Favorite or go-to software synths?

[DeltaJockey]

1 minute ago, bill5 said:

? Like? The Spitfire orchestral mention was one I missed, but some of this stuff I'm not familiar with, so curious. 

 

I also like ob-xD for a very nice (and free) Oberheim thing.

I didn't list Spitfire, which I also have, as it's not a synth, but gosh it has some fine orchestral stuff! That goes too for the Project SAM free orchestra.

My favourite though is the Sonuscore Orchestra Complete 2. Very clever use of arpeggiator engines  I spend more time noodling and composing with that than anything else. It's a lot of fun.

My most used Logic template has Sonuscore, and Ominsiphere loaded by default.

 

Sorry! ............Now back to the synth topic

[johnchop]

I admittedly own too many soft synths, so it’s easier for me to consider which two I wouldn’t give up:

 

Dune 3

Falcon 2

 

-John

 

 

 

 

 

[Stokely]

I didn't mention Kontakt, because I don't really think of it as a "synth" so much, but I get a ton of use out of it.  It's probably the least replaceable plugin I have considering the libraries I have bought for it.  Hate the interface but love the sounds!   (Hoping 7 is an improvement).

Just for kicks, when I was demoing Repro 5 I endeavored to match a patch using Logic's "Retro Synth".  At first listen, pulling up some presets, you'd say "no way".  I ended up getting in the ballpark but I had to add a fair amount of processing using plugins in the channel strip to match the stuff the Repro patch had on it (maximizer, chorus etc).   There could have been quality differences in the filter too but both sounded pretty good to me all told.  It was pretty interesting because I don't give the built-in Logic synths a chance, other than Alchemy (and sometimes Sculpture, which is pretty cool.)

[Jose EB5AGV]

17 hours ago, Fleer said:

Arturia Collection & Pigments

Spectrasonics Omnisphere

Kilohearts PhasePlant

EW Forbidden Planet

AAS Chromaphone

Dawesome Novum

Dawesome Abyss

Reason Friktion

UVI Falcon

 

I see a (reducing) trend here. Just curious 😅

[Reverend Rhythm]

I've been re-investigating Apple's Retro Synth as well.  And I've been exploring Vital.  One more synth I've been using a lot is Cherry Audio's DCO-106 (Juno 106 emulation).

[Steve Nathan]

If we're sticking to just synths, I use several regularly:

Hybrid

VacPro

Pigments

The Korgs 

Synthmaster

Some of the Arturia analog simulations

Cherry Audio's Mini

Surge (occasionally)

 

The rest of what I use most are:

UVI

EastWest Play & Spitfire

Kontakt

Trillian & Bass Fingers

ToonTrack

MusicLabs guitars

IK's BX3

 

 

[Fleer]

5 hours ago, EB5AGV said:

 

I see a (reducing) trend here. Just curious 😅

Yep, I forgot Melda MSoundFactory. 
Couldn’t get it in properly

[yannis D]

The Arturia stuff in general with the 

Mini moog in particular 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tusker]

On 9/23/2022 at 11:33 AM, Fleer said:

Arturia Collection & Pigments

Spectrasonics Omnisphere

Kilohearts PhasePlant

EW Forbidden Planet

AAS Chromaphone

Dawesome Novum

Dawesome Abyss

Reason Friktion

UVI Falcon

Would it be ok to have a conversation about what makes particular synths our favorites? Fleer, you have a very interesting and comprehensive set of synths. I presume you had Omni before most of the others? I get why you would add physical modeling to your arsenal. What particular itch are Novum and Abyss and Falcon and MSoundFactory scratching? Is it more about fresh sounds or are they bringing new kinds of synthesis tools to your toolkit as well?  Or did you build toward Omni? Thanks! 🙏

[David Emm]

Tusker makes a good point. Some of what I listed was plug-ins, but not synths. I mostly think of the tasks at hand, so I don't worry about M-Tron's synth sounds, despite its GUI being outfitted with double envelopes, for instance. Arguing the minutiae wastes precious time I can use for tweezing.  

 

So to properly respond, it'd be Alchemy, Memorymode and the Cloud D-50.

 

Alchemy looks a bit generic, but under the hood, you have several types of engine. You can drop your own WAVs into each of the four layers, which can be huge. I've had it for a long time, so its easy to shape. That includes several of the standout Camel Audio libraries. Logic's other synths are gathering cobwebs. The ES2 needs the same kind of upgrade they gave the EXS24.   

