Better or equal to expensive synths

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Expensive VST/VSTi is not necessarily better then cheaper alternatives.

Gunnar Ekornå's ME80. Messiah and memorymoon or all excellent synths that very well can compite with more expensive equivalents.

TAL's U-NO-LX and Voltage Kitchen's MinimmougeVA would cost quite a bit if they where sold by some of the big companies.

If they where that good why don't they cost more - somebody asked. Sure, sometimes quality and price goes hand in hand. But just as often do greed and price.

The open-source community have shown us how free software can be even better then shareware. Even better then very expensive programs.

But here we also have loads of rather crappy free VST's as well.

So I want to sort them out a little. What free/cheap VST/VSTi are compeative to the big expensive ones?

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sfd wrote: Gunnar Ekornå's ME80. Messiah and memorymoon or all excellent synths that very well can compite with more expensive equivalents.
Not sure why you exactly picked these as examples, but afaik, these were built by using standard and 3rd party Synthedit modules, i'm not sure even if even one module comes from the author himself. TAL-U-NO-LX is another thing of course. But then, i would say it's pretty much worth for what it's sold for. You wouldn't want to compare it to a 99$ synth with 100 times the sound creation capabilities. It does what it does, and that's emulating the Juno-60 nicely.
sfd wrote: So I want to sort them out a little. What free/cheap VST/VSTi are compeative to the big expensive ones?
Dune LE is, on the other hand, it lacks the effects section of the payware version, so you already again have some functionality less. Synth1 would be another candidate, but then, it's a bit long in the tooth by now, and the filter is not really good.

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sfd wrote:Expensive VST/VSTi is not necessarily better then cheaper alternatives.

Gunnar Ekornå's ME80. Messiah and memorymoon or all excellent synths that very well can compite with more expensive equivalents.

TAL's U-NO-LX and Voltage Kitchen's MinimmougeVA would cost quite a bit if they where sold by some of the big companies.

If they where that good why don't they cost more - somebody asked. Sure, sometimes quality and price goes hand in hand. But just as often do greed and price.

The open-source community have shown us how free software can be even better then shareware. Even better then very expensive programs.

But here we also have loads of rather crappy free VST's as well.

So I want to sort them out a little. What free/cheap VST/VSTi are compeative to the big expensive ones?
ok,

obxd - free
charlatan - free
synth1 - free
minimoogv original - free
pg8x - free
short circuit - free
proteus vx - free
korg m1, wavestation - cheap
refx plasticz - cheap
novation Vstation - cheap

:x
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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But then, how much would you charge for obxd, Charlatan, Minimoog V, and the likes? Hardly more than 40€-50€. I wouldn't call that expensive.
sfd wrote: So I want to sort them out a little. What free/cheap VST/VSTi are compeative to the big expensive ones?
I don't see anything in the list which could compete to Zebra 2 for 199$ e.g.

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synthmaster is the best bang for the buck vsti and just a bit more than $50.

Z3ta, Rapture & Dim Pro all were free or low cost during sales. I got Z3ta 2 with my Sonar expanded free. Oh and the new x3

I K total Studio was $99 on sale and slightly less at some retailers before Christmas and that is less than $20 per synth plus it came with expansions. Got ez drummer free when I purchased this as well plus I love amplitube and CSR.

I am planning on taking on Korg M1 it is $50 and so are all the other korg vsti or you can snag a keyboard controller from korg and get them free or all 5 for $100 more.

Also the Xils lab and opx pro players $40 each and tons of presets which is all I have time for anyway.

VB3 is it still $50 now it is 64 bit?

messiah is awesome so is memory moon I use to have a memorymoog and it is very close so much so it brings back memories.

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yessongs wrote:synthmaster is the best bang for the buck vsti and just a bit more than $50.

Z3ta, Rapture & Dim Pro all were free or low cost during sales.
+1
All excellent low cost synths.

I own a ton of excellent freebies that I just can't use anymore because they are not x64. This, to me, is the biggest problem with freebies (even many non-synth edit stuff is only x32). And, even now, new freebies are still being released as x32 only.

I'm lucky that I now own a ton of excellent payware that is state-of-the-art and well supported by the devs that made them. I rarely look at freeware anymore, simply because it is usually either not compatible with my rig, or otherwise hobbled by time-consuming restrictions. I suspect that once Synth edit and similar platforms get up to speed at x64, this might change somewhat, but there is still a long way to go.

Cheers
-B
Berfab
So many plugins, so little time...

