What were your go-to synths for 2018?

[exmatproton]

rapid, icarus, falcon, repro 5, drumatic 4

[BBFG#]

... in a similar boat of having too much and trying to whittle them down, trying to get back to that sweet spot of really knowing my instruments.

Feel the same here. In these threads where many find a reason to list as many as they can, it always seems to me that the person with the least amount is the winner.
I think I only got up to 50 or 60 at one time but quickly figured out how counterproductive that was and started the whittling process towards minimalism myself.

Many are easily eliminated once you have to deal with the developer, the company, or their support.

So I'm roughly at 3 or 4 NFR, 2 abandoned and 6 others I want (even though I probably only need 2 of them) from 3 companies that have proven themselves repeatedly in their respect for customers. And then 3 other multi-engine of which 2 get regular use and the third seems hell-bent on eliminating itself from use.

So between what I need and what I want and the NFRs I'm stuck with anyway, I don't feel as I'm doing as bad as I once did. Definitely getting more done with less.
And still regularly inventory what might be possible to do without.

(BTW, because of this thread, I decided to try loading up my CW synths and found that the defunct company actually updated them after their own demise. Wow! Actually more solid than ever. If only certain companies that are still in business had that kind of integrity!)

If I had to, could easily deal with just having 1 NFR, 1 abandoned, 2 needed, and 2 multi-engine.

But I need 4-5 controllers.

[BONES]

Many are easily eliminated once you have to deal with the developer, the company, or their support.

I assume you mean that if you need to contact the company for any reason, then that indicates their product isn't worth having in the first place?

3 companies that have proven themselves repeatedly in their respect for customers.

Oh, no, apparently it's all about the precious princess who needs to be treated right. Honestly, that is the stupidest way imaginable to decide what tools to use. If Satan himself made a plugin that met my needs, I'd happily pay a reasonable price for it (obviously not my soul and I wouldn't sign the EULA in blood, either) because it's not about me, it's about music. the opportunities people manage to find to make it all about themselves never ceases to amaze me.

[EnGee]

I'm sure if Satan made a plugin, it would be a best seller

[BBFG#]

Many are easily eliminated once you have to deal with the developer, the company, or their support.

I assume you mean that if you need to contact the company for any reason, then that indicates their product isn't worth having in the first place?

Once again, you assume... and troll according to your assumptions.

[timwest]

Repro by u-he because it has that authentic prophet sound. I love the sound of prophet synthesizers. They just have this magical musical sound. It adds more features (only possible in the digital realm) than the original such as individual voice panning (which can give a patch gorgeous stereo width), a variety of filter varieties to choose from and micro-tuning. I also love the effects pedal section on this pedal--velvet in particular sounds lovely and can add warmth (it also saves adding a tape emulation plugin and thus CPU).

Diva by u-he, because it takes all the best and musical sounding elements from analog synthesis (juno, minimoog, jupiter) and gives you the option to mix and match modules. I love how detailed this synth is. How you can really dive in and change things like individual voice tuning, voice drift and the transient mode. The voice map is useful for creating "wide" sounding pads when assigned to the panmod. These things may seem like small subtle features, but I think these are what gives a synth its character.

Granulator by Ableton. I love how organic granular synthesis sounds. This synth is a bit dated and I guess (?) there are probably better quality granular synths out there (the mangle comes to mind). It's so simple to dial in a simple sound, yet there's still a lot of in-depth features to fine-tune your sound. I think this synth excels at pads. Pads designed using standard synthesis can sound great, but often lack movement. I love the way granular synthesis can so easily add movement to long held sounds (like pads) through the use of modulation and randomisation. Does anyone have any other recommendations for a granular synthesizer?

I use these instruments to write a range of styles, mostly electronica and alternative rock.

I find sticking with a few synths that fulfil specific roles (maybe an FM synth, analog and granular) and learning the shit out of them is a lot better than buying every synth on the market and not knowing how to use them all. Also, it helps you develop your own musical voice and sound if you get in deep with a synth.

[voidhead23]

Granulator by Ableton...This synth is a bit dated and I guess (?) there are probably better quality granular synths out there (the mangle comes to mind).

i dunno, man...i've tried a lot of different granular synths but Live's Granulator is special. i've yet to find anything that really replaces it.

[timwest]

Granulator by Ableton...This synth is a bit dated and I guess (?) there are probably better quality granular synths out there (the mangle comes to mind).

i dunno, man...i've tried a lot of different granular synths but Live's Granulator is special. i've yet to find anything that really replaces it.

haha good! I guess I'll stick with granulator then! it is so special!

[do_androids_dream]

My Casio HT-3000 and Yamaha PSS 470

I have no softsynths installed..

How does that sound compared to the CZ series?

I've never owned a CZ series synth.. Casio does have a signature sound though that seems common to all their synths from that time. I love using lesser known synths (I got this HT-3000 for £10 on the Facebook marketplace) to see what I can get out of them.

