So what are today's top synths anyway?

[vurt]

form and monark
both reaktor based so may put some off.
monark can shake plaster loose from walls.
form lets me abuse and shape audio in ways that make me happy.
both pretty good reasons to own audio tools.

[SparkySpark]

So, all already quite old stuff. But, i demo'd quite a few synths after that, and, nothing really blew me out of the water, or could have motivated me to buy, and use it over what i already have. I still think there's too few real "character synths" coming out these days. Rather synths with a very clean, polished, and soft sound. Seems to be hip these days, rather than punchy, snappy, clicky, or aggressive and raw synths. Those seemed to be rather popular 10 or more years ago (Komplexer, V-Station, for example). Almost every synth i try out these days has that super bright, clean, polished, and soft sound.

Yes I agree with you. Impressive as they are, they don't give me GAS honestly (Avenger, Omnisphere, Rapid). It's a bit like the difference between vinyl and CD.

[SparkySpark]

In my opinion, the absolute bests, la crème de la crème, are :

1/ Vengeance Avenger : because it can do anything and sounds great.
2/ Parawave Rapid : because it can do nearly anything and sounds greater than great.
3/ UVI Falcon : because it can do so many things, especially as a sampler, and has insanely good onboard FX.

+ Dmitry Sches Thorn : because... eargasm!
+ Tone 2 Icarus : because it's also hugely powerful, can do resynthesis like no other, love it, love it, love it!!...
+ U-He Zebra : because it's so deep and can be used to make many sort of sounds.

Honorable mention to :
- Native Instruments Form : because I had been waiting for a synth like this for so long.
- Adam Szabo Viper : perfect Virus sound!!
- Reveal Sound Spire : because it sounds soooooo good!!
- FXPansion Cypher2 : mindblowing synth that I'm still discovering...

And very good memories of :
- Synapse Audio Dune 2 : lovely synth, can't wait for Dune 3 to come out.
- Tone 2 Gladiator : used to be my favourite synth ten years ago.
- Tone 2 Electra2 : when it was released I was crazy about it.
- KV331 Synthmaster : insanely powerful, sounds great

Everything listed here is what I consider an excellent 9/10~10/10 product, but there are some I've now replaced by some other for some reason.

Thanks for the list. Exactly what I was asking for.

[SparkySpark]

1. Alchemy. All other synths sound static against it.
...
Days of really interesting synths seems over for me.

What strikes me is how similar the top synths are in both tone and UI. This is also why I was starting this thread: I wondered if there is a top synth with a new approach to sound or usability.

I guess that is not really the case since most synths mentioned here are pretty old (but great, don't get me wrong).

I wonder if Zynaptic could come up with something supermusical.

[ENV1]

IMO this question can not be answered in a meaningful way.

The old adage 'one mans top is another mans flop' comes to mind: You ask 20 people to agree on a fair rating for Synth XYZ and when the brawl is over and all heads are sewed back on you still have 20 people with 21 different opinions and no agreement on a fair rating for the synth.

So top synth, creme de la creme, everyone will have their own opinion on that. I myself for instance would rate Audjoo Helix a top synth because it sounds great, has near infinite sound potential, and requires extremely little CPU. Others dont like it at all, be it because of the UI or whatever. And personally i wouldnt expect anything else either.

[mtelesha]

Biotech 2 : Because I get unique sounds from it compared to my other synths. Really fun to play with.

U He Zebra 2 : Pad heaven presets and awesome versatility.

SynthMaster 2.9 : My first synth and I actually really like the sound. Can’t wait for 3.0

Waves Codex : Good wavetable and like the $29 price when on sale. CPU heavy but I use a desktop so no worries.

[Spencer Maddox]

My tuppence worth would see a vote for alchemy. It has a very broad sweet spot and just plops down nicely into the mix without much fuss.

Agreed, Alchemy is unreal, Made almost every other Stock Synth in Logic obsolete for me, It's THAT good.

Except for Sculpture... It's that good

I also love ES2. Fattest unison ever.
Yes, Alchemy, Sculpture and ES2 would be enough synths for me. Not sure why i ever bought third party synths
But Alchemy and Sculpture are indeed 2 of the most unique synths.
And Apple still update them (even the old Sculpture got a high resolution mode after years).

Oh Of Course, Sculpture is One of a Kind. Hense why I said "Almost"
As for ES2 I like it but with the Retina display it's kind of Pixilated and Sets off my OCD, I wish Apple would Reskin it and the other legacy plugins like ESX24.

