paulo
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 17:21:35
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Jonbouy
For me Omnisphere is the daddy of all synths - the possibiities are just mind blowing . No demo version because it's huuuuuuuge, but check out http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/omnisphere-videos.php If you like what you see, you won't be disappointed if you buy it.
I might be alone in this but Omnisphere is everything I hate about software instruments.
Not because it isn't capable, in fact probably the opposite as it would be hard to think of something that couldn't be done with it. Therein lies its biggest drawback.
The problem is that it is huge, a waste of space, expensive and time consuming. You are more like to end up in a state of hypnosis for the next 10 years auditioning and tweaking amazing sounds that you'll never use in a production anywhere. The sounds you do end up using it will be likely that you could have put together in a couple of minutes with something you were more familiar with.
If you want your mind blown then I'd agree it's impressive, if you want to get down to making some music it is the most effective flow killer on the market.
The upside is that you can usually find someone that has had it for awhile and wants to out it at a decent price because it never gets used.
Anyway I thought the thread was about synths not multi-gig sample libraries...
I actually agree with the flow killer comment to some extent as I do tend to spend a lot of time just messin with it without actually "getting anything done", but that's ok, I'm not under contract to a label to produce an album by the end of the month, I just enjoy the process of just seeing where it takes me. For me there is more to the whole music thing than just being able to say here's a song and I did the whole thing in 10 minutes. I spent an hour today with it - didn't record anything, but it was the best hour of my day. Yes, there is a large sample library, but it has some very in-depth synthesis stuff too if that's your bag. It's the best of both worlds which is why I thought it had a place in the thread. As for price, I got it on offer for just over £200, so not very much more than Alchemy, for example and way cheaper than the Tone 2 stuff by the time you've bought the full package. Anyway, it's all subjective, but the OP said he wanted something that went beyond bog-standard synth sounds too, so it covers the bases IMHO. YMMV of course ;)
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Rain
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 17:28:05
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Jeff - On the sampler side, in terms of character, one thing I've yet to try is 112 db's Morgana. But the convenience (and power) of EXS24 is pretty hard to beat. They do make remarkable plug-ins, and offer free 60 days fully functioning demos. If you ever feel like trying it, http://www.112db.com/vintage/morgana/ Someone mentioned XILS, and I've heard great things about them. I'll have to try their take on the classic EMS VCS 3. That's right up my alley these days. Another one I'm considering is the ARP2600. Eventually. The general consensus on this one seems to be that WayOutWare's version is much more faithful to the original than Arturia's. That being said Arturia's synths are usually top notch. I just can't get over their Minimoog.
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Jeff Evans
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 17:47:33
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Hi Rain, Yes the ESX24 is a wonderful synth. I was lucky to get that a separate VST before it came bundled only with Logic. I have got it running beautifully inside Studio One. I have also got a pretty extensive library for it too. It sounds fat and nice and very complex when it needs to as well. Also the other Logic synths are killer too. Thanks for the tip with Morgana, (is it as bad as the Morgana from Merlin, now there was a great show and British too folks) I might give it a try but I am starting to get a bit overloaded with the VST's that I have right now. I am not using them or getting into many of them as much as I should. I think it is better to stick with a few and learn them well. BTW I have just finished working on a jingle project under lots of pressure. That is when you separate the men from the boys in terms of synths. You have not got a second to waste so that is why Omnisphere would be stupid. But with Alchemy I found I was auditioning and using presets and tweaking them a bit very fast, that is the true story. Real world situation. This is also where the hardware Kurzweil K2000 is just killer. Every sound imaginable is in it or on a CDROM so it is simple to find, rehearse and track, all done faster than anything else. The more I work with VST's I am starting to realise you only actually need one or two great synths and that is it. You can change them and do so much production wise with those. Back in the old days (1980) I only had three things. One drum machine (TR808 and later Korg KR55), A Korg MS20 and an Oberheim polyphonic beast. I created a million hours of music and soundtracks to prove it all with just those things! I became an expert at disguising the sound of just the two synths I had. I use lots of effects, Leslie speakers, spring reverbs, space echo, guitar amps etc..you name it. You learn to become pretty savvy at this, these techniques can flow into modern production too. You can have too many synths and too many sounds. Brian Eno in his wonderful documentary (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9EkfGrkuEQ) says you only need one synth really with about a dozen sounds and you can do almost anything. I am inclined to agree.
post edited by Jeff Evans - 2013/02/24 18:14:16
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Rain
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 18:11:36
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Posted it in the software forum, but, for anyone on a quest for vintage type of sounds, Waldorf is having a sale today and for the next 2 days.