[machinesworking]

Really? I'm the opposite. I enjoy "playing" with my hardware synths but I don't find them very good when it comes to making patches I can use in our music. ............. After 18 or so years of working on my laptop, it is so much more natural for me to work with a mouse.

I'm a big fan of both soft synths and hardware, but I own three hardware synths, and something like 50 soft synths.

To me anyway the mouse it the worst part of soft synths. I have an Oberheim Xpander and a Memorymoog, both are perfectly set up for putting presets together on. They suck for storage though. There are downsides to soft synths and VSTi presets etc. but absolutely nothing like hardware and batteries, and in the case of the moog, no name even, just a number. I got a touch screen a while ago, and that with better designed GUIs on certain soft synths alleviates my lack of enthusiasm for mousing around to get presets together.

[machinesworking]

You know, let's be honest guys. There's just too many synths out there. And if you're OCD and compulsive, like I am, you can end up with almost every single one of them. I've reached the point where I almost have brain freeze when trying to decide if I'm going to use a synth that I may not have used in a while. What do I turn to? Many, in all honesty, I don't even remember how they sound.

It was easier back in the 70s and 80s because synths cost a fortune and you couldn't buy 100 of them unless you were stupidly wealthy or didn't mind going into debt up to your eyeballs. So I never had more than maybe 4 or 5 synths at one time.

In fact, the most synths I ever owned at one time was this collection:

Yamaha Motif Rack
Korg Triton Rack
Emu Vintage Keys Rack
Korg Wavestation
Yamaha DX 7
Kurzweil K 1000 Rack
Oberheim Matrix 6R

And that was a lot of synths.

Now I have over 100 and it's insane.

In some ways the wealth of riches is a curse.

I hear this argument, and sometimes don't completely understand it. I have a lot of soft synths, been using DAWs and at first Reason Rewired as a Rack, then VSTi's since Reason 1.0, samplers and a DAW before that. Owned Komplete 2, Zebra when it was in beta. etc. etc. From all that, with dozens of soft synths I gravitate towards a few at a time, At one point it was Absynth, Zebra and Kontakt in almost every song.
Today, it's crazy, it's absolutely amazing how good this stuff all is. Using Cypher 2 with a Roli Seaboard Block, Falcon, all the libraries for Kontakt, Zebra keeps evolving, U-He puts out Diva, Hive, Repro etc. Arturia is on a roll. This place is great for hearing about deals when I'm looking for specific needs, ( woman's choir a while ago etc.)

It's not impossible for me to understand being frozen by choices, but having started out in the 80's with a sequencer and an Ensonique Mirage, and being frustrated by limitations I think I haven't run out of ideas I didn't get to exploit back then because of those limitations.

I'm also restless, totally admit it. I own DP9, Reaper, Logic, and Live. I have old copies of Reason and ReNoise laying around here as well. I'm kicking Maschine Studio to the curb in favor of MPC Live, which is very arguably another DAW. Now, to be fair, most of that is for backwards compatibility and not wanting to wait around for MPE in Live and DP. Or in the case of the MPC multiple time signatures are important to me, but not to NI.

I basically love technology, and get excited learning new things, and it tends to inspire me. I actually am trying to curb it a bit because I also value really knowing the tools you use. I'm pretty certain I'm going to be using about 7-10 synths and samplers mainly, working with MPC2/Live as a VSTi in Reaper, but occasionally using DP with VEP and orchestral libraries etc.

I think in general I'm always grabbing for - Cypher2, Kontakt, Falcon, Zebra, Diva, Synclavier, Loom2, String Studio, the Moog and Xpander, but a lot of the specialty synths will make appearances- Hive, Cyclops, CS80V, SEM, CMI, Syn-X, Iris2..
Sort of like hosts on late night comedy shows.

[voidhead23]

It's not impossible for me to understand being frozen by choices, but having started out in the 80's with a sequencer and an Ensonique Mirage, and being frustrated by limitations I think I haven't run out of ideas I didn't get to exploit back then because of those limitations.

See, i find that situation a lot of fun and sometimes try to mimic it by setting up software limitations before starting a project. The must fun i ever had was creating a set of dystopian pop tunes using a MiniBrute, a Telecaster with one pickup, a Pocket Operator drum machine, and Live's Sampler for software (and i could only sample stuff from sci-fi movies). The tunes weren't great, but i had a blast making them, trying to figure out how to get the sounds i wanted from what i had.

[sureno]

Only ones that haven’t been released yet

[U-o]

Only ones that haven’t been released yet

I'm in! Waiting for new QuikQuak plugin too...

[BONES]

Once again, you assume... and troll according to your assumptions.

No, I simply gave you an opportunity to clarify something that made no sense to me otherwise. My fault for assuming the best of people.