Is the Market Finally Saturated?

[chk071]

Definitely. I think it surely won't become such a evergreen as Massive 1 though. It's too special, and, there's too many imperfections, if you will. To be totally honest, i never understood why Massive 1 has become such a evergreen anyway.

[BONES]

Massive is a terrible synth by current standards, although I never liked it. It sounds really ordinary most of the time. e.g. I have thousands of presets but not one even half-decent synth strings sound. It just can't do it and if it can't do such a staple well, then what are the chances it will do anything else well? It may have seemed better when it was brand new but for the last few years it has been way behind the best.

All synths that came out in past few years offered almost nothing new, they are all 95% same. So, if you take a look at the market, yes, its saturated synth wise. There is actually lack of inovation, but I believe if NI decides to update Absynth and when Zebra 3 comes out, we might see something fresh and different!

I'd have said the same a decade ago but just look at how far things have come since 2009.

Synths that have nice fat and rich "analog" sound but aren't restricted to basic waveforms and fixed archeticture.

Funnily enough, no matter how many waveforms I have at my disposal, 99% of the time nothing works better than a saw or pulse wave. And the more options they offer, the less variety they seem to manage.

[perfumer]

It just can't do it and if it can't do such a staple well, then what are the chances it will do anything else well?

shit logic right there

[BONES]

So prove me wrong. See the little squiggle at the end of the sentence? (whoops, there's another one.) That makes it a question. Questions don't require logic, they invite further discussion and amplification.

I have used Massive a bit, as it came in the Komplete bundle I got with my Maschine, but only for glitchy background stuff, nowhere where you'd actually pick up on how it sounds. It just doesn't sound good enough.

[recursive one]

I have thousands of presets but not one even half-decent synth strings sound. It just can't do it and if it can't do such a staple well, then what are the chances it will do anything else well?
...
Funnily enough, no matter how many waveforms I have at my disposal, 99% of the time nothing works better than a saw or pulse wave. And the more options they offer, the less variety they seem to manage.

It seems you just need some very limited set of sounds. Nothing wrong with that, I 've actually heard some of your music and it sounds good for the genre, I like some EBM/industrial, but you probably don't understand (and don't need to understand) what sounds/features people may need for other genres, e.g. psytrance, dubstep, DnB and such, which may require some quite sofisticated sound-design.

[exmatproton]

I have thousands of presets but not one even half-decent synth strings sound. It just can't do it and if it can't do such a staple well, then what are the chances it will do anything else well?
...
Funnily enough, no matter how many waveforms I have at my disposal, 99% of the time nothing works better than a saw or pulse wave. And the more options they offer, the less variety they seem to manage.

It seems you just need some very limited set of sounds. Nothing wrong with that, I 've actually heard some of your music and it sounds good for the genre, I like some EBM/industrial, but you probably don't understand (and don't need to understand) what sounds/features people may need for other genres, e.g. psytrance, dubstep, DnB and such, which may require some quite sofisticated sound-design.

+1. I am glad with all those minor variations one can find in different wavetables. It makes (at least my style of music) so much more dynamic. Not just "another pulse/saw/square/triangle" but actual content in the wave itself to play around with.

[anomandaris1]

Original Massive is the reason why modern Dubstep and Dnb, and Electro house sound the way they do now and many recent synths seem to have improved on its features set.
The big difference between Massive and the rest of the vst world is that it helped creation of new subgenres, but you can't create anything new/unheard of with all the "Massive clones" or "analogue" emulations.
I think that maybe some innovative FM/PM, additive or physical modelling synth will be the next "Massive" (I doubt anyone can make a decent granular sound without AI (there was some google granular AI project with interesting results) help, working on atomic synthesis level is hardly achievable task - that's why people just use granulars for sound effects or slap reverb to create pads/background atmospheric sounds).

[recursive one]

Original Massive is the reason why modern Dubstep and Dnb, and Electro house sound the way they do now and many recent synths seem to have improved on its features set.
The big difference between Massive and the rest of the vst world is that it helped creation of new subgenres, but you can't create anything new/unheard of with all the "Massive clones" or "analogue" emulations.
I think that maybe some innovative FM/PM, additive or physical modelling synth will be the next "Massive" (I doubt anyone can make a decent granular sound without AI (there was some google granular AI project with interesting results) help, working on atomic synthesis level is hardly achievable task - that's why people just use granulars for sound effects or slap reverb to create pads/background atmospheric sounds).

I think it's totally possible to create something new and unheard each month with all the synthesis tools already available in software. The question is not to deliver radically new synthesis methods, it's rather about combining the existing options into something that is easy to program and sounds good at most reasonable settings.

I still think Virus TI hit the right spot between the amount of different features and great characterful sound. It can make many things from typical VA stuff to all kinds of complex evolving wavetable and FM textures and SFxes and it all will sound great, which somehow proves that you actually don't need 28 LFOs, 156 FM operators, wavetable import and fake cables to make some nice sounds.

I'd like the VSTi development to be more in that direction.

