Soft synths that really sound 'alive'

[chk071]

Spire was created with trance in mind, no doubt about it. It's a Russian synth, after all.

Interestingly, if you take a look at the first sound demos posted for Spire, it's anything but "made for Trance" or EDM. Pure 80ies cheesiness, IIRC... it's only since a while that it has somehow become the choice for EDM and Trance, and every week 10 new EDM soundsets surface. At least that's how i observed it. Maybe i'm wrong. It does sound very well for those kind of sounds though.

BTW, i can't at all comprehend the audio rate thing. Spire sounds very good with audio rate modulation. Or do i misunderstand something here?

[zerocrossing]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the question, but IMO, the reason the OP felt the CS-80 sounded "alive" had almost nothing to do with it's synth engine. The CS-80 sounds alive because of the polyphonic aftertouch and touch strip controller. A lot of synth players can do really good things by tweaking knobs while they play or run a sequence, but virtual instruments have no knobs unless you go down the MIDI controller assignment route. I find that a good VST can sound every bit as "alive" as a CS-80 if it is controlled correctly. Now sonics... that's another story, but there are a lot of modern software synths that do a great job.

Instead of looking for some magic VST to get you the life of an acoustic instrument, get a Roli Grand/Rise. Get a Linnstrument. If you've got a lot of money, try a Continuum or Eigenharp. I got a Rise 49 and it's amazing. It comes with a basic kind of subtractive/rompler synth, but it sounds incredibly alive because of how it can be controlled via the Rise. I can't wait to set up Falcon or Omnisphere to work with it. It'll be incredible.

[HunterKiller]

Probably TimewARP 2600? The audio clips seem to sound like it.

Yup good guess! I take it you have it?

This synth:

Can't find any synth with that name - where is it?

On the same website as this plugin.

Lol, I was hoping someone would remember that.

[thecontrolcentre]

Probably TimewARP 2600? The audio clips seem to sound like it.

Yup good guess! I take it you have it?

This synth:

Can't find any synth with that name - where is it?

On the same website as this plugin.

Lol, I was hoping someone would remember that.

I heard that Other gives This a good run for its money.

[Kumi_27]

Instead of looking for some magic VST to get you the life of an acoustic instrument, get a Roli Grand/Rise. Get a Linnstrument. If you've got a lot of money, try a Continuum or Eigenharp.

And if You're quite broke, get a GEM S2/S3, for example.
It's cheap, built like a tank and has polyphonic aftertouch

[highkoo]

This synth

Sounds good.
What synth is that?

[HunterKiller]

This synth

Sounds good.
What synth is that?

It's TimewARP2600.

The purpose of those examples was just fooling around, pushing the synth, to show it, rather than hide it behind song arrangements or worse yet, overbearing drums.

It sounds even better playing live, mp3 compression killed that last example, which was an example of some of the presets I've done for it.

[dark water]

TBH, I can make any soft synth sound really alive.
(The difficulty mostly then comes in trying to mix it into a busy arrangement).

1) As previously mentioned by a chap above, good and thoughtful playing of a softsynth can make its expression come 'alive'.

2) Re-amping a softsynth or mixing in a live studio re-recording can give it extra 3D depth.

3) Judicious use of certain plugins which alter pitch, frequency, 'wow n flutter' etc can trick a listener into thinking a softsynth is 'alive' via subtle drifting.

4) If, for some bizarre reason, we're not allowed to use the above ideas to make a softsynth come alive, then arguably one of my favourite instruments to answer this thread's premise would be Xils 3 (or its update Xils 4).

[pdxindy]

Reading through some responses, seems like there are various different meanings of the word alive.

Perhaps the synth that sounds most alive to me, is Bazille. Sometimes it has this snapping, crackling sound like electricity... like a barely controlled force. I attribute this to being able to do lots of modulation at audio rate and also to the ability to make arbitrary feedback loops that then behave in complex non-linear ways.

