The Most Overrated and Underrated VST/AU (Effects And Instruments)

[Dombaeb]

Why so many people here mention Serum "overrated".

Simply because of the fact that everyone and his mother is mentioning it. Has nohing to do with it's sound, capabilities or workflow.

If Icarus or Pigments were in it's place and an a bit more unknown, not as much exposed Serum came to the market, it would be Serum that'd be the underdog and the other two the overrated

Agree. I see that the most important skill for a musician - to use their own perception and to trust yourself. So many questions like "Which is the best" pretend amazingly stupid and simple when you really start to judge by yourself. So, good luck guys, hope you will find inner peace ))

[Spencer Maddox]

But Serum can do everything, including lush evolving pads and ethereal percussion-pluck sounds and everything in between. It's a real creative instrument with a lot of smart features (for example - "resampling OSCs" and "Capture" that capture any sound to the new wavetable in Serum FX plugin). Yeah, it sounds clean, but actually everything that sounds so clean can sounds dirty and lush, it's the question of processing and some knowledge of how sound works. If you have a good quality sound generator like Serum or Operator - you can do practically any type of sound.

I don’t get it...
My best guess is the same that FapFilter said above; it’s popular. Everyone knows it. Heck most people use it. It’s a victim of it’s own success. Kids use it: use it for over compressed preset stuff. Bad stereotypes. Mabye people are just hipsters: Who knows.

It’s been around for 6 years yet after too many wavetable synths to count (literally...) nobody’s beat it yet.
It’s created entire generes of electronic music and literally made entire companies relevant. Like you said it’s not a dubstep machine like some make it out to be. It’s so incredibly powerful, it’s a super synth; you can do almost anything with it. I’ve seen guys make realistic sounding guitar sounds with it.

Hell, It’s, in my eyes and the eyes of a lot of people, the most intuitive, flexible; and fun sound design tool ever created. And of all the synths that have come out trying to best it; honestly in my eyes the only ones that deserve to share the same zip code are Pigments Icarus and Rapid (expecting possible backlash to that one )


I get why people wouldn’t like Serum, not everyone has to like a plugin because most do. But I really don’t understand why someone after knowing the sonic flexibility and power of this program would think it’s overrated.

[Spencer Maddox]

, I mention that I start to return to Serum and Ableton Operator more often these days. These synths don't fight with me, they have brilliant instant interfaces and provide good sound.

Same boat.
I have so many synths but honestly I don’t think I need a lot of them...
I should just master the tools I’m comfortable with.

Serum. pigments. Rapid. diva. Reaktor.
My “Fab 5” Mabye replace one of
Those with Iris2 but that’s up for grab.
And really any sound in the entire world is gonna be do able with those plugins...

As Kontakt and the fabfilter effect plugins I love so much and honestly the rest I can do in ableton stock.

no use in cluttering all my workflow up with plugins I don’t use.

[Spencer Maddox]

Also distortion plugins are actually good enough that noone* could pinpoint this down in an actual production unless you intentionally want it to sound digital.
From actual useful sound settings though (even for noise stuff) i don't think we really need to go any further. It's more about the general tone now that one prefers and imo a good sounding “analog“ vst synth can easily be now on par, if not even better than most true analog legend synths.

Diva emulates very accurately 5 famous synths that cost thousands and thousands each alone to purchase outright. It honestly is BETTER then true analog synths as far as value is concerned.
Unless knobs matter that much. And even then just buy a midi controller I’d think.

Also about telling it in the mix. I’ve honestly rarely ever been able to identify anolgoue in a complex mix. Heck, deadmau5 made some sounds I coulda swore were with an analogue synth and it wasn’t. Wasn’t even a diva or Repro, was literally just Serum and good sound design.

I don’t mean to attack analogue synths, having a physical synth in front of you is cool and all, and useful in that it’s intuitive to use. but if you think it’s worth all that much more money then just diva and a midi controller for thousands cheaper...unless you are like made in life and have that kinda money to throw around.

