Best soft synth for beginners? Reaktor 6/Dune 2/Omnisphere/Zebra 2?

[ghettosynth]

Reaktor is a rabbit hole. Too much crap to wade through, hastily designed synths with too few patches with the exception of the NI stuff done in house...

Do you REALLY have Reaktor? What you say is nonsense.

The user library is HUGE, and has MANY very good ensembles. And, contrary to some, the old factory libraries have VERY GOOD ensembles too, IMO. That nonsense about the "quality" is something I don't af«gree upon. If you want quality, run Reaktor at 96 kHz.

And for a beginner, it offers the resources to start from the very basic and grow up to the infinity. The best investment, IMO.

Well, this of course hits on a good question, namely, what does one mean by "best." Pedagogically speaking, Reaktor has good points and bad, but, from a value point of view, I agree completely. You can explore so much with Reaktor and with just a little bit of effort you can learn how to modify existing ensembles which is far more powerful pedagogically than I think that some realize.

Reaktor and Kontakt are really the best reason to just start with Komplete.

[exmatproton]

Reaktor is a rabbit hole. Too much crap to wade through, hastily designed synths with too few patches with the exception of the NI stuff done in house...

Do you REALLY have Reaktor? What you say is nonsense.

The user library is HUGE, and has MANY very good ensembles. And, contrary to some, the old factory libraries have VERY GOOD ensembles too, IMO. That nonsense about the "quality" is something I don't af«gree upon. If you want quality, run Reaktor at 96 kHz.

And for a beginner, it offers the resources to start from the very basic and grow up to the infinity. The best investment, IMO.

Well, this of course hits on a good question, namely, what does one mean by "best." Pedagogically speaking, Reaktor has good points and bad, but, from a value point of view, I agree completely. You can explore so much with Reaktor and with just a little bit of effort you can learn how to modify existing ensembles which is far more powerful pedagogically than I think that some realize.

Reaktor and Kontakt are really the best reason to just start with Komplete.

+1

The value is huge. At the pricepoint (even more so with last black friday, for instance), one can't find anything remotely close to what Reaktor can offer. For beginners all the way up to die-hard sound designers, imho.

[InLight-Tone]

Reaktor is a rabbit hole. Too much crap to wade through, hastily designed synths with too few patches with the exception of the NI stuff done in house...

Do you REALLY have Reaktor? What you say is nonsense.

The user library is HUGE, and has MANY very good ensembles. And, contrary to some, the old factory libraries have VERY GOOD ensembles too, IMO. That nonsense about the "quality" is something I don't af«gree upon. If you want quality, run Reaktor at 96 kHz.

And for a beginner, it offers the resources to start from the very basic and grow up to the infinity. The best investment, IMO.

Yes I have it, got it with Komplete, but can't seem to wrap my head around it despite several tries. Maybe it's just me.

Believe you me, I want to like it, cause then I won't be tempted to look at anything else, but I can't seem to organize the whole mess of it. I'm a minimalist and something like Reaktor + Kontakt would be most everything I need maybe besides Zebra, Omnisphere and Falcon.

I recently purchased Falcon and I find that a much easier time using than Reaktor which theoretically is much more modular and more powerful.

[wagtunes]

Isn't Autogun a free version of Ogun?:
http://www.image-line.com/plugins/Synths/Ogun/

Yes, Ogun is the complete version. Autogun is just the randomizer feature in Ogun.

I did not even know this synth existed. I'm listening to demos and I like the way it sounds.

[egbert101]

<delete>

[izonin]

Classical instruments plus softsynths? That's easy - Zebra HZ (Hans Zimmer).

[fmr]

Reaktor is a rabbit hole. Too much crap to wade through, hastily designed synths with too few patches with the exception of the NI stuff done in house...

Do you REALLY have Reaktor? What you say is nonsense.

The user library is HUGE, and has MANY very good ensembles. And, contrary to some, the old factory libraries have VERY GOOD ensembles too, IMO. That nonsense about the "quality" is something I don't af«gree upon. If you want quality, run Reaktor at 96 kHz.

And for a beginner, it offers the resources to start from the very basic and grow up to the infinity. The best investment, IMO.

