Synths you regret buying

[Delta Sign]

To reduce regrets, I wonder if it would be good to share methods for demoing synths -- or if everyone is totally different in that area, too?

My one suggestion: don't buy anything during periods of inactivity. If you're in the swing of making music, and there's something you hear that would sound great in what you're making, buy it. If you're still sorting out what your next direction or sound is going to be and you're still demo'ing your own process...that's a terrible time to buy anything. That's how i ended up with most of my synth plugins.

Yeah, that's solid advice. Never buy anything because you think it may be the thing that finally gets your workflow/sound where you want it to be. Only buy stuff if you have a specific purpose for it in mind. You can't solve problems you don't know.

[Ed A.]

Ok, but for someone like Ed A.: "I think it has a horrific GUI, the sound is quite boring IMO"

...don't buy the full version if you demo'ed it.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll never in a million years understand how somebody can demo something, hate it and buy it anyway.

Because I grew to hate it as I used it. My contempt for it wasn't apparent in the beginning. You make it sound like my hobby is wasting money.

So again, please read what I said. I said demo it and hate it and buy it. Not demo it, like and then grow to hate it. They are not the same thing.

I’m really tired of your condescending pomposity. BTW, I heard your demos and you should consider a career as an accountant.

[wagtunes]

Ok, but for someone like Ed A.: "I think it has a horrific GUI, the sound is quite boring IMO"

...don't buy the full version if you demo'ed it.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll never in a million years understand how somebody can demo something, hate it and buy it anyway.

Because I grew to hate it as I used it. My contempt for it wasn't apparent in the beginning. You make it sound like my hobby is wasting money.

So again, please read what I said. I said demo it and hate it and buy it. Not demo it, like and then grow to hate it. They are not the same thing.

I’m really tired of your condescending pomposity.

And I'm tired of people accusing me of saying things I didn't say.

The door swings both ways my friend.

[martinjuenke]

Ok, but for someone like Ed A.: "I think it has a horrific GUI, the sound is quite boring IMO"

...don't buy the full version if you demo'ed it.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll never in a million years understand how somebody can demo something, hate it and buy it anyway.

Because I grew to hate it as I used it. My contempt for it wasn't apparent in the beginning. You make it sound like my hobby is wasting money.

So again, please read what I said. I said demo it and hate it and buy it. Not demo it, like and then grow to hate it. They are not the same thing.

I’m really tired of your condescending pomposity.

And I'm tired of people accusing me of saying things I didn't say.

The door swings both ways my friend.

POPCORN!

[zerocrossing]

Wusik Station...well the upgrade. I bought an old version on some group buy and paid almost nothing for it, but later caved in one of his countless unfinished upgrades that was nearly instantly superseded by a new version. Never again. It’s always buggy and unremarkable.

Wayoutware Kickaxxe and timewARP. Great for their time, but then abandoned. I think timewARP still works, but Kickaxxe stopped a long time ago and his response was, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t work in modern operating systems.”

All Virsyn plugins. They’re good when they’re working, but more often than not, I’ll find they they just don’t work for some reason. Then I spend my precious little time trying to figure out why they stopped working or are no longer authorized or whatever. I never get emails from them informing me that there are new versions, but they love to tell me what’s on sale. They never seem to do proper updates or upgrades on anything. I’ll never buy from them again. Not worth it.

Everything else I feel like I got my money’s worth out of or I still use. I’m not going to grouse about a plugin that I paid $49 for that I used for a few weeks and then lost interest in. To me that’s worth it for entertainment. I’ll often just find playing with a new plugin fun, even if I don’t really end up making it a mainstay of my productions. I’ll often go back and look at a plugin that I’ve not used in a long time and rekindle that magic. I recently did this with FM8. I’d sort of discarded it, but now it’s back in use.

[Winstontaneous]

POPCORN!

Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSRCemf2JHc

[Halonmusic]

Wayoutware Kickaxxe and timewARP. Great for their time, but then abandoned. I think timewARP still works, but Kickaxxe stopped a long time ago and his response was, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t work in modern operating systems.”

Lol seriously? Btw, isnt Wayoutware a part of SONIVOX ? Maybe they could update it.

