Hi there HiThere!
First, I assume you're referring to soft synths, but if we're talking hardware as well, then my #1 would be the Access Virus TI hands down, baby!
Anyway, there are so many great soft synths out there today that it's really hard to identify just five. On the other hand, I believe that if a user takes the time to learn to program/tweak their own sounds, almost any synth can be a good "dance" synth. However, a few features make certain synths stand out among others - especially features like a programmable arp, trance gate, and/or step generator.
That said, here are what I believe would be among the 5 best choices for dance music (in no particular order):
Cakewalk Rapture or Z3TA+ - I cheated and lumped these two together because of their similarities, but both are highly programmable, sound incredible, come with great presets for dance music, and are expandable. Of course, they're CW products, so you know that they're quality products and well-supported. I'd probably give a slight preference to Z3TA+ because of its arp and Virus mod. However, I think that Rapture does a much better job at producing 'real' sounds (esp. dance pianos, strings, etc.), which are also very important sounds in many dance songs.
reFX Nexus (with the Store 'N Forward, Stratosphere, Dance Orchestra, Dance Vol.1, and Dance Drums expansions) - Yes, it's a rompler, but Nexus is a dance music-producing beast! It sounds huge, has some of the best built-in effects I've ever heard, excellent support, arp, and trance gate. The Stratosphere expansion includes primarily pads ala Spectrasonics Atmosphere (which I couldn't include here due to the 5-synth limitation
).
reFX Vanguard - clean GUI, excellent super saws, nice arp and trance gate, excellent support, and many soundsets available. It's a dance music staple, IMO.
NI Battery 3 - Whether or not this is a synth vs. an instrument is up for debate, but what's not debatable is that dance music requires excellent drums, that's why I included it here
. Battery 3 is excellent for drums and has excellent sample-editing tools as well as very nice on-board effects. The included library of drum samples is HUGE and high quality, but I use (and highly recommend) it with the Vengeance Essential Club, House, and EFX sample libraries and the Icone Kick and Effects libraries. Some people find B3 buggy/unstable, but I've always found it to be very stable.
Spectrasonics Stylus RMX - see Battery 3 caveat above. Stylus RMX is a perfect counterpart to B3. It's a drum vst that excels at supplying user-editable MIDI-based drum/percussion loops, but it's soooo much more than just a loop playback module. High quality samples, HUGE and expandable library of sounds/loops, excellent stability, and the Chaos Designer.
edit: typ0
post edited by cryophonik - 2007/11/17 10:43:18