KVR Audio

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:06 pm

Serum + Sylenth as rent-to-own sounds like a plan. I believe these two synths are what many trance producers actually use and it is a very good combo because these two synths are among the best in their respective niches and have very little overlap between each other.

Serum indeed loads samples only in its noise osc (if we talk about sample playback, not resynthesis/wt creation). It doesn't offer much sampler functionality - i think no more than FL Studio native sampler - though you can admix the sample to Serum's own oscillators and process it with Serum's filters and FX.

It is not quite clear what samples you want to use (oneshots? multisamples?) and what you want to do with them (are they supposed to emulate real instruments, or you want some kind of creative sample mangling/slicing/granulizing etc, or what?). Anyway, I wouldn't choose a subtractive/wavetable synth basing on its sampler capabilities, for this I'd go either for a dedicated sampler like Kontakt or a specialized sample-based synth like Absynth/Mangle/Form etc depending on what you want to do with the samples.

kokotte · Post by **kokotte** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:10 pm

i vote for Viper and Rapid

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:19 pm

kokotte wrote:i vote for Viper and Rapid

Another good suggestion. There are free Virus TI wavetables in Serum format floating on the web, you may load them into Rapid, add Viper for VA, hypersaw and FM sounds and pretend that you have an actual Virus TI which was a default synth for most trance producers during the second half of 00's when most of the classic trance tunes were made. Obviously Serum also loads these WTs but the basic sound of Rapid, its filters and effects are actually much closer to Virus.

TBH when I had demoed Ana2 i was dissapointed, IMO it sounds thin and very digital, not the kind of sound I want to hear in my tracks.

hamayame · Post by **hamayame** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:10 pm

recursive one wrote:
kokotte wrote:i vote for Viper and Rapid
Another good suggestion. There are free Virus TI wavetables in Serum format floating on the web, you may load them into Rapid, add Viper for VA, hypersaw and FM sounds and pretend that you have an actual Virus TI which was a default synth for most trance producers during the second half of 00's when most of the classic trance tunes were made. Obviously Serum also loads these WTs but the basic sound of Rapid, its filters and effects are actually much closer to Virus.

TBH when I had demoed Ana2 i was dissapointed, IMO it sounds thin and very digital, not the kind of sound I want to hear in my tracks.

have you saw this video from Sonic Academy on sound design for the ANA2 about it's supersaw?

what do you think Viper vs ANA2 unison supersaw?

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:29 pm

hamayame wrote:have you saw this video from Sonic Academy on sound design for the ANA2 about it's supersaw?

sounds pretty thin to me, not even adding chorus and reverb
could ever fatten that up. nope.....

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:39 pm

recursive one wrote: TBH when I had demoed Ana2 i was dissapointed, IMO it sounds thin and very digital, not the kind of sound I want to hear in my tracks.

I know i sound boring when i always repeat the same thing, but, since Spire, none of those "flagship unison synths" has wow'd me anymore. Dunno, they all sound inferior to it to me. IMO, Spire has really set the bar higher for that type of synth. A synth which would sweep me off my feet would have to sound at least as good as Spire, and have some analog modelled ZDf filters, with moderate CPU usage, of course, so it doesn't slaughter the CPU like more detailled analog emus. My hope is still that Reveal-Sound one day release Spire 2, with new designed filters. I'm sure they can do it.

I have a feeling anyway that they did some research, and did some backward engineering for Spire, so, i doubt they'd have an issue with what i'm asking either.

Anyway, blub blub bla, my recommendation to the OP would be to demo Spire, and see if it is to his liking. For me, surely the best choice for most sounds in Trance music.

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:58 am

another vote for Rapid

Kinh · Post by **Kinh** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 5:10 am

To me this isn't apples and oranges, it's green apples vs red ones. Seriously, there's next to no different between any of the synths mentioned except controls, workflow and GUIs. Anyone who thinks spire and others sound COMPLETELY different from the next is talking out of their ass. Spire, serum can do trance but so can everything else like synthmaster, just as good. There is no trace vst!

In time you'll come to realize that. trance, techo, house, and the others which sit in the middle can be done using most of the vsts on the market. If I were you id be more concerned about what effects I should be looking at and mixing techniques to make these synths shine cause quite frankly most of them sound like shit out of the box.

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 5:17 am

[quote="Kinh"]To me this isn't apples and oranges, it's green apples vs red ones. Seriously, there's next to no different between any of the synths mentioned except controls, workflow and GUIs. Anyone who thinks spire and others sound COMPLETELY different from the next is talking out of their ass. Spire, serum can do trance but so can everything else like synthmaster, just as good. There is no trace vst!

