softsynth recommendations

[przechuy]

Hi guys. What are your recommendations with softsynths?

Which one is for You essential /you love to work with ?

Personally i found synth1 as an amazing synth,and it is completely free with loads of superb presets to download .
Second one is Massive by NI by its enormous flexibility in modifying sound and creating new presets.


or maybe there are any new synths that you recommend to check demos ? I might be not up to date too much with them

[admin]

I've been using my Creamware Scope synths more recently. For analog emulations they are the best (have some sound examples to prove it).

Native wise though I always liked Zeta and Zebra2. The Rob Papen stuff is great as well. Wasn't a big fan of Massive as it seemed a little too plastic for my tastes.

I highly recommend making your own presets, I think all these synths really shine when you take the time to do that.

Check out Sylenth as well, really nice sound especially for raw techno type sounds.

[NuEra]

I highly recommend making your own presets, I think all these synths really shine when you take the time to do that.

This is definitely something I would like to learn more about!

I know the basics, signal flow, parts of the synth, ect and have started into some online tutorials on the arp2600, but would really like to know more about making my own presets.

Perhaps a good topic for a video tutorial on the new site?

My first question would be, do you typically start from scratch or are you more prone to building on existing presets?

[admin]

Ya will deff cover a lot of synth programming. I came from the days of no presets (Minimoog) or having my Juno106 repaired and losing all the memory so was forced to make them. It's easy to get by with presets in VSTs now which I have been guitly of a few times myself. But I noticed most of the synths sound much better when you do your own.

I do a bit of both. When I get something that works I'll reuse it and tweak it. It's good though to just spend a day or two messing out with sounds and not working on a track. Save 10 or so nice presets and then when you get to making a production you can load them up.

[przechuy]

i have heard sylenth.Quite juicy sound ,people used to lvoe it,but i dont know,somehow i do not like it .I know Zebra synth,heard it,and yeah,thats definitely a quality recommendation .

I have to take a look on this Creamware stuff.


And about learning how to produce sounds from scratch.

I think great synths for it are Massive and synth1.

Massive is probably best.When you load it and you here only this default "bleep" sound,before you load any preset,you can make anything you want with it.And it is so damn flexible and clear to use,despite bilions of possible settings and modification....I trully ecommend it if anyone wants to tweak any sound in bilion ways.



And i agree.own presets are much better.

For example in massive or predator by rob papen there wa s no way for me to find a good bass that inerests me.But i played with oscilators,wave forms and thats the way to get something interesting.I think presets just might inspire you,give direction etc,but usually they are really crappy in any synth,or just processed from start by too much of effects which makes them useless or sounding lauzy when you turn off all effects like reverb etc.

Building own sound is better,and with good synth it doesnt take much time

[djglenn]

I've been finding myself using the Vangard a lot recently. Originally I didn't care for it so much, but I've been finding a lot of decent presets made by some talented people. (have to pay of course) Hearing these presets made me realize how flexible it can be. Nothing new with bringing the vangard up, but it certainly has it's place.

[przechuy]

I do not like vanguard.It sounds too plastic for me. But everyone has diffrent taste obviously

[SSM]

My four favorite softsynths are :

Zebra 2
TimewARP 2600
Vanguard
Oddity

I've demo'd/own tons of softsynths and TimewARP is the closest any company has come to emulating the true tone(sans fx) of the original hardware.

Zebra is just so damn creamy(almost to a fault).

I also think that Vanguard has been unfairly maligned as just Trance-O-Centric based on it's presets which are unforunately lathered in delay/reverb. Once you turn off all the fx and really start programming from scratch you really find out how beautiful this synth can be; I've made some amazing patches ala BOC(Warp),John Foxx circa Metamatic, Travelogue era Human League...you get the picture.

[sven hauck]

I really like Reaktor as it's capable of producing nearly any type of sound. I also used to not care for Massive until I tweaked some presets that really came out well.

[klooptheloop]

Octopus by Linplug,

it's used in every production i've done for the last couple of years now.