[wagtunes]

2017 - $8,701 spent
2018 - $6,757 spent

This year? $2,062 spent and $1300 of that was on Warp IV brass and woodwinds, which is proving to be worth every penny.

In short, there's just nothing coming out that excites me anymore. At least nothing that I can't replicate with the synths I already own. I will be picking up MODO Drums because that is truly unique. But other than that, I don't see anything coming out that will get me excited enough to open up my wallet.

Everything is pretty much "been there, done that."

[Kalamata Kid]

I prefer to buy audio fx over VSTi's
Last purchase was Melda Sound Factory partially because it included MXXX and the intro price was reasonable.

Two instant VSTi purchases for me would be Absynth 6 ans Iris 3.

PS. Cannot get enough of Midi fx, arps, controllers, manglers, chorders etc.
Anything midi just about.

[Karma_tba]

2017 - $8,701 spent
2018 - $6,757 spent

This year? $2,062 spent and $1300 of that was on Warp IV brass and woodwinds, which is proving to be worth every penny.

In short, there's just nothing coming out that excites me anymore. At least nothing that I can't replicate with the synths I already own. I will be picking up MODO Drums because that is truly unique. But other than that, I don't see anything coming out that will get me excited enough to open up my wallet.

Everything is pretty much "been there, done that."

Seeing those numbers made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I live on a fixed income (retired/Social Security) you spent the equivalent of 50% of my total yearly income in 2017. Life must be grand.

[wagtunes]

2017 - $8,701 spent
2018 - $6,757 spent

This year? $2,062 spent and $1300 of that was on Warp IV brass and woodwinds, which is proving to be worth every penny.

In short, there's just nothing coming out that excites me anymore. At least nothing that I can't replicate with the synths I already own. I will be picking up MODO Drums because that is truly unique. But other than that, I don't see anything coming out that will get me excited enough to open up my wallet.

Everything is pretty much "been there, done that."

Seeing those numbers made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I live on a fixed income (retired/Social Security) you spent the equivalent of 50% of my total yearly income in 2017. Life must be grand.

Actually, my life is wonderful. I have everything I could possibly want. My wife, my daughter, my church, my music, an album that's finally going to be professionally recorded by a band in 2020, a nice inheritance, great friends, and the best health I've been in in years.

The only thing I don't have is peace at this forum from people who insist on stalking me and commenting on everything I post with nothing but contempt and hostility.

But I guess we all have to have something in our lives we'd prefer not to have.

[vurt]

2017 - $8,701 spent
2018 - $6,757 spent

This year? $2,062 spent and $1300 of that was on Warp IV brass and woodwinds, which is proving to be worth every penny.

In short, there's just nothing coming out that excites me anymore. At least nothing that I can't replicate with the synths I already own. I will be picking up MODO Drums because that is truly unique. But other than that, I don't see anything coming out that will get me excited enough to open up my wallet.

Everything is pretty much "been there, done that."

all that spare cash, go modular

[anomandaris1]

I think it's totally possible to create something new and unheard each month with all the synthesis tools already available in software. The question is not to deliver radically new synthesis methods, it's rather about combining the existing options into something that is easy to program and sounds good at most reasonable settings.

I still think Virus TI hit the right spot between the amount of different features and great characterful sound. It can make many things from typical VA stuff to all kinds of complex evolving wavetable and FM textures and SFxes and it all will sound great, which somehow proves that you actually don't need 28 LFOs, 156 FM operators, wavetable import and fake cables to make some nice sounds.

I'd like the VSTi development to be more in that direction.

I doubt this - there are plenty of hybrid wavetables + filters + samples synths (that offer some basic FM modulation ) these days and they haven't created any new genres or signature sounds in the mainstream (the most "creative" use of Serum I have actually seen is converting wave files into wavetables; despite it's not really original synthesis, the end sounds are good and these type of preset makers have some popularity among Future bass crowd; there was another preset library, supposedly reproducing orchestral instruments, based on the same principles; I guess it's obvious that end results can get somewhat close to real instrument, but will never be perfect or actually playable).

If Virus TI's feature set back in the day was anywhere close to what it can do today, it could have pioneered dubstep some years before Massive, but people were using it to create trance sounds that were already possible in the 90s... The market is already saturated with Virus clones, but innovative synths are few (last time I heard any new sound from a vst was from Razor, I think - released in 2011.) I doubt we have explored all the usable in musical composition sounds.
And clearly there are limitations in analogue style synthesis or wavetables for creation of convincing or playable instruments - for example why no (except one of Waves recent offerings? or I am thinking about something else...) synth offers options to keyswitch between variations of the same patch, so creating multi-patch for playable string or whatever instrument is possible (I guess modular environments can create such sound )?

[recursive one]

This year I spent like 200 bucks - Phoscyon, Dune2->3 upgrade and Komplete 10 -> 12 uprgrade (in fact I sort of preordered Massive X). I don't think I bought anything in 2018 and in 2017 is was Bazille and Repro (also thought about Thorn but passed it and glad that I did).

I think all my foreseeable future expences will be new speakers and investing more into room treatment, but I keep my eye on Lion it seems somehow promising (well, I was convinced by that trance lead example ) .