I just grabbed the Waldorf Edition - PPG 2 - which can be upgraded to version 3, Attack (drums) and D-Pole for under $50.
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bitflipper
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 18:38:14
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I initially shared that opinion of Omnisphere, because it was loaded with presets that were designed to sound good in solo - meant to impress would-be buyers trying it out for the first time. Which it does. It truly does. But as you try to use it in mixes, it's often too fat and wide to squeeze in. Over time, however, I've learned how to put it on a diet so it doesn't take up 3 seats on the airplane. Now it finds its way into almost everything I do. Impressive though it is, it's definitely not the one synth to rule them all. Think of it as an add-on, after you've already assembled your bread 'n butter sound set. Not long ago I completed my own personal survey of the state of soft synths in the world, demoing purt-near every product out there that had a demo. Diva impressed me most, but it's a CPU-muncher. Better have a fast machine, and don't plan on making songs with 10 instances of Diva. Second-favorite, and much more CPU-friendly, was Zebra, by the same author. I was able to run 10 instances easily on my elderly machine. An important part of the equation is how much you like programming synthesizers. IOW, a) is it easy to program and b) are there lots of presets, either because you don't like programming or to provide a starting point for tweaking. Zebra, for example, is not particularly friendly for programming (e.g. no way to see all the module interconnections at a glance) but comes with a lot of useful presets, and there are many third-party presets for free or purchase. If you want something that's easy to program and capable of those classic sounds, consider one of the many MiniMoog emulations. The free (!) MiniMogue would be a good place to start. To me, it sounds like a pretty respectable clone. There are two main versions, one that's true to the original and one that adds new features such independently-pannable oscillators.
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SongCraft
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 18:47:49
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Do they take too much computing power away from normal DAW activities? Actually one of the other reasons why I mentioned Dune is because it's very light on CPU, so I can easily have several instances of Dune in the same project along with other vsti plugin s such as; drums and multi-samples bread and butter sounds (pianos, organs, bass, strings, percussion) all without a sweat on 5 year old system. No exaggeration! Like I said; Dune is easy to tweak and get just about any sound sitting nicely in the mix without spending too much time on it. Also, very nice UI to work with, not too complicated. Sylenth1 is another nice one that has fat sounds yet very light on CPU and a good UI to work with.
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Glyn Barnes
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 22:31:19
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Rain
Someone mentioned XILS, and I've heard great things about them. I'll have to try their take on the classic EMS VCS 3. That's right up my alley these days.
.
I have the dongle free LE version and having used the real thing (the suitcase model) back in the 70's I will say this is a pretty good emulation with the added bonus of being able to play in tune without an inordinate amount of messing about. The original had linear, rather than log VCOs (ie volts per Hz, not volts per octave) which made things interesting! The matrix means it has very extensive routing capabilities. My favorite trick on the original was putting the spring reverb before the filter and VCA to thicken up the oscillators. Almost anything can modulate anything else. Its also very good as an effects processor on an external input. XLS labs have announced there will be an exciting development with the XLS3 this year. I am watching carefully and may upgrade. It would be nice if they dropped the dongle, now some of their newer products do not need one.
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Rain
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/24 23:05:38
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Thanks for the info, Glyn.
I'm trying to keep my set-up as simple as possible but there are a couple of things I like to have access to, and that one could be part of it.
But as Jeff mentioned, we don't necessarily need tons of them. I'm currently re-working an old song of mine and I've tried to stick to Arturia's MiniMoog as much as possible - even for drums, though more as a mean to enhance samples. And the odd thing is that it really took the song into a cool and unexpected direction.
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AT
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 01:46:24
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The Cake synths are all good. Z3TA sounds the most analog of them, and you can pick it up cheap during sales.
