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 ;) 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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 plugins 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. 

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.

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. 

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.

@

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.