Softsynth itch. What to buy?

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Hello, KVR crowd.

I have this growing feeling of wanting to buy yet another synth plugin. Just to broaden horizon, skills and soundwise.

I consider myself a something in between of preset-surfer and sound designer. Kind of power user. Sometimes I enjoy making patches from scratch, but for production needs I mostly adapt existing presets with heavy customisation of its every aspect.

I lean toward synths with relatively complex OSCs, I believe that they define sound, not filters or effects. I like oscillator effects, like warping in Serum, or Z3TA2. Constantly variable waveforms for VA and such.
I also value good UI in terms of workflow, not so much in looks.

These are my synths, ranged from most to least frequent use:
- Synthmaster One. Fast, clean, great. More on simpler side. Occasionally buggy. Go-to at the moment.
- ANA 2. Second tier go-to synth. A bit too CPU hungry for my field laptop.
- Serum. Almost perfect, can make every sound. Useless presets. Maybe just too heavy on CPU.
- Vacuum Pro. Simple one page VA. Two OSCs with a slight twist and several shaping possibilities in terms. Quite flexible, sounds not bad too. I use it for sketching.
- Tyrell N6. Simple and good sounding VA that's too hungry extensive for polyphonic use.
- Wiggle. Wonderful concept. OSCs are beautiful. Use from time to time.
- OSCiLLOT. Nice modular. Don't use that often.
- Synthmaster 2.9. Too complicated for it's own good. Rarely used.
- Z3TA+2 - great OSCs (six!). Not keen on UI and modulation workflow. Rarely used.
- Element. Looks and sounds nice. Horrible on CPU and unable to use on two workstations because of Waves stupid licensing system. Used only in old projects.
- Hybrid 3. Not the prettiest synth, sounds average too. Almost not used.

I use Operator and Wavetable from Live 10, as well as Granulator.

I also have a bunch of Computer Music synths (Dune, Thorn, Bazille, Curve 2), which I don’t use much as well for different reasons.

Of the recent stuff I’ve passed on is TAL Mod and Rob Papen Go2. Didn’t find them compelling enough.

So the question is:
What to buy?
I don't care much for sonic overlap. Just want something fun, with good sound and UI.
Wound't want to spend more than $150. Lesser is better, obviously.

I have 25% off coupon for U-he. I always gravitated towards Zebra, but something is odd about it. I should demo it again.
Also Loom Classic is on sale. But demo expired couple of years ago when I tried it the first time.
What would you suggest considering my list and loose requirements?

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Zebra 2's UI is easy to understand once you know what you're looking at. Basically it's oscillators on the left, filters and everything else on the right, and they only show up when they are active. So, for example, when you init the patch you'd have an oscillator, an LFO, and a filter, and that's it. The middle is where you do the routing and hook them all together, kind of like 4 buses, with signals flowing from the top through whatever is below to the bottom.

Ever consider FabFilter's Twin 2 ? Little different, interesting / fun UI, three oscillators, and of course the most important thing is that it looks really cool. lol.
Last edited by low_low on Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Haven’t read anything past your first sentence. You won’t broaden your horizon until you learn what you already have inside out.

That’s not meant to sound rude BTW.

edit: you already have serum.
Last edited by Mushy Mushy on Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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This entire forum is wading through predictions, opinions, barely formed thoughts, drama, and whining. If you don't enjoy that, why are you here? :D ShawnG

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Zebra, Audjoo Helix, Thorn come to mind for your requirements. Dunno if you like their sound though.

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Loom is a good time imo makes additive fun. You really wanna learn some new tricks? Harmor or izotope iris can do some wild shit with resynthesis... throw samples in and magic pops out. Any time I got a new sound from some other synth I always think... what if I bounce and feed that thru harmor? Like a digital sampler made even more digital. Thats a flavor you dont know you missin til you get a taste. Native instruments got a resynth in reaktor called form. I own it and dont use it but check it out might be good for you if harmor or iris aint your thing.
Last edited by Armagibbon on Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Iris 2 and Biotek.
Windows 10 and too many plugins

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An older synth like FM8 might be worth a try, and the newer BioTek 2 has a ton of options available.