Alchemy is my most used synth these days, but for making sounds more than traditional keyboard sounds. You can map it to a controller. But the xy pad is great and works OK w/ my novation controller.
I picked up the xil vcs light for something like $25. It too has more of an analog flavor. Not as flexible as the big brother soft synth, but worth having. We had a real one at school that somebody stole. Then in NY I almost bought one for $800 back when, but decided I needed something I could play more than one note on. I kick myself now - it would have been quite an investment.
I would expect a lot more touch screen interfaces to be coming. That would probably be the best way to control soft synths, analog clones or not.
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backwoods
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 04:33:55
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The one I want to get is Omnisphere- alot of the top tv/film composers say that is easily the best.
No one has mentioned Lush from d16 yet and that is half price at the moment from audiodeluxe.
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Jonbouy
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 05:08:47
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paulo
Jonbouy
For me Omnisphere is the daddy of all synths - the possibiities are just mind blowing . No demo version because it's huuuuuuuge, but check out http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/omnisphere-videos.php If you like what you see, you won't be disappointed if you buy it.
I might be alone in this but Omnisphere is everything I hate about software instruments.
Not because it isn't capable, in fact probably the opposite as it would be hard to think of something that couldn't be done with it. Therein lies its biggest drawback.
The problem is that it is huge, a waste of space, expensive and time consuming. You are more like to end up in a state of hypnosis for the next 10 years auditioning and tweaking amazing sounds that you'll never use in a production anywhere. The sounds you do end up using it will be likely that you could have put together in a couple of minutes with something you were more familiar with.
If you want your mind blown then I'd agree it's impressive, if you want to get down to making some music it is the most effective flow killer on the market.
The upside is that you can usually find someone that has had it for awhile and wants to out it at a decent price because it never gets used.
Anyway I thought the thread was about synths not multi-gig sample libraries...
I actually agree with the flow killer comment to some extent as I do tend to spend a lot of time just messin with it without actually "getting anything done", but that's ok, I'm not under contract to a label to produce an album by the end of the month, I just enjoy the process of just seeing where it takes me. For me there is more to the whole music thing than just being able to say here's a song and I did the whole thing in 10 minutes. I spent an hour today with it - didn't record anything, but it was the best hour of my day. Yes, there is a large sample library, but it has some very in-depth synthesis stuff too if that's your bag. It's the best of both worlds which is why I thought it had a place in the thread.
As for price, I got it on offer for just over £200, so not very much more than Alchemy, for example and way cheaper than the Tone 2 stuff by the time you've bought the full package. Anyway, it's all subjective, but the OP said he wanted something that went beyond bog-standard synth sounds too, so it covers the bases IMHO. YMMV of course ;)
I totally agree it's all subjective, I get why many would like to have Omnisphere around and I also get the idea of things just being fun to play with. Mostly though speaking for myself I'm a total cheapskate and there's nothing I like better than getting the biggest sounds I can out of the smallest investment. It's kind of the same principle as you mention of just playing around but from a different angle. The beauty of it all of course there is a whole wealth of choice out there to cater for everyones peculiarities...
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves" - Banksy
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Wookiee
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 05:43:50
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Thanks Jonbouy, I was on a smart phone yesterday and could not add any links. This is Arturia's demo page http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/downloads/demos.html For some reason this link http://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS-3.html is not playing for me today but if you want drones this is the toy. (Here a link to Sweetwater which will give you an idea of what this synth is like http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XILS3/) As to CPU load, with the Arturia synths since they optimised for multi core CPU's and 64 bit it is really dependent on how busy you make your patches. Arturia's CS 80 is just wonderful for rich pads, the Moog Modular and Mini are very versatile, the Prophet gives you the three different incarnations of the Prophet 5 and a hybrid. The ARP 2600 sounds just like the ARP I played with when I was but just a small rug. PS The Xils-labs synths are designed by an ex-Arturia employee I believe.
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synkrotron
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 07:35:21
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Jonbouy
The problem is that it is huge, a waste of space, expensive and time consuming. You are more like to end up in a state of hypnosis for the next 10 years auditioning and tweaking amazing sounds that you'll never use in a production anywhere. The sounds you do end up using it will be likely that you could have put together in a couple of minutes with something you were more familiar with.