 

Memorymode feels a lot like my old Minimoog did, being immediate and sometimes a bit grainy. It surprises me by being able to offer sample-ish strings, better bells than you usually expect from analog and scads of pads. Its all the Moog I can imagine needing without going modular. 

 

I had thought I was getting a D-50, but its turned out to be that and much more. Good VA, good orchestral moments, excellent motion-pad oddness and piano-ettes that layer under real ones to great effect. The only issues are A) never applying Fantasia or the other infamous presets anywhere and B) addressing the occasional 8-bit screeches.

 

M-Tron's presence is clear enough, but Chromaphone is a secret weapon on skates. PM has a unique ability to gargle or woof in ways nothing else touches.

[Baldwin Funster]

Organ, mellotron, Osc+filter, it's all synth to me. Just different eras.

[bill5]

On 9/23/2022 at 2:05 PM, Stokely said:

I didn't mention Kontakt, because I don't really think of it as a "synth" 

Good, because it's not. Anyway - Tusker thx for pointing out the idea of discussing what we like about the synths we listed; I assumed as much, as a simple listing of synths is of limited value/interest. I'm a preset jockey so a good set of presets helps...but many synths grossly overdo it with a ridiculous number of presets, IMO defeating the point. Omnisphere has what, 500 million? (OK just a tiny exaggeration) That plus a good UI/workflow matter the most. I realize for those more into sculpting their own sounds, other features matter more...I dabble with that a little, but mostly don't have the time or interest, esp when there are already so many great presets out there. 

[Steve Nathan]

I can see I'm clearly in the minority here on one thing.  I've never much cared for Omnisphere.  

[Melving]

One vote for Obsession...

 

Also Massive X and Pigments.

[Fleer]

5 hours ago, Tusker said:

Would it be ok to have a conversation about what makes particular synths our favorites? Fleer, you have a very interesting and comprehensive set of synths. I presume you had Omni before most of the others? I get why you would add physical modeling to your arsenal. What particular itch are Novum and Abyss and Falcon and MSoundFactory scratching? Is it more about fresh sounds or are they bringing new kinds of synthesis tools to your toolkit as well?  Or did you build toward Omni? Thanks! 🙏

Cheers, Tusker. 
Yeah, Omni came first with Keyscape added, great combo, especially given the 1000+ additional presets combining both. 
Then again, it’s always been about (a quest for) new sonic territory, admittedly with a serious GUI fetish. Hence my love for Abyss and Novum, as I find their aesthetic underlines (or underscores) the uniquely sonic experience. 
Falcon and MSoundFactory came in for a slightly different reason: each of them represents an entire sonic world with the promise of almost infinite possibilities, allowing me to “stumble upon” the unexpected and be flabbergasted, time and again

[bill5]

1 hour ago, Steve Nathan said:

I can see I'm clearly in the minority here on one thing.  I've never much cared for Omnisphere.  

Never used it, but it will be a cold day in hell when I pay that much for a synth. 

 

One thing I like about Absynth is the "morph" feature...take a preset and it randomly changes it, so you can have basically a new preset without having to do a lot of tinkering. 

[Tusker]

I’ve been trying stay away from Omnisphere, which is why ask. Eric Persing is brilliant but, every time I try it out, I feel that I would use the many (excellent) presets and not much else. Maybe one of these days,  I’ll take the plunge anyway …

[CyberGene]

I’ve found that Eric Persing is the best sound designer for creating mind blowing patches that sound terrific in solo patch demos, they are almost like an entire arrangement in a patch, however I have the feeling these patches are often too complex and multi-layered to glue well within a mix with other sounds. I might be completely wrong though, haven’t used Omnisphere. 

[Geoff Grace]

Omnisphere is a lot like Altiverb. Both have been around a long time, are expensive (by software standards), but cover a vast amount of sonic territory. I use Altiverb in almost everything I do, and I use Omnisphere in almost everything that involves synths. I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth out of them over the years.
 

In fact, if I were to divide the cost of software by the hours of use, then Altiverb and Omnisphere were cheaper for me to buy in cost per hour than anything from Cherry Audio (not that I’m bashing Cherry Audio; I enjoy their synths).

 

Just as online retailer Amazon began as a bookseller, Omnisphere was an evolution from Atmosphere—a pad machine. Both grew into behemoths, one-stop solutions for almost anything. The biggest difference is that Omnisphere has a better search engine. 

