New Synth. . . Should I pump up the GAS???

[chillpill]

Personally, from ur top 3, I'd buy Falcon cos it just sounds delicious to me.
Otherwise I'd open FL and check Sytrus and Harmor out for super clean sounds.
Or if ur looking for a lean one-page song-starter synth check out Dune (1). It's also kinda clean sounding for a VA.

[rlared]

@OP:
You said you have Montage 88, is that the Yamaha Montage? If yes, then just lock this thread and 'shut up' (friendly shut up!) If not, then sorry for the dump comment!

Lol yes Yamaha Montage. I got it super cheap from someone and am looking to sell it on Craigslist and make a quick buck. GREAT keyboard though...

[martinjuenke]

Your DAW and Komplete should be enough until the end of time!
I‘ve gone back to a minimal set-up and it‘s refreshing and more productive

So very true!
And Komplete Kontrol plus Komplete Collection are exactly what you want and need if your very first post is still valid. The NKS framework delivers all you demand. You may have a closer look! Buying one plugin after another doesn‘t trigger creativity, just the opposite (I know what I am talking about).

[EnGee]

Lol yes Yamaha Montage. I got it super cheap from someone and am looking to sell it on Craigslist and make a quick buck. GREAT keyboard though...

If I were you, I would keep the Montage and sell the Kontrol keys and buy one of the monophonic analogue synths. And of course Cubase would be my main DAW because the integration of the Montage with it. Cubase Artist or Pro has a great drums and two very good synths (Padshop and Retrologue). Halion Sonic SE has a nice synth (Trip) in additional to bread and butter rompler sounds, which Montage covers as I think it's not only first class FM synth. I doubt you would even need then the Komplete Ultra!

[rlared]

Oops too late sold the Montage today

[EnGee]

Pity! Oh well, good luck with your setup. I wish I could afford Montage but it's not possible. Anyway, I'm doing almost the opposite! I'm selling my P4 controller and kept my 88 Casio stage piano. I bought though Korg nanoKontrol and soon microKey to replace the P4 as I'm happier with such setup

[rlared]

It's good to change things up frequently... Gives us something to get excited about . Enjoy the new setup!

[felis]

You already had what you were looking for.

But oh well...Live and learn.

If you want software, I like EnGee's Cubase/Halion solution.

[Ranoka]

I'd suggest looking into Syntorial, it's like a video course that comes with a dedicated synth that you follow along and complete challenges and quizzes. They also have bonus courses included for learning specific synths like Sylenth1, Massive and Serum.

Definitely worth trying the demo, I got a lot out of it. Main downside would be taking the time out for learning vs making music, but you'll likely get more out of the synths you have/get.

GAS wise, it's worth considering unique synths like Chromaphone 2 (especially since AAS has 50% summer sale).

I was weighing up the choice between the different all-in-one synths and chose Avenger because it's more immediate, has a demo, and is much cheaper (+ 20% off atm). I've seen people who love Falcon using Avenger more because it's faster to make sounds with (going on what people have said since there's no Falcon demo!).

Also, if you're interested in getting Zebra2, u-he has a 25% off discount for newsletter subscribers (they're trying to get people to sign up again after the whole GDPR fiasco).

I'm at that stage where I've bought most of the synths I want, and need to learn to use them and make some music (hence the recommendation for Syntorial, which is helping out a lot with a structured way to learn).

[rlared]

I'd suggest looking into Syntorial, it's like a video course that comes with a dedicated synth that you follow along and complete challenges and quizzes. They also have bonus courses included for learning specific synths like Sylenth1, Massive and Serum.

Definitely worth trying the demo, I got a lot out of it. Main downside would be taking the time out for learning vs making music, but you'll likely get more out of the synths you have/get.

GAS wise, it's worth considering unique synths like Chromaphone 2 (especially since AAS has 50% summer sale).

I was weighing up the choice between the different all-in-one synths and chose Avenger because it's more immediate, has a demo, and is much cheaper (+ 20% off atm). I've seen people who love Falcon using Avenger more because it's faster to make sounds with (going on what people have said since there's no Falcon demo!).

Also, if you're interested in getting Zebra2, u-he has a 25% off discount for newsletter subscribers (they're trying to get people to sign up again after the whole GDPR fiasco).

