Synths for Drones?

[DigiPour]

Looking at what's out there for drones. I'm aware I could Paulstretch a fart and put some heavy reverb over it.

Preferably non-DRM/offline activation developers. Free suggestions as well.

So far, my shortlist is:

u-he stuff
ArcSyn
Sunrizer

[wagtunes]

You kind of answered your own question. Any synth can do drones.

Without much effort?

Bazille
Omnisphere

But $500 is a lot of money just to do drones.

Be prepared to have every synth in existence named.

[tedannemann]

Any synth + Eventide Blackhole fits the bill.
But I can highly recommend: Granite from New Sonic Arts, amazing drone machine: https://www.newsonicarts.com/html/granite.php

[DigiPour]

Modulation heavy and/or "textured" synths?

Granite looks right up my alley. Thanks.

[Niowiad]

I'm aware I could Paulstretch a fart and put some heavy reverb over it.

[shroom81]

Reaktor library has some excellent drone machines. Arcsyn is good for drones as well with it's many'a f**ked up oscillators

And is 50% off here:
https://www.adsrsounds.com/product/software/arcsyn/

[DigiPour]

If I were to jump into any ecosystem, it'd be N.I. for the Reaktor. Only thing scaring me off with that is CPU usage (AMD 3.1 quad-core/16gb ram).

[skipscada]

Madrona Labs' Aalto

Bid for it here!

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=492028

[Cinebient]

Not the common synth...more an FX but for drones i find Kaleidoscope the best thing since sliced bread.
U-he synths and Omnisphere too (but yeah, a bit expensive for just drones) and everything else which can be microtuned.
Or wait for Wolfgang Palm´s Infinite(Pro).

[ghettosynth]

Reaktor is seriously the best value here. Not so much because it can do things that other synths can't do, but because there is a huge drone-creating community that uses Reaktor and so there are simply so many ways to create drones that essentially cost nothing once you have Reaktor.

[Hez]

Modulateable effects are very useful for drones - Arcsyn and bazille fall a little short there, but are brilliant sound sources if you're happy to set up separate fx chains and have a powerful way of modulating them in your DAW (eg Bitwig, max for live).

U-he Zebra is probably the best of their catalogue for drones due to the modular fx section/general flexibility.

Reaktor 6 is the king for atmospheres for me at the moment. Some of the user/built in ensembles are great and can get results very quickly (snapshot morphing is good for getting unique sounds out of other people's presets). Blocks is probably the most fun I've ever had creating drones in software.

UVI Falcon is also fantastic as it's easy to layer granular processing with subtractive/wavetable stuff, and the modulation architecture is beastly, but the DRM may be too aggressive for you.

[DigiPour]

Thanks for the responses. I demo'd Aalto a while back and was impressed. Also will have to add Reaktor, at the least for the value.

I'm on a limited budget, so it's a good thing thing music is my only hobby : )

[stefangx]

Here are a couple of free Reaktor ensembles to try out:

Drone-e: http://www.antonioblanca.com/dron-e
Metaphysical Fabrications: http://contortdistort.com/index.php/sou ... rications/

[layzer]

PolyGas made great drones out of my personal fart sample collection

[raymondwave]

Not a synth, but tweaking Unfiltered Audio Sandman Pro with the sleep button can get you endless fun.

These are basically just a synth stab and Sandman Pro, followed by Eventide Blackhole.

https://soundcloud.com/raymondwave/02-ko-1411

https://soundcloud.com/raymondwave/04-eh-3628

Softube Modular Buchla sound module is interesting and I remember Roland System 100 plug-out can be modulated quite interestingly.