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mcnoone wrote:One persons better is another persons ____________.
"bitter"

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Maybe a bit bridge could resolve your issue with 32-bit pluggs in a 64-bit DAW?

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some daws have good bridging and others lack it but for $20 J bridge should allow you to make these other synths work.

I know reaper will rewire into most daws and if your daw won't work with a particular plugin it might work using reaper if your able to rewire it through reaper and host that vst inside of reaper. It has better bridging than found in my main daw. At least that is what I have found. It's an alternative if your just not wanting to pay to use J bridge.

I have to many 32 bit synths I mess around with to ever give up using 32 bit synths.

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Lotuzia wrote:
V0RT3X wrote:fish
Fried fish :hyper:
Sushi !!! :hyper: :wheee: :party:
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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layzer wrote:
sfd wrote:Expensive VST/VSTi is not necessarily better then cheaper alternatives.

Gunnar Ekornå's ME80. Messiah and memorymoon or all excellent synths that very well can compite with more expensive equivalents.

TAL's U-NO-LX and Voltage Kitchen's MinimmougeVA would cost quite a bit if they where sold by some of the big companies.

If they where that good why don't they cost more - somebody asked. Sure, sometimes quality and price goes hand in hand. But just as often do greed and price.

The open-source community have shown us how free software can be even better then shareware. Even better then very expensive programs.

But here we also have loads of rather crappy free VST's as well.

So I want to sort them out a little. What free/cheap VST/VSTi are compeative to the big expensive ones?
ok,

obxd - free
charlatan - free
synth1 - free
minimoogv original - free
pg8x - free
short circuit - free
proteus vx - free
korg m1, wavestation - cheap
refx plasticz - cheap
novation Vstation - cheap
I would agree to OBXD (IMO sounds better than OP-X Pro...), Minimoog V Original, PG8X and the Korg synths lke M1 and Wavestation.
Also the TAL synths like BassLine-101 and U-NO-LX V2 are great for their price (and BassLine-101 is a more accurate emulation than LuSH-101).

I also agree that Synthmaster 2.6 maybe has the best "bang for the buck".


Anyway i got many more expensive synths for which i don't have a cheap or free alternative. For me for example this includes all Tone2 synths. Also for Diva there is not direct replacement (except maybe for some parts/modules).

As a fan of wavetable synthesis whie Synthmaster could do it quite nicely i would not like to miss the Waldorf synths like Largo and PPG Wave 3.V and also the newer PPG Wavegenerator by wolfgamng Palm.


Ingo
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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bitwig

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hibidy wrote:bitwig
Reaper !! :D
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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It's a little embarrassing. But I did not even know about pg8x. I've to try that one. I have JP6K witch sound great - but I'm not to happy with teh GUI.

I agree that Korg legacy synths are really nice. I've M1 and Polysix - the later by sentimental reasons. I once owned a Polysix. But I sold it - there's not absolution for me.

M1 sounds pretty good (The chorus part in DM's Enjoy The Silecne is from a M1) but it feels a little outdated

Steinberg's Dark Planet, Hypnotic Dance and Triebwerk are cheap and sounds great. There are not really any free or cheap softsynths that sounds like that. However those synths are/feels more liek preset banks then anyhtign really modular.

I've a tendency to just use the presets the more pluggs I've. Rather then actually use their functions and possibilites to creat the sound I want I just tend to go trough the presets of a certain synth to find a certain sound. If it's not there I move on to next synth.

So for me..if I've , say, 42 synths and pay $179 , or if it was 179 euro, then I just pay for the presets and not really the synth and it's possibilites. I could need some boundaries.

Well, here's my list:

* Tyrell N6 - free
* Podolski - free
* Messiah - $40 (including memorymoon)
* ME80 - $40
* MinimougeVA - free
* Rez - free

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Although a fan of anything Korg, Polysix was perhaps nowhere near one of my favorites of theirs. But if you have the whole Legacy package with the Legacy cell, it begins to really show it's strength there.

Wondering about this term we so often use around here though...

'Outdated'

Got to think this is subjective at best, but it begs the question of if it was so outdated, then why are so many still trying to emulate it?

On the other hand, there are those synths which flash on the market and flash out almost as quick and for me they seem to start with being outdated (maybe because they're too genre/idiom specific to last as long as the genre itself?)

I still think it's time for Korg to add another VI to the collection though, maybe even two.
AAS;Camel Audio;Korg;Modartt;Native Instruments;Roland;Sonar;Steinberg;U-he;Yamaha

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