What VST family offers the widest range of sounds?

[AcrossTheSky]

Image-Line only seem to only do sales for end of year, and it's been single plugins only last couple years (might've been 40% off?) - not for the upgrades or FL. They also do 30% off for your birthday via email code last couple years - although not sure if you can use that on everything or not. Seems fair considering the lifetime upgrades, I checked and I bought mine back in 2005 (I didn't get far making music though, only picked it up again last year or so).

yes, I noticed that..also when using other DAWs it is a great deal as you can use all the vsts
hence i'll get it at some point..

[effalump]

Thanks for all your replies.
Lots of good ideas for me to consider.
I'm working my way through a few demo's now...

I've just ordered D16 Group's LuSH-101 as it's just $39 (£30) at JRR Shop - it has many very usable and tangible presets and reminds me of the 1980s when I used to own and play synths like this.

[effalump]

...Then go for 3 that are truly different from each other.

OK - good advice. I've got Electra2 already (and the native ones inside the Studio One DAW), so what others would you consider to complete the set? Zebra and Diva perhaps?

Electronic albums that stood the test of time, like Oxygene, only used 3 synthesizers. Even though 2 of the analog ones were more similar than not. Ultimately it's not only the synths which are responsible for the sound, but how you treat the sound after it has been synthesized.

That's true - good point, well made.

[effalump]

I think you're highly covered using our bundle.

https://www.discodsp.com/bundle/

OK - I downloaded the demo's, but Windows 10 doesn't seem to like your installers:
'Windows Defender SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting.
Running this app might put your PC at risk.'

[egbert101]

Depends which direction in music taste you're going in, but if you're looking for hugely powerful contemporary VSTs, then you want to check out stuff like Xfer Records Serum, UVI Falcon, Parawave Audio Rapid, VPS Avenger.

If you want more specialized stuff, then Native Instruments Reaktor (analog & hybrid modular), Absynth (dreamy drones/pads/samples), Kontakt (industry standard sampler), FM8 (DX7 On Steriods), Monark (Minimoog emulation) will cover most of your needs. You can get them all in NI Komplete if you want to save on money, especially wait for Black Friday sales for 50% bargains.

If you care about sound quality, then consider u-he ACE, u-he Diva, u-he Repro, u-he Zebra 2 and Synapse Audio The Legend for circuit modeled emulations. LuSH-101 already covers all your high quality Roland type sounds, while for Roland Drums consider D16 Group's various drum emulations, or AudioRealism Drum Machine. For more Roland stuff, consider the high quality but expensive Roland Cloud.

Then there is Arturia, which is increasingly becoming better and more powerful, but very retro orientated with their Legacy Collection, which is currently at Legacy V Collection 6 with 21 instruments.

My personal picks would be Serum [Wavetable Synth], Absynth [Sample Synth Madness], ACE, Diva, Repro, GForce Oddity 2 [Analog Modeled], Arturia DX7 [FM Madness], Arturia Synclavier [Additive, FM, Resynthesis Synth], Image-Line Harmor [Resynthesis Madness].

[Armagibbon]

Harmor sytrus and serum def cover the whole spectrum deep and wide cant go wrong there... 10 years back it would of been like albino3 fm8 and massive or whatever thats what my crew used. Time flyin 2 fast over here

[Stefken]

On a budget I would go for synthmaster for a very complete package and xils-3 lite for VA sound.

Dexed is a free Fm synth and Aurora is a cheap and good sounding fm synth if you can stand the interface.

A good wavetable synth is also nice but i don't know a good and cheap one. I would go for Icarus which has a warmer sound and better filters than Serum.

[fluffy_little_something]

On a budget I would go for synthmaster for a very complete package and xils-3 lite for VA sound.

Dexed is a free Fm synth and Aurora is a cheap and good sounding fm synth if you can stand the interface.

A good wavetable synth is also nice but i don't know a good and cheap one. I would go for Icarus which has a warmer sound and better filters than Serum.

Waves Codex maybe? It is on sale regularly (after all, it's Waves ).

[Stefken]

On a budget I would go for synthmaster for a very complete package and xils-3 lite for VA sound.

Dexed is a free Fm synth and Aurora is a cheap and good sounding fm synth if you can stand the interface.

A good wavetable synth is also nice but i don't know a good and cheap one. I would go for Icarus which has a warmer sound and better filters than Serum.

Waves Codex maybe? It is on sale regularly (after all, it's Waves ).

I think it's pretty crappy.

[fluffy_little_something]

Maybe it needs an upgrade like Element 1 -> 2.
But I like the user interface.

[discoDSP]

I think you're highly covered using our bundle.

https://www.discodsp.com/bundle/

OK - I downloaded the demo's, but Windows 10 doesn't seem to like your installers:
'Windows Defender SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting.
Running this app might put your PC at risk.'

I think I need to purchase a CodeSign certificate to get rid of that.

[effalump]

These Tone2 babies are now on sale at 50% off:
RayBlaster (Impulse Modeling)
Nemesis (NeoFM)
https://www.tone2.com/shop.html

Hopefully these will be soon... looking forward to Black Friday:
Icarus (Wavetable)
Gladiator (Harmonic Content Morphing - HCM)
Saurus (Analog Emulation)

[effalump]

...I've just ordered D16 Group's LuSH-101 as it's just $39 (£30) at JRR Shop - it has many very usable and tangible presets and reminds me of the 1980s when I used to own and play synths like this.

The best LuSH-101 presets turned out to be a CPU killer - I don't think it was ever designed to have that many layers. Doh! LuSH-101 uninstalled.
Got Synthmaster on sale too - got bored of that as well. Synthmaster uninstalled.
I'm so hard to please.

[W23]

There’s a lot to be said for Serum. There are a ton of tutorials and presets but, Serum (by design) lends itself to getting great sounds easy and fast. Also, Serum can be had on a “rent to own” plan for only $9.99 a month from Splice. You really want to look into that. Beyond that, once you have Serum and Electra, maybe some killer VA like Diva or Repro5.

I don’t know if Studio One has a sampler but, that would be something to look at as well. I don’t use Kontakt, as I find the library overwhelming but, it is arguably the best. I’ve always played around with Ableton’s Sampler/Simpler, and I’m just barely digging into Logic’s Exs24 and Alchemy. A good hardware or software sampler is a very valuable tool that you’ll always discover a new use for

[rod_zero]

Serum is quite good but it doesn't have a character of its own, if I wanted a wavetable synth with lot of character I would pick Largo by far.

SO my list would be:

Analog emulation - diva
Wavetable - Largo
Additive - razor
physical modeling - Prism
Modular - Reaktor blocks
FM - FM8

In the original sense of the OP question I think NI would be the family with more synthesis methods under the hood.