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zzz00m wrote:Iris 2 and Biotek.
You beat me to it... (Biotek) :hihi:

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Aparillo is on sale now: https://sugar-bytes.de/aparillo

I'm glad to own this one because it's different from anything else in terms of workflow and sound, and also fairly light on cpu

I generally use it for fx or textured arps

Repro-1 & 5 from uhe are quality analog emulations with a lot of possibilities despite the simple oscillators

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Europa is another one to consider if you like interesting oscillator sections. You get morphing oscillators (wavetables plus some other options like bit noise and karplus-strong synthesis) which are operated on by two serum-esque osc effects in series. There's also a cool spectral filter section (still part of the oscillator block) and per-osc unison.

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I like Spire a lot.
It is easy to use.
Last edited by Examigan on Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Biotek 2

It's not too expensive and it's a sound designer's dream. You can import your own samples for straight playback or granular synthesis. It's got a mod matrix that is to die for.

This synth made me realize that I never have to buy another synth ever again. And I probably won't.

Get it. You won't be sorry. Of course demo it first to make sure it works on your system and that you actually like the sound.

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wagtunes wrote:Biotek 2
You can import your own samples for straight playback or granular synthesis. It's got a mod matrix that is to die for.
+1
I really like Biotek 2.

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Examigan wrote:
zzz00m wrote:Iris 2 and Biotek.
You beat me to it... (Biotek) :hihi:
I would have to say it would be a long time before you exhausted the possibilities of Biotek. I still haven't upgraded to version 2.

The original version has 12 layers, with 4 oscillators each, and your choice of using a sample or a traditional VA waveform in each oscillator. Then add a bazillion modulations and other things ...
extensive frequency modulation and a separate white and
pink noise generator. Followed by two serial multimode filters and a
drive module with several types and a four-band equalizer with shelf
and bell curves.

Each sound is mixed into four effect busses, each featuring a sum
overdrive, a compressor, a modulation effect like chorus, flanger, phaser
or sum filter, and a space effect like delay or clocked delay, or natural,
plate or non-linear reverb.

Freely assignable modulations with an easy-to-understand user
interface offer maximum flexibility easily surpassing even expensive
hardware synthesizers. Biotek offers 8 LFOs, 4 envelopes and a wide
range of sources.
Then new in version 2: https://www.tracktion.com/products/biotek

Spinal Saw Oscillator
The unique ‘Spinal Saw’ oscillator allows you to have up to 11 detuned sawtooth waves within a single oscillator. Considering BioTek features 4 oscillators per voice, this gives you a total of 44 sawteeth per sound layer – and you can have unlimited sound layers per patch. Perfect for making thick leads, huge pads and rumbling synth basses – unleash the beast.
Granular Oscillator
The BioTek 2 granular oscillator extracts sound grains from the sample of your choice and redistributes them into dense clouds, scattered drops or any density in-between. This allows you to create everything from uniquely textured musical instruments to otherworldly soundscapes. The oscillator itself provides a useful visual reference for how the grains relate to the source sample, showing playback position and pitch relationships. The BioTek 2 granular oscillator brings a mighty storm surge of synthesis to an already powerful engine.
Deep Parameter Control
BioTek’s unlimited engine can scale to literally tens of thousands of parameters so managing the workflow is key. The intuitive system for importing your own samples and promoting parameters to the main ‘Wild’ macro page allows you to quickly construct your own instrument. The customizable ‘Wild’ page macro controls are immediately accessible to your DAW automation and new in version 2 is the ability to also access the entire parameter list from the deep editing pages. You have unprecedented control over all the instruments sound shaping tools.
Surgical Precision
No synthesizer is complete without a comprehensive filtering and effects section. BioTek has a full complement of both – 9 high quality effects can be loaded into 4 effect slots per voice allowing for extensive creative sound shaping. Filtering is also extremely flexible with numerous types to choose from, now including Transistor Ladder and Sallen-Key in BioTek 2 – sculpt your sound with surgical precision.
Windows 10 and too many plugins

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