Hey all, I’ve recently started working on contemporary worship music and if you know anything about modern worship music you know that the pads/synths are very light and airy. I would love to stay in the box on this, does anyone have any suggestions on some synths in SPLAT to check out? If not, are there any budget friendly suggestions out there?


Thank you all

In my experience Praise and Worship music crosses many musical boundaries so my suggestion is to look at something that has a broad range of sounds as my guess is that your requirements will change overtime.
 
If you already have Sonar Platinum then I would check out what is on offer from Dimension Pro and Rapture both have some good pads across a variety of styles as does Z3TA although this tends to really excel at other uses. There are a lot of presets to work but if you combine searching with patience you should find some sounds to get you started.
 
Worth looking at the AAS bundle as well Analog Session specifically.
 
If you want to go outside of what comes with Sonar then the Korg Collection includes the WaveStation which is capable of some amazing evolving pads along with a number of other classics. SampleTank is a good source of all round sounds and Syntronik is fantastic in my opinion and IK Multimedia offer a free version of both of these to help you assess.
 
There are plenty of other options too depending on budget with some pretty good free stuff.
 
Don't forget hat some of the best sounds are layers with some effects added and most sounds will sound better if you adjust/personalise them.

I think Dimension Pro, Rapture classic, and Rapture Session all offer some sounds well worth checking out.  Nice pads!  And if you are willing to dig in and tweak them, they offer a lot of possibilities for sound design!
 
Also search online for free VST instruments and you can find some interesting ones, and some of these are excellent, rivaling some paid software!
 
+1 to the IK SampleTank and Syntronik suggestion above!  I have both of the full versions of these and the sounds can cover just about any genre of music.  Sampletank has a nice basic collection of acoustic, electric, and orchestral instruments, while Syntronik has a sample library including sounds from 38 iconic vintage synths.

Just noticed that AIR Hybrid 3 is still on sale for just $1 until Feb 12th.  https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/4-Synth/1545-Hybrid-3
 
I guess you might say that is a very budget friendly option! 
 
Hybrid 3 lists at $129, and usually sells for less, or comes bundled with some keyboards and controllers.
 
The factory sounds include 1200+ presets, with lots of pads.  This is a synth that can produce some airy, atmospheric sounds.  At least 250 of the presets fall into the atmospheric and ambient category,
 
Although a lot of the included content is dance music oriented, if you dig past that there is a lot of synth power here.  Hybrid uses a combination of the classic virtual analog waveforms, plus 100 wavetables, so you can virtually create anything you want with this, except load custom samples.