What is it about Sylenth1 ?

[chk071]

It's wide and pleasant sounding supersaw. If that's your thing.

That interesting because before S1 there was a SynthEdit made synth with supersaw that everyone went bananas over and for the life of me I can't even remember it's name now. Certainly S1's supersaw can't hold a candle to DUNE's standard oscillator or most others.

You couldn't be more wrong.

I guess the SynthEdit synth you mean is Superwave P8. It was one of the first VST's I ever tried. Never really "wow'd" me though.

[fluffy_little_something]

Bones, do you happen to mean the High Stradivari patch?

https://app.box.com/s/h6r1wk58y5683fc8mn9nvufomrs5fgol

Sounds ok on some octaves, but it also shows why I don't like FM and such modulations, the noise on higher octaves is absurd.

[Examigan]

Like a few pages ago, another patch match, Ingo Weidner's Jupiter Synth Brass 5 for Diva vs the same patch (as close as I could get) on Sylenth1...

https://app.box.com/s/nnpsy78dn5rfdj023b0l83qpd6p0d1dg

I think it sounds almost identical. So why does Diva sound oh so great and Sylenth1 as weak and outdated as people here keep saying?

Good job, sounds very close.

[fluffy_little_something]

Thanks
First S1, then Diva by the way...

[Examigan]

Nice. I actually thought for whatever reason Diva was the first one, but they were pretty close anyway so I guess it doesn’t matter at that point.

[EnGee]

Like a few pages ago, another patch match, Ingo Weidner's Jupiter Synth Brass 5 for Diva vs the same patch (as close as I could get) on Sylenth1...

https://app.box.com/s/nnpsy78dn5rfdj023b0l83qpd6p0d1dg

I think it sounds almost identical. So why does Diva sound oh so great and Sylenth1 as weak and outdated as people here keep saying?

Good job, sounds very close.

Yes, he is very good at designing the sounds he likes. I said that before, I bought Sylenth1 because I heard a wonderful pad he did (or modified). A great buy and never thought of selling it, even though it's not the most used synth I have.

I still believe that Massive + Sylenth1 is a great combo, not only for EDM but for every genre. They are both pleasant to program and to look at, and most important, sound great

[Examigan]

When I first bought Sylenth1 it was during a group-buy type of deal LD had going (2008 or 2009 I think?) and so it eventually went down to a lower price and I bought it at that point. I always liked it even when newer synths kept adding more and more features.

EDIT: I just checked and it was 79 euros when I got it.

[musictoproduce]

I love Sylenth1 for its quality warm sounding, its filters and its simplicity. Also a great synth to learn subtractive synthesis.

[fluffy_little_something]

Like a few pages ago, another patch match, Ingo Weidner's Jupiter Synth Brass 5 for Diva vs the same patch (as close as I could get) on Sylenth1...

https://app.box.com/s/nnpsy78dn5rfdj023b0l83qpd6p0d1dg

I think it sounds almost identical. So why does Diva sound oh so great and Sylenth1 as weak and outdated as people here keep saying?

Good job, sounds very close.

Yes, he is very good at designing the sounds he likes. I said that before, I bought Sylenth1 because I heard a wonderful pad he did (or modified). A great buy and never thought of selling it, even though it's not the most used synth I have.

I still believe that Massive + Sylenth1 is a great combo, not only for EDM but for every genre. They are both pleasant to program and to look at, and most important, sound great

Thanks, but really, I have no clue how to program patches, I just click Menu -> Preset -> Randomize a couple million times until it fits

[EnGee]

I believe you

[BONES]

I love Sylenth1 for its quality warm sounding, its filters and its simplicity. Also a great synth to learn subtractive synthesis.

So because it makes you feel good because nothing you have said means anything at all to me.

[tony10000]

Sylenth 1 is a well-designed synth. Great sound, factory patches are very usable, nice filters, wonderfully simple GUI, multiple skins, a wide range of third-party patches, very low CPU usage, good support, etc.

