NanoHost

If you’ve ever used a virtual synthesizer, then you know that you have to load it into your digital audio workstation to be able to actually produce music with it. There are indeed some synths which you can run as standalone programs, but most VSTs are just DLLs that have to be loaded into DAWs to do anything.

But what if you don’t have a DAW and want to just play a synth for reasons other than producing music? Well, thankfully there are many VST hosts that allow you to do just that. Today we’ll be taking a look at one called NanoHost.

NanoHost is created by developers Tone2 which have already created a wide array of synths and effect plugins. “Minimalistic” is probably the word best used to describe the program, since it won’t even run unless you first select a VST for it to host. At a first glance, it doesn’t seem to add anything new to the musical instrument, but the most important things that NanoHost offers are portability and flexibility.

Once you load an instrument, you can start playing it directly through the host. The app doesn’t come with a virtual keyboard, which is a bit of a shame since not all virtual synths have their own set of keys. Howeverm NanoHost allows you to input up to four MIDI devices. You may also record your sessions, load and save banks and patches, set the BPM, and even add soft clipping to your signal.

The fact that it’s lightweight and portable could make NanoHost useful during live performances and jam sessions, but that doesn’t mean that most producers won’t stick to the DAWs that they’re already used to. This is a free app that is supposed to turn audio plugins into standalone programs and it works fine, but keep in mind that there are other apps out there that can do just that and come with more features.