Favorite soft synths? (2k19 edition)

[dubdub]

I don't think there's been a thread like this in a long time. Curious as to what you guys are using in the current year. I'm still not a huge synth person but I'm using more than I used to. The old Korg Mono/Poly from the Korg collection is still my go-to but I've been liking U-He's RePro because the oscillators are gorgeous, even though I don't like the filter that much. Surprisingly I've been using Ableton's Wavetable Synth that came with Live 10 a LOT, I think it's really underrated. It has a really nice, quick workflow, nice oscillator modulation and unison modes and the awesome licensed Cytomic filters. Been also trying the new Aturia DX7, it sounds great, especially for pads and the interface is really nice but I still have absolutely no idea as that I'm doing with regards to FM synthesis

[Lost to the Void]

Synapse Audio The Legend, nothing innovative, just a great sounding synth.

Audio Damage Quanta for Modern Granular joy

Though honestly synths aren`t really something I look for in software much. I have what I need, it`s fx I go for, and I use a ton of weird and wacky shit.

[dubdub]

Audio Damage Quanta for Modern Granular joy

Oh yeah, tried that one, great UI and workflow for a granular synths.

Did you see the Looper they released a couple of days ago? Looks like it has some promising features.

https://www.audiodamage.com/products/ad049-enso

[Fourty Two]

I don't know man. To be honest, there are too much options on the market. I went through phases and bought a lots of stuff in sales, from Komplete, Softube modular to Arturia's v-collection. I tried serum as well. It's all good, but like everyone says, once you stick to something and learn it well, you can bend it and shape it in numerous ways.

That being said, my go to synth now is Massive. It's damn old and it has bad name because of Skrillexoparade and rest of Broforce crew, but you can definitely make a track with two instances and shitton of automation. It does not have all shiny and cool features, filters sounds slightly dated and there are no numbers on knobs... But you can recall presets via program change, which made it very usable for me in live situation. If Pigments from Arturia would be able to do that (and not be such could hog), I would probably go for that.

[willemb]

I personally mostly base my music around (re)sampling, but sometimes when I am arranging I just want to add another layer without going through the resampling process and I use the ancient free Dune CM (Computer Music magazine version).

Other (free) soft synths I sometimes check out, but usually just make some samples and not touch it again.

[0dd]

Operator and kaivo most recently. And granite for granular.

[Boiled Egg]

I feel that the number of options is somewhat distracting and there is very little difference between many of them, even less so when you're resampling them. Being part of a minority group (a cubase user) I mostly just use Retrolgue 2 which is very versatile and has a slightly wild and sometimes unpredictable nature to it. FM8 also gets airtime when needing FM (obviously). Tal sampler gets by far the most use at the moment.

[Boiled Egg]

Am I missing out by not using granular synthesis? I've messed around with it a few times but everything seemed to sound the same but could well be me pushing everything to extremes when messing around instead of actually trying to learn it properly. Is this mainly used for pads or can it do more than I think it can?

[juodas]

Still operator

[dubdub]

Am I missing out by not using granular synthesis? I've messed around with it a few times but everything seemed to sound the same but could well be me pushing everything to extremes when messing around instead of actually trying to learn it properly. Is this mainly used for pads or can it do more than I think it can?

Great for pads but also general weird noises. You can also use it more conventionally and just use it to add texture and movements to sounds.

Simple, short percussive sounds often do better with granular than big and complex sounds.

[Ben Kohonays]

I tend to find Harmor and Aalto more inspiring than others.

[Críoch]

haven't really been using any soft synths for a while now. Got the NI Komplete.. FM8 / DX patches are what I mainly use.

I use simpler / sampler a lot.. zeroing in on a
a section from a recorded loop. Maybe going ghetto granular.. making pads, bass , noises from a single sound source.

I'm tending to record in some stuff from HW synths if I want.. Either doing a full or partial pass / long loop, or resampling a chord or sequence to use in a sampler.

Got quite a few s.synths that I probably haven't reinstalled on my new computer. Don't really miss them enough to revisit.

However.. I nearly picked up a broken Ensoniq SQ80 recently & found that there is a free vst, so I'm definitely gonna check that out. Also need to have another go at installing Vember Surge. The last couple of times I tried, I gave up.. defeated.

[Lost to the Void]

haven't really been using any soft synths for a while now. Got the NI Komplete.. FM8 / DX patches are what I mainly use.

I use simpler / sampler a lot.. zeroing in on a
a section from a recorded loop. Maybe going ghetto granular.. making pads, bass , noises from a single sound source.

I'm tending to record in some stuff from HW synths if I want.. Either doing a full or partial pass / long loop, or resampling a chord or sequence to use in a sampler.

Got quite a few s.synths that I probably haven't reinstalled on my new computer. Don't really miss them enough to revisit.

However.. I nearly picked up a broken Ensoniq SQ80 recently & found that there is a free vst, so I'm definitely gonna check that out. Also need to have another go at installing Vember Surge. The last couple of times I tried, I gave up.. defeated.

Holy Crap I forgot about Surge, what a great synth.

It`s open source now!!
https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

[Planar]

Still mainly rocking Serum and Zebra with a load of Reaktor. I'm sampling nearly everything now and post-processing/resampling to completely change the original sound, so I don't really find the synth that important any more. I doubt I'll be switching them any time soon as I know them well enough. It's nice not to have GAS for more synths.

Am I missing out by not using granular synthesis? I've messed around with it a few times but everything seemed to sound the same but could well be me pushing everything to extremes when messing around instead of actually trying to learn it properly. Is this mainly used for pads or can it do more than I think it can?

It depends on what you're after. A lot of my sounds go through a granular process at some point. It's amazing for making weird fx and cinematic sounding noises from foley sounds or synths, which is very much my kinda thing, it may not be yours. My current thing is to put basses through them, automate the controls while recording and then cut out the bits I like. The most boring use for it is pads.

[Masari]

I only use diva and Analog from ableton.
Operator sometimes.

Monark have a pretty solid reputation and is easy to use aswell.
But well, any soft synth does the job i guess, the process makes the different.

[Boiled Egg]

Still mainly rocking Serum and Zebra with a load of Reaktor. I'm sampling nearly everything now and post-processing/resampling to completely change the original sound, so I don't really find the synth that important any more. I doubt I'll be switching them any time soon as I know them well enough. It's nice not to have GAS for more synths.

Am I missing out by not using granular synthesis? I've messed around with it a few times but everything seemed to sound the same but could well be me pushing everything to extremes when messing around instead of actually trying to learn it properly. Is this mainly used for pads or can it do more than I think it can?

It depends on what you're after. A lot of my sounds go through a granular process at some point. It's amazing for making weird fx and cinematic sounding noises from foley sounds or synths, which is very much my kinda thing, it may not be yours. My current thing is to put basses through them, automate the controls while recording and then cut out the bits I like. The most boring use for it is pads.

Ok, cool man, thanks! Sounds like there's more to it than I thought. I'll have to pay the whole 8 quid to upgrade cubase's granular synth to the pro version so I can load my own samples and have a proper play with it

[Divjak]

I use AAlto and Diva 3 a lot now, just making patches and trying to push them. I also sometimes use Kaivo for granular but its a bit fiddly, and I like that a lot. If I want hard dick and feelz I reach for OP-X PRO-II.

[Belka]

still Repro1/5 and Serum, i played a bit with Arturias Pigments when it was on trial, liked it pretty much but i prefer to limit myself in this case ...

[collide]

Repro 1/5
Serum
Alchemy

I have lots more but...

[dubdub]

Interesting, seems like there aren't any synth hoarders here. Stark contrast to certain other places on the internet