bitflipper
David Baer (dmbaer) did some extensive research into UVI Falcon (and came away a fan):
http://soundbytesmag.net/falconbyuvipart1/
http://soundbytesmag.net/review-falcon-by-uvi-part-2/
http://soundbytesmag.net/falcon-synth-oscillators-a-close-up-look/
 

Correction: the first two of those three were written by Rob Mitchell, but thanks for the plug anyway, Dave. 
 
Actually, though, for purposes of the discussion in this thread, probably the most pertinent thing I've ever written was a comparison of Omnisphere, Falcon and HALion 5.  You can find that here:
 
http://soundbytesmag.net/threehighendhybridsynthscomparison/

And a fine article indeed. Loved reading It back then and still appreciate it now. SoundBytesMag rocks.

Enjoyed that article!  Hard to imagine that I paid $1500 for a Korg workstation 20 years ago, and that I could have all three of these big three “luxury vehicles” for less that that, plus a decent controller keyboard! 
 
“smokin’-hot” 
 
I think I would be leaning towards the new Halion 6 at this time if I had to pick just one ...

Omnisphere all the way. And Keyscape.

Falcon is another deep synth.
The only thing that kept me from getting it is the lack of multi-core optimization.
HALion-6 and Kontakt-5 are optimized for multi-core CPUs.
 
Kontakt (by far) has the broadest support from 3rd-party library developers.
Kontakt has had custom scripting since what... version 2?!  (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that)
It'll take HALion-6 a while to reach that broad of a base.  The potential is there... 
 
Omnisphere is super deep.
Bit may be right, it may be the greatest synth ever created.  Eric Persing is a genius sound designer (has been for decades).
It's "weakness" (ironic as it may be to say) is "meat and potato" type sounds.
Of course, if you have those sounds covered... it's a moot point.

Thanks I think I will get Arturia first and then SynthMaster, then towards the end of the year Falcon. 

Omnisphere is fantastic I seem to discover something new everytime I sit down to use it.  I have two more parts to score out and drums will be the hardest.  I haven't quite figured out Cakewalk in the step sequencer can I just use a pattern in one spot and then paste it then use the step sequence multiple times with different patterns on the same track?  I am trying to discover how to do that.  Anyways thanks for the discussions they have been helpful.
 

I happen to have had Kontakt as part of Komplete 8 Ultimate - going through many upgrades from 3 up to 8.  I stopped at 8, because the newer versions didn't really give me much of anything different than I already have.
 
I also picked up a handful of 3rd-party instruments, which were not very expensive.
 
I ALSO hunted around, and found a CRAZY number of FREE sample libraries for Kontakt - nearly 1 TB of sample-based instruments that are really quite good.
 
The other part of my sample collection comes from a monthly subscription I began with EastWest Composer Cloud, which gives me another IMMENSE number of REALLY good - literally motion picture quality sample-based instruments.  This runs me $29 a month, and gives me another full TB of samples and thousands of additional instruments.
 
Between Kontakt, Play (the name of the EastWest sample player that plays the Composer Cloud instruments), and all of the free samples I found for Kontakt, I have tens of thousands of incredibly good sample-based instruments and sounds.
 
Rounding things out, I use the Arturia V Collection, which I find incredibly good for all of the vintage synth sounds, and then I picked up the Korg M1 soft synth from their Legacy Collection.  The M1 comes with their entire collection of expansion sounds - 17 different packs of them, and includes all of the sounds from the Triton.
 
So the cost of the above sounds is approximately:
 
$150 for the Arturia V Collection - if you get it on sale, which seems to happen in December or January
$24.99 for the Korg M1 - on sale - currently not on sale but still only $49.99 which is still incredible
???  Hard to break Kontakt out, since I bought Komplete and upgraded from 3 up to 8, inclusive.  Kontakt runs $399 for the full version - and the Kontakt Player is FREE.
$29.99 for the EastWest Composer Cloud - which is a monthly charge that gives me access to an absolutely stunning and amazingly large number of world-class instruments and libraries.
 
And then I have 160 Kontakt instrument libraries that I found and downloaded from the web, and these are also really quite good.
 
I hope some of the above helps, 
 
Bob Bone
 

 

fuglee...