[martinjuenke]

Wayoutware Kickaxxe and timewARP. Great for their time, but then abandoned. I think timewARP still works, but Kickaxxe stopped a long time ago and his response was, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t work in modern operating systems.”

Lol seriously? Btw, isnt Wayoutware a part of SONIVOX ? Maybe they could update it.

Dream on!

[KBSoundSmith]

Hmm, regret is too strong a word, at least for my experiences (with the exception of Tassman 4, that's a disappointment). There have been a few that were discontinued, so that was disappointing. But there were some I grew out of or that turned out to be less interesting than I thought they'd be. I can't remember them all, but the standouts are...

Discontinued:

• Camel Audio Alchemy. I'm on Windows, not switching to Mac just for a Logic exclusive plugin, as highly as I thought of it -- that said, it was my first "big boy" synth, so there's some nostalgia attached there.
• Linplug Spectral. I didn't think highly of Linplug's other plugins...so I was surprised that Spectral is/was a legitimate masterpiece. It may be one of the finest soft synths ever developed -- and it was also legitimately unique. The only feature request I had for it was MSEGs. I'm still able to use it fortunately, but who knows which Windows update could be the last.

Grew Out of/Lost Interest

• Scanned Synth Pro. I was interested in this because it is one of the extremely small number of synths that have been developed implementing Scanned Synthesis, which is mostly unexplored and development is otherwise limited to Csound. SSP itself is rather basic and I personally don't feel it gets to very interesting territory -- plus, I think other synths just have better audio quality. Perhaps Enzyme by the same company may be better, but I haven't bothered to demo it. I'm curious to see if anyone ever develops an interesting scanned synthesis instrument.
• Aalto. It seemed to get quite a buzz from a number of people. I bought, tried it, made a bunch of patches, lived with the synth for about a year...but honestly, I thought it sounds like sh*t and still do. I really don't get where its loyal following comes from.

Otherwise, I've become extremely picky about synths and now own very few -- I guess a quality beats quantity sort of thing. The ones I own: Zebra 2.8/HZ, Serum, Diva, Spectral, Reaktor 6, plus orchestral and drum samples. I continue demoing new synths, but I haven't come across any that truly tempt me. Of the ones I own, Zebra gets the most use.

[Halonmusic]

Wayoutware Kickaxxe and timewARP. Great for their time, but then abandoned. I think timewARP still works, but Kickaxxe stopped a long time ago and his response was, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t work in modern operating systems.”

Lol seriously? Btw, isnt Wayoutware a part of SONIVOX ? Maybe they could update it.

Dream on!

[ghettosynth]

Wayoutware Kickaxxe and timewARP. Great for their time, but then abandoned. I think timewARP still works, but Kickaxxe stopped a long time ago and his response was, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t work in modern operating systems.”

Lol seriously? Btw, isnt Wayoutware a part of SONIVOX ? Maybe they could update it.

LOL, maybe, probably not.

[5Lives]

Anything from FXpansion given their horrible long term product support - Geist 2 and DCAM Synth Squad.

[kgbrolic]

Electrax2:

I absolutely hate the GUI.
The included presets are mediocre at best.
I can't sell it because I bought it from an authorized reseller.

I'm stuck with it so maybe I'll buy some sound packs one day. I actually like the sound that it produces but you have to find the right sound designers like Ocean Veau.

[benheman]

Thing with these synth softwares... the designers are sometimes pretty good at showing off to you what their products can do, through all those skillfully made Demo Songs and detailed display of the products features.

You hear those demo songs, and you could "feel yourself right there"! So you start planning on buying them. After you buy them, if you ever did, you realize it takes some expertise and knowledge of the programs to make them work for you! You may end up kicking them to the shelf to gather dust, or resell them for cheap. Meanwhile you wait for the next big one that "really works" for you!!

So you see my friends, we have no one to blame but ourselves. I think the less we buy, the better we become at using those that we already have.

Just make sure you REALLY love the sound, timbre, programming architecture and GUI layout design...and probably the name brand, if you care, and then buy a couple of them. After that, just have fun!

[GearNostalgia]

Kurzweil PC3. Great synth, but I am so used to plastic synth keys I can not play with semi weighted. Still I love the sound so I can not sell it, but I would trade it for the unweighted.