Yes I have it, got it with Komplete, but can't seem to wrap my head around it despite several tries. Maybe it's just me.

Believe you me, I want to like it, cause then I won't be tempted to look at anything else, but I can't seem to organize the whole mess of it. I'm a minimalist and something like Reaktor + Kontakt would be most everything I need maybe besides Zebra, Omnisphere and Falcon.

I recently purchased Falcon and I find that a much easier time using than Reaktor which theoretically is much more modular and more powerful.

What's your difficulty? Using the pre-made ensembles is as simple as instantiate Reaktor, load the Ensemble, and that's it. You have tons of them, spanning basically any synthesis technique there is.

Or are you trying to build your own ensembles? Because that' would be like starting to build a house from the roof. Even Blocks, I would let them aside for now.

And if you have Komplete, you have Razor, Monark, Prism, Spark, Rounds, Kontour, and the old factory libraries. As I said, and contrary to others opinion, I still find those VERY USEFUL ensembles. Besides, Absynth, FM8 and Massive. Really, I can't understand what exactly are you missing, if your goal, as you said, is learning.

Load the old factory ensembles, and study how they were done. I promise you will learn A LOT.

[Mathematics]

For a beginner, Dune.

My post here is kind of advice on what to do after you've chosen your first soft synth. (+1 Dune or Zebra) I hate to admit it, but you'll eventually own most of them within a couple of years, if not sooner, as they all do something a little different, and better, than the rest. My rule of thumb for starting synth libraries, go with the ones for which there are the most free presets made by the community.

You'd be surprised at how many times I'm thinking of a sound, and I find (or make it) with more than one synth and find that it just sounds, or fits better, with one synth than it does the other. Sometimes, it's faster to make a sound from something already created by someone else than it is by trying to figure out how to make it from scratch. Once you get the sound to sound right, you can go back and figure out how it was made later. This is why I chose to build my library of synths from the number of free patches available. This also helps you to learn about synthesis...but this depends on the synth. Some synths don't really let you go under the hood.

[chk071]

You'd be surprised at how many times I'm thinking of a sound, and I find (or make it) with more than one synth and find that it just sounds, or fits better, with one synth than it does the other.

Exactly. That's also the main reason why i use several synths. I also like sounds which have a wide spectrum of sounds they can do well. Unfortunately, there's way too many "one-dimensional" synths out there, which can do one thing pretty good, and suck for a lot of other things, hence i usually choose synths, which sound good for most sounds.

[EnGee]

I hate to admit it, but you'll eventually own most of them within a couple of years

So true!

I would buy the synths that I really like its character and sound, then learn them well. Yes, subtractive synths are the easiest but most of other synthesis are using the subtractive layout these days (Razor, Harmor, ...etc). So, if you learn one, then it become easier and easier the more you apply what you have learnt from Synth 1 to Synth 2 as you will try to spot the oscillator(s), filter(s), modulators (lfo, envelopes, mseg, ..etc), effects (maybe) and other sections like Modulation Matrix or/and Arpeggiator or Step Sequencer ..etc.

Anyway, you won't be disappointed with any of the four you mentioned. So, jump in and be ready to read a lot

[kbaccki]

I hate to admit it, but you'll eventually own most of them within a couple of years

So true!

Here's my prediction... OP chooses Dune2 to start... high quality sound, relatively basic interface (even for a synth idiot like me), and once you figure out how to navigate and layer the 8 voice slots u realize "I MAY NEVER NEED ANYTHING ELSE!!!".. which is fantasy land speak, of course, and 9 months on you see Falcon on sale... so you demo it, and you realize "FORGET WHAT I SAID BEFORE, I NEED THIS THIIIIINNNNNGG!!!!". Then a few months later you stumble on a KVR thread... The Legend has been updated to 1.5 w/ some cool new features... *scratches chin*, demo demo demo, followed by "OMFG I CAN DO ALL THIS WITH DUNE BUT THIS IS A BAJILLION TIMES COOLER!!!!". Etc etc etc.

[exmatproton]

I hate to admit it, but you'll eventually own most of them within a couple of years

So true!

