Hi Theo
Answer: No one in particular. Depends on your needs.

I don't know about that, seems he has a decent sense of humour

Of course, we all have different tastes. I mean even the Moog users argue about the sound between different revisions of the Model D, or differences between Model D and Voyager. Same can be said about Prophet 5 rev.2 vs rev.3 :)

My original intention though is that people should think twice before paying for this synth when Thor (imho) comes close. But I guess that's what the trial is for... :)

Fine. But you've completely ignored the phenomenon known as GAS Plus I think the fact this is modelled on a Voyager is just as appealing to a lot of people as how it actually sounds. So, GAS multiplied by Moog Voyager emulation RE divided by 'can these sounds already be done in Reason' plus yummy GUI equals lots of Viking appeal and sales for Blamsoft I'm buying this one I think.

I like the immediacy of the VIKING, I do prefer its interface to that of Thor. Which I understand is more powerful than Viking's, but I just never took to it for some reason.

You have to do a lot to make Thor do what Viking does. Oscillator drift, envelope shape, stereo filter etc. and I have no idea how Thor could pull off that great FM sound or cover 3 oscillators + a vintage sounding noise generator (without needing a second Thor). And all this is wrapped up in a very nifty interface. To my ears Thor has always sounded rather cold and digital and I would never use it for bass sounds.

With a name like Thor, you expect the synth to have a home in the far north

Nevermind

The is an interesting synth, which imo sounds totally different from
any exode thor patches. I think people love the name "moog", but then
are disappointed by the classic rock vibe of the patches. The presets
on this recall Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, etc. I am resonably sure the
kwaftwerk sounds could be coaxed. It is much more aggressive than than the Steinberg Model D.

Funny because I think THOR can sound pretty warm especially for bass sounds. Tweak the drive settings (I wonder why so few people use this slider) on the LP filter either in mode I or II, use 3 of them in serial (maybe the statevariable as a HP set to 30 Hz as second) and you should be done.

Btw on Gearlutz someone did a "guess what synth is this" blind test thread a while ago and mostly everyone favored THOR.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments- electronic-music-production/549219-guess-synth-again-part-2- a.html

Yes, rather cold. I guess the "cold" should be easy to spot then. ;)

http://soundcloud.com/exodesound/synth-blind-test

Have Moog noticed yet? Have their lawyers?

That was me. I've taken the files down now but I remember that most people thought Thor was the best / most analogue sounding!! I did a similar test on SoundCloud (removed that file just a couple of days ago as it goes!). It was a surprising result that just said to me that most people don't even really know what analogue sounds like or what makes it supposedly sound better than VA / soft synth. People would pick the sound that they thought sounded the 'most analogue'. In many cases that was Thor! Go figure

I did wonder this myself, given that it's such a blatant rip-off down to the last detail. All it's missing is the Moog logo! It does make you wonder, if this wasn't CLEARLY an emulation of the Moog Voyager then would people even be comparing the two?! People would certainly be saying, 'it's a great sounding synth', and things like, 'it sounds very analogue'. But the first bite is with the eye & often this is the main pull of software emulations of vintage (or not so vintage in the case of the Voyager) analogue hardware. Some might sound very little like the hardware they're emulating. But if they look like them people are drawn in like moths to a flame!

Well, that is one of the problems nowadays. All those cats want to sound as analog as possible but often they don't have a clue about the "analog sound". Back in the days everybody tried to sound as clean as possible (e.g. no hum, good signal to noise ratio etc).

Anyway, I think that the people chosed those synths that sounded the most pleasent to their ears. And most of the time they thought that those must be analogueish too.

And thank you for the tests and mentioning to tweak the drive parameters. I think that a lot of people don't use their utilities to the maximum (I hope that makes sense). As a Reason user I always felt that working within a closed system (e.g. no VST support) it gave me a lot of freedom to experiment with those limitations. It made me a better producer in finding workarounds for specific tasks. And as a oldschool guy I was always hanging around with my buddies in their studios in the 90s and I think that working with hardware is similar like working in reason because hardware has their limitations too.

Cheers

Sebastian