I'm just reading through the many posts in this topic but had to stop here and add my plus one to this. Someone recommended I have a look at this, but when I saw the size of the product I immediately made my mind up to give it a miss, for exactly the same reasons stated here. Right, I'll get on and read the rest of the posts now...
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trimph1
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 07:44:26
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The space you have will always be exceeded in direct proportion to the amount of stuff you have...Thornton's Postulate. Bushpianos
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synkrotron
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 07:54:07
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Okay, I've finished reading through everything now. Some good stuff, as expected, and I can't really add much to what has been said.
All I will say, and I've mentioned this before in the Software forum, I've been quite taken by some of the physical modelling synths created by A|A|S. My faves are Chromophone and Ultra Analog. They just provide an extra texture to my current sounds that the likes of Absynth provide.
Oh, and bitflipper recommended Fabfilter Twin to me last year, and that is one of my fave synths at the moment.
And one more thing. I've been into synth music for forty plus years now and I even managed to get hold of a Multimoog many years ago, although I blew the bugger up. Then when the likes of Roland and Korg starter making their VA synths I treated myself to a JP8000, OB-12 and a Nova. So, I know enough about what I expected from a hardware point of view. But since I have started using soft synths, my hardware is gathering dust... just no way back for them I'm afraid, and I should do the right thing and sell them.
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craigb
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 12:37:59
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Wookiee
...The ARP 2600 sounds just like the ARP I played with when I was but just a small rug.
LOL!
Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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sharke
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 12:47:04
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So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
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craigb
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 13:12:42
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sharke
Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
I hear that's because you don't own an Alembic.
Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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Jonbouy
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 13:36:08
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sharke
So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
We don't need no steenking Trilian, we can have the REAL Bapu, he'll do anything for the price of a shameless plug in the songs forum.
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Wookiee
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 14:01:19
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Jonbouy
sharke
So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
We don't need no steenking Trilian, we can have the REAL phenomenal Bapu, he'll do anything for the price of a shameless plug in the songs forum.
Wookiee'd
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paulo
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 15:25:01
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sharke
So the complaints leveled at Omnisphere I can relate to and probably won't buy it for that reason, but does anyone have experience with Trilian? If I make one big synth purchase this year it might well be that. Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
Watch the Trilian demo vid on the spectrasonics site. If you like what you see, buy it. It does exactly what it says on the tin and blows away any of the dim pro bass patches for example. Also, when it appears on a song it doesn't keep banging on about it in the CH ;) Then again, I think omnisphere is the mutt's nuts, so what the hell do I know ? ;)
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bapu
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 15:30:30
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@Jonbouy, Wookiee & paulo - Youse guys crack me up.
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Mystic38
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/25 15:46:38
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well...
I used to own the MS2000 and i regret selling it.. I also have the Novation Nova, Access Virus Ti Polar, then Fantom G & S70XS PCM based synthesizers.
I also have Z3Ta and NI Komplete and those bundled with Sonar + Z3ta2
While i like the extent and capabilities of the soft synths i dont find them imaginative, intuitive, fun or productive in nature... the synth that gets used most is Nova (bass), Virus (pads, plucks) Fantom (Heinz57).. and i still miss the MS2000.. so despite all that i have, i use real synths 90% of the time.
Omnisphere i admire greatly however i am confident that if i invest in it then my productivity will falll to poop as i will just spend all my time playing and sound shaping rather than anything "productive" ..
I have tried the controller route for the soft synths but for me it doesnt cut it.. the amount i use a synth (now that i think about it) is in direct proportion to its ease of use at the knob/twiddly level...
I have all my synths midi sync'd so i can set off multiple arps, a beat with Maschine, and jam over the top so to me, it doesnt matter how far advanced a soft synth gets.. they are a fail on the fun/imagination/jam/ease of use front to me.
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Jeff Evans
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/26 15:01:05
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☄ Helpful
I don't miss selling any analog gear at all. I think if you do then that is a state of mind and can be easily changed. Don't forget it breaks down, getting harder to fix, uses a lot of power, gets hot and can be seriously annoying!
