KVR Audio

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 6:41 am

people think this synth is overpriced really? It's only $149 correct?

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:03 am

Paying a dollar for a dollar is considered to be overpriced by many KVR members.

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:05 am

if I'm going to buy a dollar then it'd have to be at a discount or there no reason to buy it, lol. It'd be fair to get half off the dollar, like most synths go at market place

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:09 am

You see

Synchanter · Post by **Synchanter** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:10 am

Sampleconstruct wrote:
Synchanter wrote:After intensively comparing about 20 synth demos, I rate Spectral up there.
To me, it has a modern, bright, airy and cutting-edge sound, breaking new sonic territory, not trying to hark back to analogue.
Yes, absolutely true, if analog/retro/vintage is the goal/aim/preference, Spectral is the wrong synth to get, it can sound very warm, rich and lush though, but in general it has a crisp, digital, pristine sound.

Yeah, crisp is the word. My first impression was that it sounds very clear, "super hi-fi".
I like the range of sounds it can make, from light and ethereal effects and pads, to heavy percussion, bass and aggressive leads suitable for rock or metal.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:55 am

Satch1 wrote:Thankfully I've had no crashes in Reaper 32bit.

I absolutely love this synth, defo a keeper for me. Plenty of options to tweak the sound along with deep modulation and flexible FX routing... very rewarding

That's encouraging. Perhaps some improvements have been made since I initially tried it out.

ThePresent · Post by **ThePresent** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 10:10 am

Very easy to make rich and fat sounds. Outfitted with good presets.
Quite deep, didn't really get to the customfilter-drawing.
Nice effects section, especially delay and chorus.
I demoed it during OSC58, 20 + instances of Spectral totally sucked up my 6 GB of RAM.
Some presets seem to dissapear, every time I started my project, the snare preset was replaced by some padlike sound.
A very good synth, I imagine learning it inside out can take your music into beautiful and unique soundscapes.
But personally, I was given a choice between Spectral and Synthmaster and I chose for the latter, just by intuition I guess, and maybe a bit because of some bugginess mentioned above. Have to admit that I didn't have any experience with Synthmaster, but yeah, intuition, hunch, feeling, you know. One thing that I thought made Spectral less attractive: no dedicated noise source.

jc_vt · Post by **jc_vt** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 1:56 pm

I know you like both, but if forced to choose, Spectral or Diversion? I can probably only afford one right now, and like the demos of both. I ask because I continue to be impressed with the sounds you get out of each...

Sampleconstruct wrote:I think it's underpriced for the sounds it can create.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 1:59 pm

ThePresent wrote:One thing that I thought made Spectral less attractive: no dedicated noise source.

Well, considering you can have FOUR oscillators, and you can draw just about anything into them (even noise), you can have up to 4 noise sources at once...

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:03 pm

jc_vt wrote:I know you like both, but if forced to choose, Spectral or Diversion? I can probably only afford one right now, and like the demos of both. I ask because I continue to be impressed with the sounds you get out of each...

Sampleconstruct wrote:I think it's underpriced for the sounds it can create.

Tough question, if you want to combine sample based sounds, granular synthesis with digital oscillators and FM synthesis get Diversion, if not, get Spectral. They are very different beasts so either or is hard to answer.

Synchanter · Post by **Synchanter** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:09 pm

jc_vt wrote:I know you like both, but if forced to choose, Spectral or Diversion? I can probably only afford one right now, and like the demos of both. I ask because I continue to be impressed with the sounds you get out of each...

Not sure anyone can tell you a clear winner as tone and sound is subjective.

I came up with this way to compare synths using their demos:
Find the best bass preset on each, optimize until it sounds as good as you can make it, then compare.
Then do the same for the best piano-ish preset, the best pads preset and the best effects preset.

It will take some time, but by the end, you should be very clear which one you prefer.

Robmobius · Post by **Robmobius** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:17 pm

I bought this synth a while back. In my opinion, it's one of the best synths around. It can pretty much do anything you want.

What really stumped me was the lack of, well... anything from Linplug. It's supposed to be their flagship synth, and not a jot... They've let it completely slip under the radar. I only discovered it by accident while trawling through youtube.

Not tutorials... Barely any reviews... And it's been out quite a while now.

There's not even a groove 3 tutorial about it!!

dermichl · Post by **dermichl** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:36 pm

Robmobius wrote:I bought this synth a while back. In my opinion, it's one of the best synths around. It can pretty much do anything you want.

What really stumped me was the lack of, well... anything from Linplug. It's supposed to be their flagship synth, and not a jot... They've let it completely slip under the radar. I only discovered it by accident while trawling through youtube.

Not tutorials... Barely any reviews... And it's been out quite a while now.

There's not even a groove 3 tutorial about it!!

so did i, i learned about Spectral as a sideline in the most comprehensive synth thread!

demo is running nicely. seems to be a digital beauty - i even like some of its bass presets ( which is not true in my book about Massive and others ).

Robmobius · Post by **Robmobius** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:47 pm

dermichl wrote:
Robmobius wrote:I bought this synth a while back. In my opinion, it's one of the best synths around. It can pretty much do anything you want.

What really stumped me was the lack of, well... anything from Linplug. It's supposed to be their flagship synth, and not a jot... They've let it completely slip under the radar. I only discovered it by accident while trawling through youtube.

Not tutorials... Barely any reviews... And it's been out quite a while now.

There's not even a groove 3 tutorial about it!!
so did i, i learned about Spectral as a sideline in the most comprehensive synth thread!

demo is running nicely. seems to be a digital beauty - i even like some of its bass presets ( which is not true in my book about Massive and others ).

Yeah, it definitely is a digital synth as you said, but very nice sounding... I thought that it had some decent bass sounds as well. But it's pads and sound scape are exquisite.

I think $149 is a reasonable price as well (ie - comparable to other synths on the market). Especially considering what it's capable of.

I've not checked the Linplug site in a while, but there's very little in the way of preset packs or tutorials.

Tutorials seem a scandalous oversight. Because it does'nt quite work in the usual synth way. It's not that hard, but you've got to get your head around it's architecture. Would have been really handy to have starting out.

C'mon groove 3 where are you?!

Gosh · Post by **Gosh** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 3:28 pm

Robmobius wrote:I bought this synth a while back. In my opinion, it's one of the best synths around. It can pretty much do anything you want.

What really stumped me was the lack of, well... anything from Linplug. It's supposed to be their flagship synth, and not a jot... They've let it completely slip under the radar. I only discovered it by accident while trawling through youtube.

Not tutorials... Barely any reviews... And it's been out quite a while now.

There's not even a groove 3 tutorial about it!!

it is peter's way. he likes to keep a low profile, which means you won't see any aggressive advertisments from linplug or too early announcements of new products and so forth. this also means that one can get the impression that they do not support their products well enough (i think there was even a discussion about this on the linplug forum some time ago). imo, i prefer their way of doing business compared to some other competitors. if you want to be up to date on what's going on at linplug then subscribe to their newsletter (if you haven't already done so). you won't get spammed and you receive some valuable information like for example the release of ian boddy's new preset bank for spectral (which can be found here: http://www.linplug.com/sounds.html). it also never hurts to drop peter an e-mail since he is always friendly and helpful.
cheers

LinPlug Spectral - your opinions wanted