Ah yes I suppose that should be obvious just from the names

I done my own one synth (and drum machine) challenge if any classic hard trance fans are interested - http://soundcloud.com/100mg/100mg-minimonsta-320-clip

Using only Minimonsta and 909.

Why don't we consider Alpha Ray Free version for the contest. In the free version you can use the effects but cannot save the settings. As free and host effects are allowed it should not be a problem for the entrants. I tried it briefly when it came out initially and really liked it.

http://tubeohm.com/TubeOhm/ALPHA-RAY-E.html

Yes it's on the shortlist, please run it through its paces for bugs please, might include in a synth vote later. Others would then possibly be The Deputy Mark II, Feldspar, Scythe, Voyager, Model Pro so to everyone, test them for typical issues (closing projects in FL etc).

Or how would we feel about a HG Fortune competition? Too limited soundscope?

Nice track faun2500, but I believe that's 2 synths there. Try to do all with just one. Minimoog-V is on at the moment, not far off Minimonsta. Nice prizes to be had, but remember songs have to be originally made for the competition so you can't really use that one.

Hi, Thanks for listening. This is one synth and all samples were arrange as audio. So not a synth. lol

But I know what your saying = all sounds from one synth.

V'ger, is the PPG Wavesim on the shortlist as well?

http://www.hermannseib.com/english/synths/ppg/wavesim.htm

Yes, it is in the list. We tested it almost one year ago.
As i can see, it has a huge amount of CPU usage. So it has an average score due to this.

Thanks Irion. To my ears it sounds like instant Tangerine Dream, so it would be cool to do something with it at some point

I've been listening to all the tracks for voting on the Minimogue contest. Some have really nice sounds in them, including some of those that I think won't be contenders for the top 5 spots based on the overall quality of the composition.

Might it not be an idea to include a best sound design sub-competition in which the best 5 original sounds or so designed for the competition could also be ranked, either with or without prizes being awarded. All of the original sounds designed for the compo could also be collected and made available publicly as free soundbanks. This would also help boost the synthesizers being used as these freeware synths don't get much attention from pro sound designers. Of course this should be optional as some of the participants may not want to make the sounds they have designed available freely.

Only wrinkle with this is that often the sounds are stacked instances of the synth and/or shaped by eq, delay, reverb, etc.; not always something that would sound good as a patch for the synth.

Yes I think that's the reason for the little response following calls for banks. About voting for best patch it's a good idea but guess it would prove difficult seeing how it's already a struggle just to get the normal votes in, even with good prizes available. Could do a test run 'on the side' during next vote though, stay tuned.

PPG Wavesim sounds absolutely fantastic, but didn't even dare to mention it as it's just too unreliable unfortunately. Does it work well for you?

About chainers I just had another doh moment as I discovered the week before the discussion a great and free one but forgot to mention: Phrazor. It's a very good step sequencer and MIDI CC generator as well:

Thanks V'ger, Phrazor seems great. I never knew about it before. It's going to be a good complement to Sonar for me Between Phrazor and VSTForX, I think I'm all set for layering

I just tried loading 5 Wavesim instances in Sonar X1, fiddled with some presets, recorded/played back some tracks, saved, closed, and reopened the result. It all seems fine so far.

I agree on the patches, many times a good sound will rely on effects and some also on DAW/MIDI automation.

Was playing with Phrazor yesterday and it's actually very good. Logical and fully featured host really. Stable and efficient too. If you ever want to trigger live MIDI loops for free this and InsertPiz' midiLooper is it imo.

Can also run several PPG Wavesim without hassle here, but it's giving issues with some DAWs unfortunately. And it does use quite a lot of CPU.

I kicked the tires on Alpha Ray, The Deputy Mark II, Feldspar, Scythe, Voyager, and Model Pro hosted by Sonar X1 x64. They all passed my preliminary test except for Feldspar. Loading a saved project with multiple instances of Feldspar fails. (Bitbridge crashes, so this may be a 64-bit specific issue.)

I like The Deputy Mark II quite a lot BTW. I would probably do another JMJ knockoff with it, but this time with phasered strings

Thanks for checking these. Did you try the GUI version of Voyager or just the standard one?

That Feldspar causes issues might be related to it being made with the older Synthedit version. The others are not Synthedit except Alpha-Ray but that's with the multicore supported version.