HELM Free VST Review

Helm, a free 2 oscillator subtractive synth with some surprising tricks up it’s sleeve, is the first synth by Vital’s creator Matt Tytel. Freeware synths have come a long way since Helm was first released, around this time there were some decent options, but a lot of stuff was pretty hit or miss. Nowadays, especially with options like Surge and Vital or even VCV Rack, there’s loads of free synthesizers that are of a professional quality. At the time Helm was one of the few with both a great unique sound, and a pleasant UI. Helm has a simple layout, broken down into sections with a nice balance of color and contrast to help easily navigate the interface, the modulation is done via a modal system, where you activate the modulation icon (a helmet in this case) and adjust the depth for any control destinations.

The sound of Helm is pretty digital and harsh for the most part, with the exception of the lowpass filter and soft clip, which are capable of warming things up a bit. The oscillator engine consists of 2 oscillators that allow you to select between 10 different shapes and cross modulation between the two. This cross modulation isn’t typical FM, the oscillator 1 phase modulates oscillator 2, while oscillator 2 modulates the “tone” of oscillator 1 (as described in the manual). This creates a sound that is unique, but quite a bit harsher than typical FM, with a lot more high end distortion, especially when transposing the second oscillator. 

The oscillators are then fed into a simple feedback system and a multimode filter. The filter is simple, it’s pretty damn good sounding and has a nice drive. It can handle fast modulation making for some great percussive sounds. The feedback is really appreciated, not a common feature on any synth, it just adds an extra layer of tone and sculpting. As with nearly any synth, there is a distortion, delay, and reverb, but Helm also gives you a formant filter, and interestingly, a simple stutter effect for some fun glitchy madness. For modulation you get 3 envelopes, 3 lfos, which can each be set to random, and a sequencer with up to 32 steps. Helm also includes an arpeggiator, one of the few features not found in Vital, it’s a simple arp, with up to 4 octaves and five different playback patterns. You can even modulate arpeggiator settings, which I’ve found to be quite rare in many synths.

Helm might not seem like much compared to vital, and yes, Vital is miles ahead of what Helm is capable of, but Helm is still a fun little synth with a sort of quirky sound, it kinda sounds “bad in a good way”. You could totally use it in professional work so long as you keep in mind that it’s not going to sound “analog” or be useful for many sounds, but it’s sharp, dry, and sometimes squelchy sound can be a nice addition to your arsenal, and hey, it’s free. If that weren’t enough, as you’ll see below I’ve even released my own pack of free presets for helm.

You can find HELM here: https://tytel.org/helm/
and my free pack of 50 presets here: https://databroth.gumroad.com/