[highkoo]

Bazille

I dont know what I might have said earlier in this thread, but Bazille is currently my most-interesting-new-contender in this category too.
Unfortunately I have not really 'dove in' at all, so I dont have much to say. First synth in a while that nags my subconscious for spare time. But Ive played with it enough to know that this is probably a huge new adventure waiting for me. Ive been glad to see some presets floating around for it just to get a handle on it.
Im still getting used to the flow of it, but "Barely controlled" is exactly it. It fights. Its like it has an opinion, or something.

[fluffy_little_something]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the question, but IMO, the reason the OP felt the CS-80 sounded "alive" had almost nothing to do with it's synth engine. The CS-80 sounds alive because of the polyphonic aftertouch and touch strip controller. A lot of synth players can do really good things by tweaking knobs while they play or run a sequence, but virtual instruments have no knobs unless you go down the MIDI controller assignment route. I find that a good VST can sound every bit as "alive" as a CS-80 if it is controlled correctly. Now sonics... that's another story, but there are a lot of modern software synths that do a great job.

Instead of looking for some magic VST to get you the life of an acoustic instrument, get a Roli Grand/Rise. Get a Linnstrument. If you've got a lot of money, try a Continuum or Eigenharp. I got a Rise 49 and it's amazing. It comes with a basic kind of subtractive/rompler synth, but it sounds incredibly alive because of how it can be controlled via the Rise. I can't wait to set up Falcon or Omnisphere to work with it. It'll be incredible.

Does a Minimoog sound lively? I think most people would say yes, yet it did not have velocity, nor aftertouch, if I am not mistaken.

[Cinebient]

This thread inspires me now to create some new patches with Logic´s Sculpture and i would say that it´s for me the most living synth....because it really seems to have an own life and it´s freaking hard to create patches which works over several octaves (or even notes)
But damn, i was never more amazed what happy accidents i get sometimes out of it.
It sounds really organic, it morphs so great timbres, it breaths, it blows, it....whatever.
The noises sounds so great and disturbing. It mostly needs some good extern FX but for me it´s still the king of really unique sounding textures.
But i´m ready for a version 2.0.......can´t believe that it´s from 2004(?) but still in a class of it´s own.

[mcnoone]

It excels at making the ugliest non-organic sounds possible.

My experience is that a synth which is able to make really ugly, ear-piercing tones (Like Spire or Virus) also excells at making exciting and very playful/musically sounding patches. When a synth can have excessive top end or squeaking exaggerated resonance, you can tame it when ajustiung the patch and get a timbre with that necessary little bit of "oomph", but if your synth always plays safe, you can't really make it shine (like Hive or Dune2 - they both are too tame, good for pads or mellow background sounds, but try to make an edgy lead with any of them - they will try hard but won't deliver)

Tame? Not.
https://app.box.com/s/p3dup2hwbo2mjkfuxw405mj8z0nm3sp3

[e@rs]

+1 for Bazille.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the question, but IMO, the reason the OP felt the CS-80 sounded "alive" had almost nothing to do with it's synth engine. The CS-80 sounds alive because of the polyphonic aftertouch and touch strip controller. A lot of synth players can do really good things by tweaking knobs while they play or run a sequence, but virtual instruments have no knobs unless you go down the MIDI controller assignment route. I find that a good VST can sound every bit as "alive" as a CS-80 if it is controlled correctly. Now sonics... that's another story, but there are a lot of modern software synths that do a great job.

Instead of looking for some magic VST to get you the life of an acoustic instrument, get a Roli Grand/Rise. Get a Linnstrument. If you've got a lot of money, try a Continuum or Eigenharp. I got a Rise 49 and it's amazing. It comes with a basic kind of subtractive/rompler synth, but it sounds incredibly alive because of how it can be controlled via the Rise. I can't wait to set up Falcon or Omnisphere to work with it. It'll be incredible.

Absolutely! All about the expression imparted by the musician via available controllers.

Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of money for a Linnstrument, or a Rise. However, 30€ got me one of these:



I have had very little time to set it up properly, but the few experiments I have done have really impressed me. I think it will take a while to get used to, but it's something that will be a game-changer for my little set-up. I'd imagine it being useful even for those who have one of these hot, new-fangled, keyboards. Twenty mappable gestures, per hand, is nothing to be sneezed at