surge VS Fire

Good stuff!

I started getting in to this at the start of the year. Already had an old, dusty MicroKORG and MIDI interface to use it as a controller, but recently splashed out on a bigger controller as the Korg's tiny keys were hurting me - plus, I wanted something bigger to get better at piano!

A couple of free soft synths I'd recommend are Surge XT, and Vital.

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

https://vital.audio/

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ and https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ should work like a charm.

To get the equivalent of a symphonic orchestra in your computer, the solution is basically money; you buy the instruments you need. In the case of synthesizers, things are much cheaper - if you put in the effort yourself. https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ is excellent and could even be used if you wanted to make a more retro-style soundtrack.

Instead of Synth1, try https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/ . It's pretty much better in every aspect except for the UI which is going to look a lot more daunting to you ;)

In general, this should only happen when a Program Change message is sent.

Try this one. Crazy how good it is for free https://github.com/jerryuhoo/Fire

Fire is super cool, very versatile.

Fire (multiband saturator),

Go to https://github.com/jerryuhoo/Fire/releases/tag/v0.9.9 and click on Fire-MacOS.zip and check there documentation on how to install it. Looks like you have already done that