After I tried with some vsti's, not so many, the one I really impressed by was Absynth. Could you tell me any other vsti's with so great quality?

FM7 , kontakt, pentagon, junglist 3, B4, mda epiano.

top stuff.

Crystal is a marvelous vst that is free!
It has sort of taken the edge off of my lust for buying anything else for the time being. (Well, not really, but it is great!!)
bluedad

Reaktor is more than just a VSTi, and for sheer sound quality I think it's one of the best.

There are four or five synths getting an awful lot of time in my studio right now. VirSyn Tera has got to be one the best I've yet heard. Very high quality analog/digital hybrid (with a price to match). Of the analogs, it's Delta III from LinPlug. It would be a mistake not to check that out, as it probably has what I consider to be the most accurate analog filter. For loops, there is nothing better than pHATmatik Pro from Bitshift. Like Pentagon 1 (also excellent, but already listed by someone else) it turns up on a lot of "favorites" lists around here. For sample-playback of real-world instrument sounds, Sonic Synth is the ticket. For Drums, you want to look at the DR008 from FXPansion. It is very comprehensive, indeed.

These are all totally different plug-ins, and have completely different approaches, but one thing they all have in common is an uncompromising sound quality.

Kontakt, Pentagon, Reaktor are excellent commercial synths, Crystal is a must have seeing as it's free and of high sound quality...

Im also a fan of virsyn tera - as far as i can tell the closest thing to absynth (if not better in some respects). Very versatile and sounds excellent.

Virsyn Tera is another on a list of synths I swear I'm not going to get knowing full well it will sometime be mine.

Tried the demo and didn't think it was a whole lot like Absynth although it certainly does some things that are unique to it. The thing that's really nice about it along with several of the synths mentioned so far is their break with traditional analog models.

Should have thought of Sonic Synth too, good deal going on with the inclusion of Omnisynth (high quality GM style sounds, in the hundreds of mb, not 16mb or so) and the free eROM (sample library).

Pentagon I and the Sonic Synth "special" are my favorites. I can't imagine why anyone would not love to have these in their VST arsenal. Now, I just need to decide which sample player/manipulator, that can use standard wave samples, to get.

Triangle II, DR-008, and Absynth are my current trinity.

I'd also include the Muon Audio line - especially Tau Pro - the biggest, baddest analog bass sim you can get.

The new eMagic EVOC (Logic 5) has some very powerful 'future-retro' patches, and Big Tick's Angelina is remarkable for atmospheric pads.

I'll second the props for Pentagon, pHATmatik Pro and Junglist3.

My favorite VSTi by far is sonicsynth. I can't imagine making music without it. Other great VSTi's are Phatmatik Pro, Pentagon I and the B4. For the monetarily challenged, daOrgan provides an excellent alternative to the B4. Triangle II has already been mentioned and is an excellent synth for basses and leads.

My current VSTi usage is almost exclusively SonicSynth, RM-III, daOrgan and Phatmatik Pro.

[ 03 July 2002, 08:41: Message edited by: progfusion74 ]

Mine are :-

Kontakt - Why no one has raved on about this I dont know. So I am now. Brilliant.

Absynth - Better than most top synths

Traingle 11 - Still cannot get over it being free.

So far, the software synthesizers that have impressed me the most and really made me think twice about ever buying a hardware synth again have been:

Absynth
FM7
VirSyn Tera
Pentagon I

ES2 sounds terrific, but unfortunately is a slave to the Logic environment (and perhaps only a Mac Logic environment in the future).

Needless to say, there are many wonderful VSTi's that are invaluable to me, but it was these that truly wowed me and foreshadowed the slow demise of hardware DSP based synthesizer dominance in this industry.

-Tronam

If you want a great VSTi then you should check out Stylus Virtual Groove Module by Spectrasonics, the quality of the loop and hits in the 3GIG core library is amazing and it is soooo easy to use! With Stylus, constructing your beats will become a whole new experience!

Joel.

[ 03 July 2002, 13:22: Message edited by: Joel H ]

Reaktor just doesn't get enough credit. I think people like to slag it because it's expensive. But, truth be told, it's worth every penny. Still the king by a mile. There are better analog emulations, but Reaktor does so much more than that and keeps growing with each passing week, thanks to the bountiful user library.

Others worth checking:

* Pentagon (best analog emulation)
* FM7 (better FM than the original DX7!)
* B4 (best organ emulation)
* Waldorf PPG Wave2V (best wavetable emulation)
* Crystal (free Abynth-esque synth!)
* M-Tron (if you need retro Mellotron sounds)

Have fun,
Lazlo

The only VST I've tried that's as silky smooth as Absynth is FM7.
Waldorf Attack would be my 3rd choice I think.
(I'm not saying they're the best synths; just the ones with that immediate OMG quality.)

My faves currently are (in no specific order):

* Pentagon I
* Triangle I and II
* Crystal (the more I use it, the longer I put off buying Absynth for a little while longer...)
* Energy Pro (tons o' fun, and sounds great!)
* VirSyn TERA (wonderful sound! I just wish I could use it as a VSTi without having to bring in its sequencer as well...)
* NI B4
* M-Tron (the sounds I grew up lusting over...)
* JunoX2
* pHATmatik Pro (finding it great for correcting the timing on sloppy-played guitar and bass tracks!)
* DR-008 (just recently started getting into it, so it should be occupying my next few weekends...)
* mda piano, epiano, DX-10, JX10

[ 03 July 2002, 17:09: Message edited by: Har ]

(Some of my) favs besides Absynth:

Virsyn TERA, very distinct sound and some stuff not heard elsewhere. Best analogue drum sounds.

FM7, FM, FM and FM!!! Very good.

Pentagon 1, Very good analogue sounds, I love these PWM sounds! Lotsa boom in all sound ranges.

Junox2, This thing is the amazing Rave, techno, Trance machine. You want a big lead and a rippig bass? This is the one.

Reaktor, the super chameleon thingy. Absolutely fantastic! There are some really strange but very useful thingies available like a very good physical modeling Flute and several outstaning drum machines just to name a few out of a thousand (!!!) freely availabe ones.

Kontakt, simply THE creative sampler. Period.

To Har: Just go to the sequencer page (F3) of TERA and erase the one pattern that's in the sequencer, and then you can use it as a normal synth.

As nobody listed it - Tassman. If there's anything other than Reaktor, it is Tassman. The trouble is sometimes it sounds so brutal you may hurt your ears. Sometimes buggy, perhaps that is the reason why people do not list it here.

I am glad to see others are like Virsyn TERA as well. I've tried the Demo and the thing really rocks soundwise. I'm not a fan of all the harsh acidy VA synths even if they have a million knobs. To me TERA kinda falls somewhere between FM7 and Absynth.

Ok,
This is not a VST, but a sound library....

Darkness and Light (Distorted Reality 2)

It is very Absynthish and much more.

I imported it into SampleTank-L and think is it really quite good; very unusal sounds.

It is a Nice compliment to Sonic....

[ 03 July 2002, 18:31: Message edited by: iDavid ]

What about daOrgan and ZR3 (which is free) both very good organ VSTi whithout the cost of B4.

ninja is a strange thing, quite unusual results but hard to program.

FM7 has the best sounds of all VST instruments I know but it is also very very expensive. I only use the demo which is of course limiting.

Crystal is certainly the best free instrument at the moment. Very very good sounds and so easy to program.

PA

Hi Har,

everything is loaded always. Virsyn TERA is a little heavy on the CPU but you can limit the polyphony for every one of the 16 channels on the mixer page. This should help a bit. Sure your PIII is a little outdated for such CPU intensive thingies.