One thing I love about being an Omnisphere user is that Eric is continually adding features at no cost. My initial investment in the product may have been relatively high, but so is the payoff of repeated improvement. While most older products lose value as time goes by, Omnisphere only gets better. 

 

It’s true that Omnisphere has a lot of the patches that are soaked with effects which must be dialed back to prevent them from taking up too much space in a mix; but then, that’s a problem with a lot of other synths as well. I get it: when auditioning lone patches, they often sound more appealing when dressed in effects; but it wastes time to have to edit them. At least Omnisphere’s effects are easy to access, which isn’t always the case for other virtual instruments; and it has a great many patches that aren’t drenched in effects. Omnisphere simply has a huge variety of sounds on offer. 
 

Best,

 

Geoff

[mcgoo]

21 hours ago, Steve Nathan said:

I can see I'm clearly in the minority here on one thing.  I've never much cared for Omnisphere.  

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but based on the posts of yours I've seen over the years, I would guess that your interests and needs mostly revolve around accurate emulations of real instruments. That is not an area that Omnisphere attempts to cover, so your dislike of it is of no surprise. 

[Geoff Grace]

40 minutes ago, mcgoo said:

accurate emulations of real instruments. That is not an area that Omnisphere attempts to cover

 

It's certainly not the main focus of Omnisphere, but there are exceptions to the rule. For example, have a listen to this Omnisphere Sonic Extension:

 

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Steve Nathan]

45 minutes ago, mcgoo said:

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but based on the posts of yours I've seen over the years, I would guess that your interests and needs mostly revolve around accurate emulations of real instruments. That is not an area that Omnisphere attempts to cover, so your dislike of it is of no surprise. 

Not at all.  Most of my career, I had no need to emulate real instruments.  I had real instruments available all the time.  Actually,  my session career took off in Muscle Shoals, when people learned that not only could I play piano, organ, etc, but I also brought synths to the sessions and could get sounds that no one else had figured out how to do.  For years in Nashville, I carted 2 giant racks (a 52 space and a 22 space) of synth gear and multiple synth boards.  They used to call my session gear Mount Nathan! 😆

[mcgoo]

7 minutes ago, Steve Nathan said:

Not at all.  Most of my career, I had no need to emulate real instruments.  I had real instruments available all the time.  Actually,  my session career took off in Muscle Shoals, when people learned that not only could I play piano, organ, etc, but I also brought synths to the sessions and could get sounds that no one else had figured out how to do.  For years in Nashville, I carted 2 giant racks (a 52 space and a 22 space) of synth gear and multiple synth boards.  They used to call my session gear Mount Nathan! 😆

LOL. I stand corrected. So what do you dislike about Omnisphere? 

[Steve Nathan]

4 hours ago, Geoff Grace said:

Omnisphere is a lot like Altiverb. Both have been around a long time, are expensive (by software standards), but cover a vast amount of sonic territory. I use Altiverb in almost everything I do, and I use Omnisphere in almost everything that involves synths. I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth out of them over the years.
 

In fact, if I were to divide the cost of software by the hours of use, then Altiverb and Omnisphere were cheaper for me to buy in cost per hour than anything from Cherry Audio (not that I’m bashing Cherry Audio; I enjoy their synths).

 

Just as online retailer Amazon began as a bookseller, Omnisphere was an evolution from Atmosphere—a pad machine. Both grew into behemoths, one-stop solutions for almost anything. The biggest difference is that Omnisphere has a better search engine. 

One thing I love about being an Omnisphere user is that Eric is continually adding features at no cost. My initial investment in the product may have been relatively high, but so is the payoff of repeated improvement. While most older products lose value as time goes by, Omnisphere only gets better. 

 

It’s true that Omnisphere has a lot of the patches that are soaked with effects which must be dialed back to prevent them from taking up too much space in a mix; but then, that’s a problem with a lot of other synths as well. I get it: when auditioning lone patches, they often sound more appealing when dressed in effects; but it wastes time to have to edit them. At least Omnisphere’s effects are easy to access, which isn’t always the case for other virtual instruments; and it has a great many patches that aren’t drenched in effects. Omnisphere simply has a huge variety of sounds on offer. 
 

Best,

 

Geoff

Well you've certainly made great use of Omnisphere in your work, but for me, I kept buying it and it's updates, but it's always more trouble than it's worth to me.  I typically have some idea of what sort of sound I want in my head, and every time I tried Omnisphere, it took me way to long to get rid of all that complexity in Eric's patches.  I much prefer create my sounds from the ground up, pour the foundation, and add structure until I'm satisfied. Omnisphere feels like I'm trying to build a log cabin by dismantling the Taj Mahal.

