Quanta 2 vs SuperCollider

Quanta 2 is a granular synthesizer plugin for shaping imported audio samples into playable sounds. Its grain engine can produce up to 100 simultaneous grains per voice and works with AIFF, WAV, Broadcast WAV, FLAC, MP3, and Ogg files in any sample rate, bit depth, or channel configuration. Two virtual analog oscillators and a noise source add other sound sources, with dual filters that can run in series or parallel. Modulation includes four envelope generators of up to 99 steps each, two LFOs, sample and hold, and four assignable macros. Chorus, stereo dual delay, and reverb are built in. Quanta 2 supports MPE controllers, MTS-ESP microtuning, and TUN-format tuning tables. Desktop plugin formats are VST3, AU, AAX, and CLAP; the iPhone and iPad version is AUv3 and is sold separately. A fully functional demo has a 20-minute session timer and disables saving. The listed desktop license is $99 as a one-time purchase, with no subscription or DRM. A 2026 update added real-time recording and additional filter modes.

SuperCollider is a free platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition for musicians, artists, and researchers working with sound. Its components include scsynth, a real-time audio server with hundreds of unit generators for analysis, synthesis, and processing; sclang, its language; and scide, its development environment. The alternative supernova server supports multithreaded operation. A client/server design lets multiple clients control the server, with client implementations in Python, JavaScript, Haskell, and Scala as well as native sclang. sclang includes Quarks for managing packages with classes, extension methods, documentation, and UGens. Third-party plugins can connect through C and C++ APIs. SuperCollider runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can also be used on Raspberry Pi, Bela, and in browsers through WebAssembly. The project lists version 3.14.1 as its current release. Its downloads page lists macOS 11 or later, Windows 10 and 11, and Linux builds requiring gcc 9 or later. It is free software under version 3 of the GNU General Public License.