The Synth You Had The Most Fun With This Year

[EnGee]

Thorn always amazes me in how easy it is to create or change a sound.

This. The filters are amazing in this synth. This and the old Spectral from Linplug are just too much fun to mess with.

spectral is only 4 or 5 years old... would you call your 4 year old kid old
? lol

Humans' life expectancy is considerably higher than plugins', though

Yep, softsynths count in dog years!

Yes, time to put Sylenth1 out of its misery

You mean "time to surprise you"!

I did spent a very nice time with Sylenth1 this year but also with other great synths (Legend, Massive, Razor, RayBlaster and FM8).

However, the most enjoyable synth for me this year is DCAM synth squad (the three of them!).

Cypher is the most one which motivates me and makes me eager to make some noise

so, my vote goes to Cypher if I must choose only one synth that shocked me of its capabilities and deepness.

[liv]

Falcon.

[dakkra]

UVI Falcon was my treat this year. I've been using Mutools MUX for years and I haven't been able to find something that can compliment it until I found Falcon. I'm a modular junkie and Falcon gives me nearly the same flexibility as the MUX with some other creature comforts that make it an absolute joy to use.

[acYm]

ACE, really glad I finally got around to taming it, what an animal.

[sin night]

Soft: TAL Sampler (I have some fun at making new patches)
Hard: Roland Boutique SH01A (I enjoy playing with the internal sequencer slaved to a drum machine like the TR-8S).

Anyway, I haven't got much fun. This has not been an easy year for me, I was (I still am) often in a bad/worried mood, so I don't spend much time at making music (and I'm focused on technology most of the time, so there's not much fun)...

[Saukar30]

Phonec CM & Thorn CM. Both for different reasons. Phonec is really easy to wrap your head around Thorn CM does some really crazy stuff. I haven't purchased the full ones as of yet. I'm having a hard time which one to jump for. Phonec is super easy on the CPU but Thorn is so flexible. I lean towards the older dirtier sound more, but I have a lot of sampled libraries that do this... none of them do what Phonec can do though. The Glitch part of Thorn is great.

[kelvyn]

SugarBytes Aparillo

[GaryG]

... my vote goes to Surge. Even though the UI is only single-page

What do you mean 'only' a single page, that's the beauty of it!

I've tried to avoid acquiring any new synths this year and really learn the ones I have or else clear them out. I think I was coming around to Synthmaster when I caved and tried Surge, game over really. Something about the sound I much preferred and seemed a lot easier to program. Synthmaster is certainly a monster but for my fairly limited synth ambitions, Surge is the winner. Like using it as an effect unit too. Some of the reverbs when stretched out have a really grainy texture that won't win any prizes in the realism stakes but cool as an effect in their own right.

Besides that, ThornCM and VCV have provided fun in sizable amounts.

[dandezebra]

Falcon, Repro 5, and Hive for me!

[Sinthoid]

FathomSynth. Amazing modular synth, every time I open it up it's depth terrifies me (in a good way). I also absolutely love it's sound and audio engine. The per voice distortion in particular sounds ace af. I also read about a new feature that's being developed that will add some unique spectral morphing to the oscs and I can't wait for that.

[mumpcake]

Absynth.

[ENV1]

... my vote goes to Surge. Even though the UI is only single-page

What do you mean 'only' a single page, that's the beauty of it!

Of course! Thats why i said 'even though', because despite the fact that Surge is only single-page you still get plenty of functionality, i.e. features which other synths with an UI the size of Surge have more often than not stuck into various tabs/subpages for size/space reasons.

So yes, single-page is great! IMO always preferable to multi-page if well done like here. The only thing i really wish was there is something like a set of markers showing the exact modulation-range of a control at all times. (Which is something where a traditional mod-matrix arrangement would have the advantage.) But other than that i find Surges UI pretty good as it is because it provides good overview over what is going on without having to tab back and forth between sections/subsections. (Although if i could i would make it somewhat larger and with fresh new graphics.)


And funny you should mention the reverb. This is probably what i had the coolest 'happy accident' with so far, and it was one of the instances where i couldnt help but thinking 'man, this thing is fun!'. The story: I was trying out a few things and had the sequence of DAFs 'Der Mussolini' running on a FM preset i just made. (I really love that sequence.) Besides this there was only an analog bass i also just made and some drums for rhythm going. I engaged the reverb on the FM sequence, fooled around with the sliders a bit, and there it was, a sound just like an overdriven e-guitar. With the right amount of high-damping it sounds so real that, unless youre being told, youd probably never guess that it isnt really an e-guitar with some reverb on it, especially since the rather short decay of the amp EG to zero sustain makes it sound as though the 'guitar' is actually being 'strummed'.

If you want to hear it first hand (or should that be first ear?), ive put a short audio demo on Surges product page. I guess thats OK since it is on topic and demonstrates the having-fun part by means of actual audio. As you can hear, different amounts of high-damping have a noticable effect on how 'nice' it sounds. But pick the sweetspot and in the mix it will pass for an e-guitar just fine. I will leave the clip up for a week or 2 and then remove it. Click here to go to Player/Download or play directly by using player embedded below.

https://www.kvraudio.com/downloads/kvr_ ... 111593.mp3

[AnX]

SH 101
Dune 3

[bmanic]

This year I've been messing the most with Vengeance Sound Avenger, FabFilter Twin and OhmForce Symptohm:Mellohman.. so I guess I had the most fun with those. Also did a bunch of sounds with Alchemy 2 at the start of the year and it was fun so I guess I have to put that on the list as well.

I'm still having huge problems adapting to the workflow of Falcon. I really want to like it as it's supremely powerful and awesome but somehow I just don't gel with the workflow at all.

[melomood]

Albino