As Rain mentioned, Steinberg Retrologue is good for the money (as is Padshop Pro), but ..........it's Steinberg. No dongle or anything required for these, but don't expect any kind of customer service or for it to be supported for long.  Nothing to lose by trying the demos - from what I recall they say min Win 7, but worked in XP just fine for me.
 
Tone 2 stuff is good too, but quite expensive really.
 
Z3ta+2 is quite good when it works properly, but the arp function is very temperamental despite a patch fix which claims to have addressed this (it hasn't). Pointed this out to CW several months ago - not interested it seems.
 
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 was Guitar Center yesterday playing with the new Moog Little Fatty and man there ain't a softsynth out there that sounds like that.

Xilabs, Arturia, Korg, I use all the time. One of my tunes has 4 moog modulars a CS80 M1 and a wave station 

Hi,
 
You are welcome to come over and play all you want on Arturia's Jupiter 8V software ... it's a lot of fun!
 
As a teaser, I have the nine sliders and the 9 knobs on my Midi Keyboard handling various different functions on the Jupiter 8 software, adding to the flexibility ... have not quite figured out how to get the sequencer added properly, on the midi board, though, and I do think that this might be the more advanced features that require more understanding of the software ... than I can possibly handle at this time. ... like start the sequencer, and stop it ... right in the middle of the playing for example, which appears to be simpler on a hardware machine than it is on the software machine ... hopefully this is just me.
 
The string thing is ... a different ball game ... I have played the strings from the Miroslav through my ESS- Heil speakers and they sound pretty darn good and nice ... however, I can not say that the bassoon sounds exactly like a live bassoon in my living room! But there are pretty parts and things in there, if only I knew how to combine them so two or three things could be played simultaneously!

Wookiee


Xilabs, Arturia, Korg, I use all the time. One of my tunes has 4 moog modulars a CS80 M1 and a wave station 

...and the Wookiee knows his synths!!!
 
Wookiee tracks are always top notch quality, in terms of pristine output, sound choices and production.

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..../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 used to own a very large hardware synth setup. At one point had 53 keyboards and more rack mounted stuff. I have owned all the big name stuff too. But the soft synth world is amazing to say the least. I am very happy with how they sound.

For those who think soft synths are nowhere as good as the real deal you are simply wrong and you simply have not heard the right VST's yet.

Arturia stuff will give you the analog sound well and truly, end of story. (Mini Moog and Little Phatty yes all of them ) I use a range of soft synths myself. Camel Audio Alchemy has got be one of the best out there. I highly recommend you check it out. The sound libraries are amazing and it just sounds killer. Native make some killer instruments too. Prism, FM8, Absynth etc..it goes on Uhe make some amazing stuff.
 
There are some very good free VST's too. Synth1 and Superwave P8 are really excellent.

Omnispehere is not where it is at. It is overpriced and the patches are so complex you cannot use them! The designer has lost the plot there. You are much better off using a far less complicated sounding VST and layering things up yourself to create the rich texture you are after. Alchemy can do all the atmospheric stuff easily as well as Ominsphere but it offers much more.

Korg make some fantastic VST's too. They have modelled their own analog stuff very very very well. Their M1 and Wavestation plugins are simply breathtaking. One reviewer put the Wavestation VST as better than the original. I had both for a while and I agreed with him. The plugin sounds ridiculous! 

And remember it is still the music itself that is the most important, If the music is really great then the listener is not going to sit back and think Hmmm he has done all that with soft synths! If the music is great and touches the listener emotionally it has achieved what it has intended to do. That fact that music may have been made with hardware of software is actually of no consequence. 

+1 for Prism. It's such an interesting synth. I'm about 10% of the way in figuring out how it works....

I don't have hard, I've gone all soft....  

I think my fav for at the moment is Dune, good bang for the dollar, the filters are top-notch and it's real easy to get just about any sound to sit nicely in the mix. The synth-strings are awesome. Love it. 

If I was going to get hardware synths I'll probably get, Arturia Origin 61 Note Keyboard and the Arturia Mini Brute and a Moog Little Phatty Stage 2 and a Roland GAIA SH-01 and a Yamaha MOX8 and a Korg MS-20 Mini and a Novation UltraNova and a Dave Smith Prophet 12 and a maybe a Tom Oberheim and a Waldolf. After that loan I'll probably skip the country and move to Belize under an assumed name. 


.

I agree sharke too about Prism. I am in awe of that beast. I have got into it a bit and the more you do the more interesting it becomes as well. It is slightly digital or slightly cold sounding. You have to some processing on it if you want to really warm it up but you can though. Check out how the harmonics are moving around horizontally!! Wow. (no hardware in the universe can do that!)

Another fine example of how VST instruments can be made that no hardware device could even conceive. That is what is so interesting about virtual instruments. No limit to what they can do and they update them too and you get all these extra features you did not have before. Something hardware cannot do easily. The Arturia Mini Moog for example can be put into polyphonic mode. Try doing that with the real thing! Or you can put 16 oscillators onto one note and detune them all slightly, impossible to do that with a Mini Moog, Voyager or little Phatty. 

Also to the OP download the free Alchemy player (latest too is 1.55) They give you about a gig worth of free sounds to get you up and running. I am a player user myself (the player is so awesome I have not felt the need to get the full version just yet!) but am pretty close to getting the full deal though. I want to start tweaking a bit more.  Play with the mix pads and just marvel at what you will hear. 

On hardware though a few killer things come to mind. Kurzweil K2000 is still one of the best sounding instruments in the whole world, STILL NOW!!! Roland JD800 is amazingly incredible to listen to as well. I think it is one of the best Roland synths ever made for some reason. Of course all that modular stuff too is great but it can be emulated though. EMU samplers are hard to beat too. But I am sure there are many virtual equivalents to the the humble EMU sampler. It is reliable though and does not tax your CPU one little bit and yet it sounds so killer and it can do SOOOO much!