[thecontrolcentre]

For me its Repro-1/5, LuSH-101, Poly-Ana & Obscurium mainly, because they're the synths that get used in my music the most ... I'm more of an analog hardware fan in general, but soft synths still have their place in my studio.

[pdxindy]

My tuppence worth would see a vote for alchemy. It has a very broad sweet spot and just plops down nicely into the mix without much fuss.

Agreed, Alchemy is unreal, Made almost every other Stock Synth in Logic obsolete for me, It's THAT good.

Except for Sculpture... It's that good

I also love ES2. Fattest unison ever.
Yes, Alchemy, Sculpture and ES2 would be enough synths for me. Not sure why i ever bought third party synths
But Alchemy and Sculpture are indeed 2 of the most unique synths.
And Apple still update them (even the old Sculpture got a high resolution mode after years).

There are things the Logic synths cannot do... for example, none of them can come close to the sounds I get from Bazille

[Cinebient]

My tuppence worth would see a vote for alchemy. It has a very broad sweet spot and just plops down nicely into the mix without much fuss.

Agreed, Alchemy is unreal, Made almost every other Stock Synth in Logic obsolete for me, It's THAT good.

Except for Sculpture... It's that good

I also love ES2. Fattest unison ever.
Yes, Alchemy, Sculpture and ES2 would be enough synths for me. Not sure why i ever bought third party synths
But Alchemy and Sculpture are indeed 2 of the most unique synths.
And Apple still update them (even the old Sculpture got a high resolution mode after years).

There are things the Logic synths cannot do... for example, none of them can come close to the sounds I get from Bazille

Sure....but then i never use Bazille
Most synths can do something better than others but the gap is so small these days that i prefer to use a few which are also not too high on cpu.
No listener today know of it‘s a hardware synth or 5 dollar app anyway!

[ZeePok]

Biotech 2 : Because I get unique sounds from it compared to my other synths. Really fun to play with.

U He Zebra 2 : Pad heaven presets and awesome versatility.

SynthMaster 2.9 : My first synth and I actually really like the sound. Can’t wait for 3.0

Waves Codex : Good wavetable and like the $29 price when on sale. CPU heavy but I use a desktop so no worries.

BioTek 2 surely is a contender for "a top synth with a new approach to sound or usability"

[felis]

A couple of my favorites are:

Steinberg's Halion 6.

You can start from scratch and make your own VA synth/sampler/wavetable/granular to use or distribute.
And if you don't care to do that, but just want to use pre-made stuff, it includes:

Auron: granular - up to 8 grain streams produce osc. waveforms.
Trium: VA
Voltage: Mini Clone
Model C: Organ
HALiotron: like Mellotron
B-Box: drum machine/pattern based
WorldInstruments: ethnic
WorldPercussion: ethnic
Anima: wavetable
Skylab: can be sample or grain
Raven: piano
Eagle: piano
Hot Brass: horns, sampled
Studio Strings: strings

So, for making your own stuff, it's a little like Reaktor, but very much simpler to use.
You don't have the 'under the hood' wiring, but there's been very few things I
haven't been able to do with it.
When you consider the included synths, it's more like Komplete, in that it has stuff
ready to use right out of the box.

A couple of my other favorites are Arturia Matrix 12V. I had a hardware Matrix 6
for a long time, and knew it inside and out. The 12V can do everything that
the M6 did and then some. It doesn't have a 'knock your socks off' sound, but I
really like the programming options.

One more favorite from them is the Synclavier V. I just really like the sound of that one,
and it's also very flexible in the programming options.

[pdxindy]

Sure....but then i never use Bazille
Most synths can do something better than others but the gap is so small these days that i prefer to use a few which are also not too high on cpu.

In some cases, the gap is not small... just the opposite

[jacqueslacouth]

There are things the Logic synths cannot do... for example, none of them can come close to the sounds I get from Bazille

The one (soft)synth that I genuinely regret selling

[dandezebra]

Hmmmmmmm.

Halion 6 - lots to do
Biotek 2 - new way of doing things
Repro 1/5 - nuts
Bazille - balls
Harmor - so fun, deep, and insane
Largo - gorgeous
Falcon - lots to do II
Razor - cutting sound, seriously
Hive - really fun

And then, don't forget about using Thesys, Chthulu, Blue Arp or something as well!