I'm at that stage where I've bought most of the synths I want, and need to learn to use them and make some music (hence the recommendation for Syntorial, which is helping out a lot with a structured way to learn).

Slight clarification. . . I know a decent amount about synthesis. I'm no expert, but I have some idea of which parameters to tweak for what things. I just struggle with building sounds from scratch, probably because I just need more practice.

How do you like Avenger?

Also what's the GDPR fiasco you're referring to?

[zzz00m]

I just want to spend a few minutes creating or modifying a a bass, lead, pad, strings, etc and have it come out sounding bad ass and actually useable in a song.

Also, I already own but don't have installed: Synthmaster, Synthmaster One, AIR Complete Bundle.

Since you already have the AIR Complete Bundle, why not spend a few weeks using only Xpand!2 for your tracks. It's a plugin Rompler. You can use that to dial in all the sounds that you have mentioned in a few minutes.

That way you are making music right away, instead of programming synths.

Of course, the sounds won't necessarily be bad ass right out of the box. But they are useful for quickly sketching out a song idea or arrangement. Think of them as placeholders.

Then you can look around for replacement sounds that do sound bad ass to swap them out with. First check the inventory of what you do have, and if it's not in there, buy just what you need. There have been a few good suggestions in this thread.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Your DAW and Komplete should be enough until the end of time!
I‘ve gone back to a minimal set-up and it‘s refreshing and more productive

While it is true that he has all he needs to make music, this suggestion misses the point that the op wants to consolidate his overall experience into one user interface.

[Ranoka]

Slight clarification. . . I know a decent amount about synthesis. I'm no expert, but I have some idea of which parameters to tweak for what things. I just struggle with building sounds from scratch, probably because I just need more practice.

How do you like Avenger?

Also what's the GDPR fiasco you're referring to?

I think Syntorial helps with learning how to build sounds from scratch, it also teaches you to recognise what you're hearing and how to adjust it. The demo is very generous, and even lets you start the synth specific videos too.

To be honest, I haven't used Avenger a lot because I just got it, but I can share some of my thought process (feel free to ignore).
I definitely recommend trying the demo, they let you download the whole Factory library! (I heard that's the main reason Omnisphere doesn't have a demo?) Once you buy it you just replace the synth part.
If you read threads about Avenger, it initially had a reputation of being a bit rushed/buggy, charging people to beta test etc, but they seem a lot better about releasing stable stuff more recently - I haven't had any issues yet (FL 64bit Win 10). I really like that they have had so many generous free updates that add new forms of synthesis and filters etc (there's a guitar chord module of some sort being added for 1.4).
Avenger is well optimised, I've seen comparisons with Serum that had close to half the CPU usage compared to Serum for matching patches. They mention optimisation a lot in the manual, and reassure that setting knobs to 0 means the module isn't being used and doesn't consume cpu etc. This is very refreshing after trying to use iZotope's Iris2 and BreakTweaker - you pretty much have to bounce them to audio because they seem broken CPU consumption wise.
I bought Avenger in the end because I was playing around with the demo, and found it really quick/easy to change sounds and create new patches - when it wet 20% off for summer sale I bought it so I can save and not have to reset when the demo timer hits. It has a lot of features but I found it intuitive to use without reading the manual, I did read the manual too - it's a bit sparse, and is for v 1.1 and doesn't include anything about the Granular module etc (manual isn't that useful). Vengeance has a 25+ video tutorial series on YouTube that I'm planning on watching, that's probably the best way to learn the deeper/more subtle aspects of the synth.

GDPR is the new privacy laws they introduced in Europe. U-he sent an email requesting people to re-subscribe to the newsletter and lost over half of their email list, so they introduced the sign up offer to re-build their mailing list. Other than introductory offers, they don't do sales, so this is a one off chance!
I already have Zebra2+HZ, I'm trying to decide if I should get something else , Urs said the code expired end of August.

[rlared]

So I ended up buying UVI Falcon yesterday. . . super excited to get into it. I'm hoping it can be the single platform I use for all my synthesizer and sampling needs!

[martinjuenke]

So I ended up buying UVI Falcon yesterday. . . super excited to get into it. I'm hoping it can be the single platform I use for all my synthesizer and sampling needs!

You‘ll be disappointed soon! Remember my words...