KVR Audio

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:39 pm

For trance and progressive house, before spending money on a more powerful synth, i would try the freebies Tyrell N6 and Tone2 Firebird. Both are easy to use, and sound good.
Many mentionned great synths above (Helix is low cpu, Diversion or Zebra/Hive are amazing too).
I may mention Circle2, which features some great chord presets, which might suit trance & house.

mcc> · Post by **mcc>** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:04 pm

i like the u-he stuff...talk about SOUNDING good....but zebra and bazille can get a little cpu-heavy for my liking plus the presets get a little dark and murky (albeit shimmery yes!?)...generally-speaking. i understand HIVE improves on the cpu-situation, it's a wondrous thing on the eyes no doubt (not that i hate 'ugly synths' by any means but you know, it's cool when they're not) and hive continues the u-he tradition of excellence....and is well-priced. that said, the guys at beep-street understand one thing better than a lot of synth-makers in my opinion, and that is that it's okay to have fun playing music. some of the sounds are exactly that (especially the arps) and with 600 to choose from that equates to a lot of FUN for $50 (half the crappy soundsets out there run easily $25 so for the money SUNRIZER is a winner simply on THAT basis). my only complaints are that some of SUNRIZER's sounds are a bit flat or hollow-sounding, which of course means you have to tweak things and open or back-off an envelope or filter or amp release....or whatever. plus the GUI is a bit more a screen-hog than necessary but i guess tat's becasue it was originally designed to be viewable on a i-pad and yes it's better to err on the side of more than less in such matters....bottom-line is that it's an inspired set of sounds which speaks well for it's designers. someone mentioned STROBE, for a little more $ the new STROBE 2 is well-priced and comes with tons of good sounds, a spiff clean new GUI....and heralds the famous D-CAM Fxpansion sound....another good choice for first synth i'd think. you get a whole lotta synth these days for very little money so grab something and go...it's what you do with it that counts after all....having fun should always be part of that...and if not why bother? so yeah free synths are always good!

mcc> · Post by **mcc>** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:13 pm

no longer an FAW fan...any company that does NOT provide an upgrade-path from one version to another (of basically the same synth?) is wacked if you ask me)....and refuses to answer e-mail queries as to why?
$129 to go from CIRCLE 1 to CIRCLE 2? that's crazy...not a good company to run with....there are tons of good companies out there that appreciate your business so there's no excuses for not running with one that supports it's customers' desire to support them.
loyalty works both ways...sorry FAW : (

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:55 pm

As a musician: Spire
As a sound designer: Synthmaster

(Sylenth is still good but Spire has IMO more the sound for the future)

mcc> · Post by **mcc>** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:06 pm

he said 'affordable' first synth....spire is $200 now that the sale is over.
i almost bit but wasn't as impressed as i wanted to be...i should've gone through more banks perhaps.
now synthmaster is affordable if you like designing your own sounds....which i really don't.
i think most guys wanna just sit down and start playing....

a little limited as to what it does is output's SIGNAL.....but what it does it does well.
the free version is easily worth it's price-tag...

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:30 pm

Most "affordable" is always a bit complicated because of special offers, sales etc.
Spire is $189, Sylenth something about $155 and also U-he Hive is $150... so they are relatively close.
Synthmaster is with Afaik $99 the most affordable synth but it's also the most complicated synth of all but has also a lot of presets.
Sylenth has a lot of "typical" presets, there is a lot of stuff used in many productions so this can also be an important thing for some users. Not to mention that there are dozens of tutorials with Sylenth how to create typical sounds.

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:37 pm

mcc> wrote:no longer an FAW fan...any company that does NOT provide an upgrade-path from one version to another (of basically the same synth?) is wacked if you ask me)....and refuses to answer e-mail queries as to why?
$129 to go from CIRCLE 1 to CIRCLE 2? that's crazy...not a good company to run with....there are tons of good companies out there that appreciate your business so there's no excuses for not running with one that supports it's customers' desire to support them.
loyalty works both ways...sorry FAW : (

Seriously?? The update from Circle1 to Circle2 was/is free. Just download Circle2 and enter your Circle1 serial and be done.

mcc> · Post by **mcc>** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:59 pm

well i'll be a monkey's uncle : G
that's fantastic news....now why couldn't someone at FAW simply tell me this when i wrote them?
i take back all mean and bad things i said about these fine germans.
hopefully the new soundset has 'matured' a bit...i'm very excited since the sounds i DID LIKE from CIRCLE ONE showed much promise as to what this thing can do....and it seems they sorted-out some of the cpu-usage issues.
and it's still a BIG neon light-show....pretty!

thanks BDEEP....i shall now take my lashes...!!!

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:06 am

Hehe, you're welcome! Yeah, the GUI has improved quite a bit. I still have some minor issues with it, but it's a good update. And Circle definitely has a different character than other synths, so it's good to have around.
Enjoy the unexpected upgrade;)

Robmobius · Post by **Robmobius** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:38 am

FAW Circle is another good one. Very underrated...

mcc> · Post by **mcc>** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:39 am

anyone looking to get into some oldies for $20 a pop.... http://www.kvraudio.com/news/linplug-re ... sale-31137

you can't beat this sale on octopus and alpha 3.
most anyone can afford $20...$10 soundsets!

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:40 am

mcc> wrote: The free version is easily worth it's price-tag...

BTW : I think that SynthMaster would be a great choice...

There's a lot of depth to that synth

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:43 am

If I could go back in time, I would have bought synthmaster and learned it inside and out.

Nocturnal909 · Post by **Nocturnal909** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:48 am

Diversion VST on sale now for Half price 89US but it does use a lot CPU. Really nice crisp sound.
I'll rank it up with Spire, Dune 2, Synthmaster.

Uhe ACE VST another low cost but sounding real good. Hive too but almost twice as much.

It's getting near Holiday sales season so waiting a bit might pay off.

Dont know what DAW you use and want to change down the line... Presonus or Logic X, they have nice Synth built in.

kv331 · Post by **kv331** » Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:21 am

4damind wrote: Synthmaster is with Afaik $99 the most affordable synth but it's also the most complicated synth of all but has also a lot of presets.

I guess the world needs a SynthMaster Basic version now, available for desktop and mobile

What is the good "affordable" vst synth?