[Mushy Mushy]

I love Sylenth1 for its quality warm sounding, its filters and its simplicity. Also a great synth to learn subtractive synthesis.

So because it makes you feel good because nothing you have said means anything at all to me.

Bones you must have the self esteem of a garden gnome.

@musictoproduce you should have been warned one condition on joining this forum was that you run every decision past Bones first. He must approve of your lunch, your choice of internet provider, your car, your partner, and especially your studio. God forbid you like something he* doesn’t.

*Actually I’m going to start referring to him as it; nothing that opinionated can be human.

BTW I like Sylenth also. What have you got for me? Bring it.

[BONES]

OK, I finally gave into curiosity and installed the demo. Here's what I think, 7 or 8 years on from the first time I demo'd it -
1. SOUND - If anything, it sounds worse than I remember. Honestly, it's like stepping back in time. Going through the patch memory is like scrolling through the presets on some cut-price Ensoniq or Alesis synth from the 80s or 90s. How anyone could listen to the first 10 presets on this, or the first 100, and the same on DUNE and not buy DUNE beggars belief (I'm sure nobody does). The oscillators are actually pretty good, if extremely limited by modern standards, but the filters are very ordinary. Turn up the resonance and you lose something in the bottom end, like a ladder filter. Worse still, you only get the one, 2 or 4 pole, rather than the dozens that you'd get with anything else at this price, so you're stuck with it. The effects are serviceable, nothing more, and lack options.

2. USABILITY - Non-existent, it seems. I tried to use an init patch to test a few things but I couldn't get Osc 2 to make any sound and the filter wouldn't work. I worked it out after a few minutes but with all the redundant controls, it's hard to know where to look to fix things. e.g. Each osc has a volume knob, plus there is also a mixer so you have to check all over the place when it's not making sound. The way controls work is inconsistent. e.g. If I click on the waveform selector I get a drop-down but I have to click-drag on most other selectors But don't try and click or drag on the arrows because they don't do anything, except in some places, where they do. It's very confusing. I gave up very quickly. And can someone explain why there is a filter section with cutoff and resonance plus a filter control section that also has cutoff and resonance? I can't make head nor tail of it.

3. GUI - It's all over the place. You have an envelope up the top, two more down the bottom-left and a mod matrix that's labelled "Misc 1" and "Misc 2". It's a real shocker. It's not resizable, either, which is unacceptable in a $180 synth today. Skins might make that better but, from what I've seen, you can't move anything around, just play with the colours and style.

Overall, it's about how I remember it. I managed to get the mod matrix to fully open the filter but I had to add cutoff into it twice, just like the first time I tried it. If you only add it in once, it doesn't open the filter at all, which is just ridiculous. The oscillators are definitely it's strong point, although they only really shine with unison doing the supersaw thing. The filter is bog-standard, you can get better in a SynthEdit VSTi. If it was $50, I don't know that I'd buy it over Rob Papen's Go2 but it's more than three times as much, which is just ridiculous. Another few bucks and you could buy a real analogue synth that sounds great and is probably more versatile (IK's Uno).

[recursive one]

How anyone could listen to the first 10 presets on this, or the first 100, and the same on DUNE and not buy DUNE beggars belief (I'm sure nobody does).

I once tried to replicate some of my favourite Sylenth sounds in Dune2 and while I managed to get them reasonably close I still liked the sound of Sylenth more in most cases. Dune can make wide range of sounds Sylenth can't though. They both have their place in my DAW.

I tried to use an init patch to test a few things but I couldn't get Osc 2 to make any sound and the filter wouldn't work.

User error, obviously.

Nobody forces you to buy or like Sylenth anyway. It's a good sounding synth, limited but good at what it does. I think it mostly apepals to those who love late 90s-early 00s trance-ish sound, though, which I personally happen to like. I see how people looking for either for more modern sound or 80's analogue kind of vibe may not like it at all.