In time you'll come to realize that. trance, techo, house, and the others which sit in the middle can be done using most of the vsts on the market. If I were you id be more concerned about what effects I should be looking at and mixing techniques to make these synths shine cause quite frankly most of them sound like shit out of the box.[/quote]

I'd say you are the one talking out of their ass

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 9:28 am

ATS wrote:
Kinh wrote:To me this isn't apples and oranges, it's green apples vs red ones. Seriously, there's next to no different between any of the synths mentioned except controls, workflow and GUIs. Anyone who thinks spire and others sound COMPLETELY different from the next is talking out of their ass. Spire, serum can do trance but so can everything else like synthmaster, just as good. There is no trace vst!

In time you'll come to realize that. trance, techo, house, and the others which sit in the middle can be done using most of the vsts on the market. If I were you id be more concerned about what effects I should be looking at and mixing techniques to make these synths shine cause quite frankly most of them sound like shit out of the box.[/quote]

I'd say you are the one talking out of their ass

I've just checked this guy's soundcloud out of curiosity. Actually he seems to be quite competent in making this "future-something" kind of music which is currently popular. I guess that's their actual approach - take any random synth and process the sh!t of it until it sounds right.

hamayame · Post by **hamayame** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:23 pm

Kinh wrote:To me this isn't apples and oranges, it's green apples vs red ones. Seriously, there's next to no different between any of the synths mentioned except controls, workflow and GUIs. Anyone who thinks spire and others sound COMPLETELY different from the next is talking out of their ass. Spire, serum can do trance but so can everything else like synthmaster, just as good. There is no trace vst!

In time you'll come to realize that. trance, techo, house, and the others which sit in the middle can be done using most of the vsts on the market. If I were you id be more concerned about what effects I should be looking at and mixing techniques to make these synths shine cause quite frankly most of them sound like shit out of the box.

I still learning producing Trance.. IMO, some genre do need special attention on the how the sound produced even before it gone through filter and other processing.. I can say this because my mentor teach me using one synth which I have atm.. it sounded out of what Trance would sound like, even compared on what he produce..

That's why I started to search a soft synth which produce quite close unison emulation to Virus Ti and got stuck with picking ANA2, Serum, Viper, and Lush-101

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 2:34 pm

Kinh wrote:To me this isn't apples and oranges, it's green apples vs red ones. Seriously, there's next to no different between any of the synths mentioned except controls, workflow and GUIs. Anyone who thinks spire and others sound COMPLETELY different from the next is talking out of their ass. Spire, serum can do trance but so can everything else like synthmaster, just as good. There is no trace vst!

I don't know why you people always have to exaggerate so much. Noone said that synths sound COMPLETELY different. They're all synth, and they all have sawtooth waves. Yet, it is obvious that their subtle difference can sometimes make a big difference, or just make things easy for the user. Horses for courses.

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 2:56 pm

Is this a right point to turn the conversation about.. Hardware synth for trance?

And how it's better compared to software

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:14 pm

Considering that most producers will work in the box by now, and, if then, the Virus would be the obvious synth to name, i don't think there'd be much point in that.

Really, AFAIC, according to what i always saw when watching those "lovely" producer videos, they all used Sylenth and Massive, and now, many also use Spire and Serum. Boring, i know, but, that's how it is, for the most part.

This site gives quite a good impression as well: http://equipboard.com/

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:28 pm

A competent producer with the right FX and a thorough knowledge of mixing can make just about any synth sound good, whereas somebody like myself can make just about any synth sound like crap.

That's not to say all synths sound the same because they don't. Out of the box, there are differences that even my ears can hear. Some synths, like Thorn, have a very dirty kind of sound. Other synths, like Tone 2 stuff, have what I call that plastic sound. Some synths sound thin and dull while others sound thicker. Synths that use samples obviously don't sound like synths that use regular oscillators. I mean I don't care how great any Trance synth may be, it's not going to sound like Omnisphere's sample library. A DX7 isn't going to sound like Softube modular no matter what you do to it.

I think we get so caught up in what gear we use that we forget about the only thing that really matters...making music.

Here's a trance track I did for Recursive that he said "wasn't bad for a first effort." I bet nobody here can tell what synths I used. Hell, even I don't remember.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... eim/sets/m

ANA 2 or Serum