One thing though is that if you are one of the older ones like myself who only had the hardware because that is what all there was, you do learn the principles of synth programming rather well and quite deeply. Especially if you had a modular synth and needed an hour or so to get the sound you are after. Practical hardware experience translates rather well over to VST's now. I was also an electronics engineer in a former life and I specialised in analog designs and stuff so that sort of helps too when programming sounds. It makes you think conceptually and out of the box in terms of coming up with very deep and complex synth patches.
I have got a couple of private students who want to learn synth programming and I have to do it from an all virtual point of view which looks like it could be a challenge.
At first the VST's that came out did not sound that great and the hardware beasts killed them dead. Things like a complete Oberheim setup with sequencer, drum machine, polyphonic and monophonic synth beasts. All that early analog gear I had shook the floor in a certain way! The first VST's were not doing that.
But things have changed and I really believe we are at a point now where the virtual instruments are just jaw dropping in sound quality and now the floor shakes just like it did years ago. I am hearing awesome fat sounding instruments. They don't overpower the hardware though. After many weeks say working in a virtual world I fire up the Kurzweil K2000 or the Roland JD800 and marvel at how ridiculous they sound and how big they sound too. I am having a reuniting love affair with my EMU samplers and OMG they sound good.
In the old days I found hardware analog synths to have quite a different sonic signature. Hence the reason some of us collected Yamaha, Roland, Moog, Sequential etc..and certainly when the digital synths also came out in the early 80's. In 1980 I wanted to be able to sequence different manufacturers instruments but could not do it easily. Having something like the Oberheim 'The System' was good but everything came out Oberheim sounding and too much of one thing is not great. I was relieved when midi came about because it basically allowed that different manufacturer thing to happen immediately and I did it straight up. The VST's now I am finding are also bearing their own very distinct sonic signature and you can combine different VST's in various combinations now and still hear the blend of different sounding VST's you may be after.
I did a lot of knob twiddling back in the old days too and even had others in there all doing it at the same time. I could even patch up my whole studio to randomly play for hours by itself! And you could move knobs around while it was doing it. I often had long experimental periods doing that and recording it all as well. I don't think that have left that out either. Great DAW software makes it easy to map controllers to any software and synth parameter. Studio One excels in this area, it is painless and fast to setup a controller to the instrument for example. There is plenty of scope for performance controller stuff to be added either to existing sequences or totally live while you play now. We have got more control I believe over synth parameters than ever before too. Check out Alchemy's mix pads where 8 synth parameters can all be linked in a way that was impossible previously as well. I used to get 4 people with two hands each to attempt to manipulate 8 synth parameters on say a modular synth. But now it can be done so easily. There is great software for music to be generated in random ways and do interesting things now as well. That has all moved on.
Most of all I am impressed at how they can now invent an instrument and create something that previously would have cost the earth and filled a floor of a building. Something like Native 'Prism' (As well as many others of course) for example is one hell of an instrument and it sounds amazing too. What is going on inside that beast is incredible. They can now add features, change things around with subsequent updates etc.. Do things in software that was virtually impossible to do any other way. Korg for example have improved their M1 and Wavestation in their plugins. The latest and the best of those two instruments now exist only in the software. And man they sound huge.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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Moshkiae
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/26 16:15:17
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craigb
sharke
Bass is one area in which I'm lacking in good sounds.
I hear that's because you don't own an Alembic.
Nahhh ... he doesn't have a Bapu account! 
As a wise Guy once stated from his holy chapala ... none of the hits, none of the time ... prevents you from becoming just another turkey in the middle of all the other turkeys!
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Rain
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Re:Questions for the synth people out there
2013/02/27 06:47:06
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For whatever it's worth... A friend back home just sent me a project to work on. Most of the tracks were hardware synths. I must admit, they do sound nice - maybe there's a little something. Kinda like sometimes 16-Bit actually sounds "better" for certain things, you know...
There were a couple of tracks however which just totally stood out. Big time. Upon further investigation, those mix-ready cuts are all Korg Legacy plug-ins .
All I can say is - I'm so getting those plugs...
TCB - Tea, Cats, Books...
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