KVR Audio

JoeCat · Post by **JoeCat** » Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:27 pm

Another "vote" for U-he Diva, just because you get emulations of those iconic 70s / 80s analog synths in a package that is relatively easy to use for a beginner (you can ignore a lot of the tweak-able stuff), and if you want to experiment a bit, you can mix/match components without getting into audio routing and modular complexities. Of course it sounds great, and if it's heavy on your CPU you can dial it back to track, but render in higher-quality (an often overlooked but tremendous feature).

There are of course other great poly synths, but if you're purchasing just one for now, IMHO this is the most bang for the buck. Tons of presets also, plus great templates as starting points for building out those ubiquitous synths.

Passing Bye · Post by **Passing Bye** » Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:37 pm

I know these kind of threads can turn into "name your favorite synth" too quickly, but there's plenty to consider and not everyone sleeps here to know about them all.

Having said that, maybe look into not so complex, but capable stuff, like U-He Hive, Sonic Academy ANA 2 or even Synapse Audio Dune 3, all three have favorable CPU-outcome ratio, capable of giving you quite wide palette of sounds, both modern and vintage.

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 6:24 am

Aevor wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2020 4:09 pm
Distorted Horizon wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:59 pm An important question.. What DAW do you use?
I have the FL Studio Producer edition.

When some synth is called cpu-intensive, what does that mean exactly? Like, I have a pretty powerful office laptop with an i7 chip and 8GB's of RAM, am I good to go with those specs, or should I stay away from the likes of Prophet or Diva for example?

Ok. If you really want to spend money, I'd suggest that you go to IL store (or wait for a discount price from jrrshop or similar) and buy some native synth. They work best with fls.
OR
all-around workhorse synth that has everything built in.. Arturia pigments does wavetable, va and granular, Synthmaster does va, wavetables, additive, fm, vector, and next version should have granular too.

Otherwise I recommend that you'd get a few quality freeware synths and stick with those couple of years before wasting your money on something that you can get for free.

Uhe tyrell
Synth1
TAL freebies
Fathom mono

Those could get you far, but rather get one synth in each synthesis type.. One subtractive, one wavetable, one granular, one fm, one additive and one modular.

Aevor · Post by **Aevor** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:36 am

Thanks for all the answers! I spent the last night fiddling around with UheTyrell and reading it's manual; very educating! I also tried out the demo version of Diva, and it does sound great but is really quite heavy on the chip... of all the Uhe demos I've tried Ace still sounds the best to me, but maybe that's just because of the presets are of a certain kind?

Aevor · Post by **Aevor** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:39 am

Btw, what kind of things give a software synth a "signature sound"? I mean if it's just sound waves and osc and lfo etc.?

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 9:19 am

honestly, there are so many truly good free synths out there now. Personally though as far as paid, if I could only have one synth it was be Omnisphere. It is super pricey but worth it in my opinion.

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 10:08 am

ATS wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 9:19 am honestly, there are so many truly good free synths out there now. Personally though as far as paid, if I could only have one synth it was be Omnisphere. It is super pricey but worth it in my opinion.

+1

If I were starting now with the knowledge I have, I wouldn't buy any virtual synths.

Omnisphere is a good idea, you could also buy a DAW that has great tools built in.. For example Reason has everything you can imagine you'd need for years.

WOK · Post by **WOK** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 10:44 am

Amazona Tyrell. Classic analog layout, and it's free.

Martkorg · Post by **Martkorg** » Sat Feb 22, 2020 1:15 pm

perpetual3 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2020 1:12 pm If you have a thing for the DX7 sounds, Dexed is free.

I think that UHE Diva might be worth some serious consideration. If you’re not familiar it has a semi modular topology where the signal flow is fixed, but you can mix and match oscillators, filters, and envelopes from many iconic analog synths.

If that’s too expensive, I highly recommend the TAL plugins as well. As far as synths go, I really enjoy TAL mod, also a fixed signal flow synth but with some more flexibility and modulation options. Some have said it has a Rolandish sound. TAL also make some emulations.

+1 for Diva

kvotchin · Post by **kvotchin** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 3:25 am

Aevor wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:39 am Btw, what kind of things give a software synth a "signature sound"? I mean if it's just sound waves and osc and lfo etc.?

Code: algorithms and the like.

Either their own coding quirks (for their own sake, as it were), or the (largely subjective) accuracy of their emulations.

As for the latter, people are generally of the opinion that “near enough is good enough”. To each his or her own.

DrEntropy · Post by **DrEntropy** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:01 pm

You can't go wrong with U-He's Zebra 2. It is great fun and powerful, and there are lots of tutorials out there on it. However, since you have FL Studio, you already have a couple synths to play with! Every edition comes with Wasp for example (unless you are on a mac I guess?) .
EDIT: I re-read your post, and I missed this : "maybe do all of my music with that single synth". In that case the Zebra 2 would be my choice, unless you wanted to go for something with a sampling engine like UVI Falcon / Halion / Omnisphere type thing.

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:30 pm

Msoundfactory over zebra any day.. Just made some insane sounds with.. I'm melting..

DrEntropy · Post by **DrEntropy** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:34 pm

Distorted Horizon wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:30 pm Msoundfactory over zebra any day.. Just made some insane sounds with.. I'm melting..

Oh yeah that is a great synth too. I mean let's face it, it is not really possible to avoid Gear Acquisition Syndrome, so don't worry, whatever you buy will not be your only VST synth

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:51 pm

DrEntropy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:34 pm don't worry, whatever you buy will not be your only VST synth

Second to that

jzero · Post by **jzero** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 5:33 am

In FL Studio, you already have the 3xOSC. It doesn't have the warmest oscillators but the SVF LP filter on it is great. Also nice is the phase randomization and stereo detune-ability of each oscillator. If you put a soft-clipper or a blood overdrive on it, you can get some thick analogish sounds out of it. The envelope shapes can be tweaked for nice percussive envelopes also.

For commercial stuff, Waves Element is a pretty decent synth for learning on. It has a simple 2 page gui with two oscillators and a good tone. It is laid out pretty easily in that not a lot of stuff is hidden.
Even though it's easy for learning it still has some power. There's 4 LFOs, 3 envelopes and a step-sequencer for modulation sources. It has distortion, bit crushing, reverb, delay, chorus, and eq for FX built in. Like most Waves products, it can be picked up for $29 during various sales throughout the year.

(Note: on my machine the gui is larger than this image. It is not resizable)

Trying to decide on a "analog" VST synth (beginner)