Here's my prediction... OP chooses Dune2 to start... high quality sound, relatively basic interface (even for a synth idiot like me), and once you figure out how to navigate and layer the 8 voice slots u realize "I MAY NEVER NEED ANYTHING ELSE!!!".. which is fantasy land speak, of course, and 9 months on you see Falcon on sale... so you demo it, and you realize "FORGET WHAT I SAID BEFORE, I NEED THIS THIIIIINNNNNGG!!!!". Then a few months later you stumble on a KVR thread... The Legend has been updated to 1.5 w/ some cool new features... *scratches chin*, demo demo demo, followed by "OMFG I CAN DO ALL THIS WITH DUNE BUT THIS IS A BAJILLION TIMES COOLER!!!!". Etc etc etc.

GAS-start

[KBSoundSmith]

I hate to admit it, but you'll eventually own most of them within a couple of years

So true!

Here's my prediction... OP chooses Dune2 to start... high quality sound, relatively basic interface (even for a synth idiot like me), and once you figure out how to navigate and layer the 8 voice slots u realize "I MAY NEVER NEED ANYTHING ELSE!!!".. which is fantasy land speak, of course, and 9 months on you see Falcon on sale... so you demo it, and you realize "FORGET WHAT I SAID BEFORE, I NEED THIS THIIIIINNNNNGG!!!!". Then a few months later you stumble on a KVR thread... The Legend has been updated to 1.5 w/ some cool new features... *scratches chin*, demo demo demo, followed by "OMFG I CAN DO ALL THIS WITH DUNE BUT THIS IS A BAJILLION TIMES COOLER!!!!". Etc etc etc.

GAS-start

GAS is easy to cure, the OP needn't worry.

1) Be poor and pretend to be content with what you have
2) Spend your time making music.

And the best way to achieve #1 is by doing #2

[ghettosynth]

Reaktor is a rabbit hole. Too much crap to wade through, hastily designed synths with too few patches with the exception of the NI stuff done in house...

Do you REALLY have Reaktor? What you say is nonsense.

The user library is HUGE, and has MANY very good ensembles. And, contrary to some, the old factory libraries have VERY GOOD ensembles too, IMO. That nonsense about the "quality" is something I don't af«gree upon. If you want quality, run Reaktor at 96 kHz.

And for a beginner, it offers the resources to start from the very basic and grow up to the infinity. The best investment, IMO.

Yes I have it, got it with Komplete, but can't seem to wrap my head around it despite several tries. Maybe it's just me.

Believe you me, I want to like it, cause then I won't be tempted to look at anything else, but I can't seem to organize the whole mess of it. I'm a minimalist and something like Reaktor + Kontakt would be most everything I need maybe besides Zebra, Omnisphere and Falcon.

I recently purchased Falcon and I find that a much easier time using than Reaktor which theoretically is much more modular and more powerful.

What's your difficulty? Using the pre-made ensembles is as simple as instantiate Reaktor, load the Ensemble, and that's it. You have tons of them, spanning basically any synthesis technique there is.

Agreed.

Load the old factory ensembles, and study how they were done. I promise you will learn A LOT.

I think that the U/I sometimes turns people off, however, there is a lot of variety and genuinely useful stuff for learning in there. I've attached the layout of 2-osc, a rather benignly named synth that is really quite powerful. It's a two oscillator subtractive synth with two filters that are both core based and oversampled and audio rate filter FM. You can oversample the whole damn thing up to four times if you want with Reaktor's sample rate adjustment but that will eat your CPU.

This is a great basic subtractive synth and it's just one of the factory examples. I would compare this favorably to many of the recommendations here that are not really modern in terms of technology. It has some interesting features like a "Buzz" oscillator and the dual sawtooth "2-Saw" oscillators which are something like a mild supersaw.

This won't compete with Diva, but, in many cases will sound better than many commercial synths.

[InLight-Tone]

Ok thanks to ghettosynth & fmr I'm diving back in and sucking it up. Guess I was wanting something simpler and clean like Falcon, but I know with a little effort could organize Reaktor way beyond that so thanks...