1 minute ago, mcgoo said:

LOL. I stand corrected. So what do you dislike about Omnisphere? 

See my response to Geoff. 😄

[EscapeRocks]

While I have and use Omnisphere, Native Instruments, and the entire Arturia Library:

For quick and easy synth sounds, I usually pull up Arturia Jup-8V, or the Pro(phet)-V..the latest versions of each. 

 

Either of these quickly allow me to dial in what I want in a flash.

 

I really don't use NI much anymore with the exception of The Grandeur piano

Omnisphere is in it's own universe.  I love it, and can spend hours designing sounds

 

For quick, tho, those two Arturia are my go to.

[Pat Azzarello]

Omnisphere

Kontakt 

Garritan was my "orchestra" library for many years. Trying to figure out what I can use in its stead these days - most of the ones that I have tried are tooc oplicated for most of what I want to do.... or maybe I just have to realize that I need to setup some templates, etc.  

[Geoff Grace]

18 hours ago, Steve Nathan said:

Well you've certainly made great use of Omnisphere in your work, but for me, I kept buying it and it's updates, but it's always more trouble than it's worth to me.  I typically have some idea of what sort of sound I want in my head, and every time I tried Omnisphere, it took me way to long to get rid of all that complexity in Eric's patches.  I much prefer create my sounds from the ground up, pour the foundation, and add structure until I'm satisfied. Omnisphere feels like I'm trying to build a log cabin by dismantling the Taj Mahal.

 

That makes perfect sense, Steve. Your use case is very different from mine. If I were in your situation, I'd either use Omnisphere a lot less; or I'd use it mostly in Hardware Synth Integration mode. From my days working recording sessions, I remember that part of the gig was to be a programmer—to design original patches for recording artists which help them sound unique. I often created sounds from scratch back then. I have a very different gig as a composer now.

 

For those who aren't familiar with Omnisphere's Hardware Synth Integration feature, Omnisphere emulates the sound of a variety of hardware synths and maps their knobs and faders to Omnisphere. The experience is like using your hardware synth while expanding the synth's features to add polyphony and effects that may not be present in the synth itself. Default patches are included for those who like to roll their own. The introduction video shows the features in use, starting around the 10:30 mark:

 

 

 

Sorry if I'm behaving like an Omnisphere evangelist. I have no affiliation with Spectrasonics. I may be an enthusiastic user, but I really do like a lot of other synths as well.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Fleer]

23 hours ago, Geoff Grace said:

 

That makes perfect sense, Steve. Your use case is very different from mine. If I were in your situation, I'd either use Omnisphere a lot less; or I'd use it mostly in Hardware Synth Integration mode. From my days working recording sessions, I remember that part of the gig was to be a programmer—to design original patches for recording artists which help them sound unique. I often created sounds from scratch back then. I have a very different gig as a composer now.

 

For those who aren't familiar with Omnisphere's Hardware Synth Integration feature, Omnisphere emulates the sound of a variety of hardware synths and maps their knobs and faders to Omnisphere. The experience is like using your hardware synth while expanding the synth's features to add polyphony and effects that may not be present in the synth itself. Default patches are included for those who like to roll their own. The introduction video shows the features in use, starting around the 10:30 mark:

 

 

 

Sorry if I'm behaving like an Omnisphere evangelist. I have no affiliation with Spectrasonics. I may be an enthusiastic user, but I really do like a lot of other synths as well.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

Sure hope they’ll expand on that. Would like to use my Sequential Take 5. 

[bill5]

On 9/25/2022 at 10:16 PM, Pat Azzarello said:

Kontakt 

Not a synth.

 

Quote

Garritan was my "orchestra" library for many years.

Not a synth.

 

I don't mean to get all thread police here but geez    Please folks, synths only? 

 

[Theo Verelst]

I don't like the sound of pretty much all the software products, with a few exceptions. That's because synthesis in the digital domain simply isn't done right, and the results do not appeal to me, pretty much at all. I listened to demos of some plugs I hadn't heard yet, and don't feel my opinion changed.
 

 

I do use sw synths at times, like Dexed and Yoshimi on Linux/Jack (now pipewire), in fact I found there are production tricks possible with Yoshimi, by adding my 30 band dynamics processing (tuned to a certain studio use), which makes the DAC reconstruction more bearable:

 

 

T