! And possible best synth from VST & Hardware in same time. Still didnt heard even a better, clearer and warmer sound in Hard synths too.

Tks32tim
Tks32tim
14 January 2020 at 8:02pm

I agree its a fantastic lush sounding synth not great for everything like basses but fantastic for pads.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

digitalboytn
digitalboytn
15 January 2020 at 6:59am

DUNE works great for basses, but it might not float everyone's boat...

You need tonal variation in a mix, so using different instruments and combining them will help to achieve this...

Arranging 101 :).

Dewed
Dewed
2 July 2020 at 8:23pm

I installed the demo. It acted like it installed the exe. But all I ended up with was the pdf manual.

Richard_Synapse
Richard_Synapse
2 July 2020 at 8:41pm

DUNE 3 is a plugin in VST/AU/AAX formats, you'll need a compatible DAW to use it.

lucienz
lucienz
27 July 2021 at 11:27am

Mon challenge:
Créer deux orgues à partir des samples de mon B3 et mon Vox continental (UK 60's) sur un synthé.
J'ai essayé pas mal de synthés et seul Dune3 me permet d'arriver à mon but grâce à ses 8 voix x 3 Oscillateurs.
Le résultat est fantastique.
Avec deux Msgs en dessinant deux sinusoides inversées j'obtient un vibrato digne des originaux.
Et enfin un Chorus me permettant de simuler facilement une Leslie.... (en AfterTouch)
Avec un oscillateur 3 en sampler, je simule sans problème la percussion.
Pour commander les 9 flutes + la percussion: 8 voix sur l'oscillateur 1, 1 Voix sur l'osciillateur 2, 1 voix sur l'oscillateur 3 en sampler pour simuler la percussion.
Chapeau bas à Synapse !
Je me suis concocté un B3 comme j'aime, pas mou du genou comme sur les B3 samplés.... Un régal !
Au chapitre des qualités:
• L'ergonomie, tout est clair.
• La documentation ou tout est bien expliqué.
• Pas de glisser déposé (je n'aime pas et je trouve cela superflu vu l'ergonomie de Dune 3)
• les 8 voies sur 3 Oscillateurs !
• Et le résultat sonore incroyable et tellement vivant.

Au chapitre des défauts:
• KTRK sur les filtres ne permettant pas de couper les aigues sur les notes du haut.
• Dans la fenêtre Oscillateur, Synthesis Type l'affichage de la Wavetable est faux quand on change de voix.
• Dans les presets MSGS les formes simples de bases: Sinus ... etc.

Au niveau des améliorations:
Quelque chose que l'on ne trouve sur aucun synthé et pourtant indispensable.
Pouvoir splitter le clavier, pour se faire un C0-C1 uniquement Basse.
Idée:
En Mod Matrix:
- Source=Voix ON, Destination = Keyboard Note, AMT = Note Number
- Source=Voix OFF, Destination = Keyboard Note, AMT = Note Number.

Félicitations Richard, vous avez le meilleurs des synthés .... je rêve du même en Hardware.

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