[FapFilter]

That's not exactly what i meant:
just to use the absolute clichés of „t3h m0st @wes0meneZZ“ of electronic music production:
If my setup consisted of Ableton Live, Serum and UAD plugins, this would also be overrated, because while undoubtly some of the finest stuff you could get for such a scenario, you actually don't need it as you could do equally great stuff on Sonar, Tracktion, or Renoise using stuff from Tone2, TAL, or Melda.

Or in hardware land: if my setup consisted of an Model D, a Virus TI, an ARP2600, an Emu II, a TR-808, an SSL desk, a Studer band machine that setup would also be overrated.
While undoublty a quality setup, this doesn't mean that i couldn't get similarly great / awesome sounding stuff with other equipment which not everybody heralds as the next messiah

If Serum (or Ableton, a Virus, or a Model D) are the best things that could happen to you, that's perfectly valid. They are highly regarded for a reason.
It's just that you actually don't need them / you aren't in a worse position if you are using different setups.

[clipnotic]

Overrated means much high marketing infected fanboys and underrated means much noobs

[GRUMP]

Why so many people here mention Serum "overrated". I have a lot of synths and, which is more important - I actually use it for sound-design instead of just "have an opinion". Serum still has one of the best (if not the best) interface and workflow. It' very comfortable to work with, I mention that I start to return to Serum and Ableton Operator more often these days. These synths don't fight with me, they have brilliant instant interfaces and provide good sound.

Maybe that's because so many tutorials on youtube where people do the same things - midrange filtered woob-woob basses and other mainstream bass-music.

But Serum can do everything, including lush evolving pads and ethereal percussion-pluck sounds and everything in between. It's a real creative instrument with a lot of smart features (for example - "resampling OSCs" and "Capture" that capture any sound to the new wavetable in Serum FX plugin). Yeah, it sounds clean, but actually everything that sounds so clean can sounds dirty and lush, it's the question of processing and some knowledge of how sound works. If you have a good quality sound generator like Serum or Operator - you can do practically any type of sound.

Don't worry, it's what you make it. But we have Billions of Hype-Videos on YouTube about Serum and too many ****** talking about it. It's Mainstream and People hate Mainstream someday. Just think about Love Songs for Example.

I absolutely can't imagine making one with Serum btw. It's an Experimental Tool/Toys and can't sound brilliant soft (like so many Others). The OSC produce ugly! Artifacts and the Filters sound technical imO.

Me personally I rather associate it with stinky Green thank fluffy pink Clouds. But yes ... great GUI, superior Options.

[FapFilter]

Diva emulates very accurately 5 famous synths that cost thousands and thousands each alone to purchase outright. It honestly is BETTER then true analog synths as far as value is concerned.
Unless knobs matter that much. And even then just buy a midi controller I’d think.

The fact that software is often times way more affordable (among dozens of other advantages) doesn't change the fact, that digital hasn't been able yet to to perfectly catch everything in the same “pleasant“ way analog can achieve seemingly effortlessly when pushed into extreme settings.
There's also cheap analog hardware that surpasses the digital stuff i tried in these regards.
But of course not everything sounds good, just because it is analog or expensive as there's also boring or bad sounding analog hardware, even pretty expensive ones.
It's not a necessity if we won't reach this. We're actually not THAT far off, and you can easily do great things with current technology, and i take the general tone of some good digital distortion over a very accurate distortion pedal emulation which happens to make everything sound like it's played through a speaker on my phone, just because the original does sound like this.
It would be nice though, if we achieved it at some point

I don’t mean to attack analogue synths, having a physical synth in front of you is cool and all, and useful in that it’s intuitive to use. but if you think it’s worth all that much more money then just diva and a midi controller for thousands cheaper...unless you are like made in life and have that kinda money to throw around.

I also don't want to attack ITB synths. In fact i vastly prefer ITB nowadays, even for sound standards, except for the last few % that are missing when it comes to analog distortion behavior (not that “digital“ behavior has to be bad, or inferior), which of course doesn't matter anymore when it's just played back. During sound creation though, the difference is still there, for the better or worse

[Dombaeb]

I don’t mean to attack analogue synths, having a physical synth in front of you is cool and all, and useful in that it’s intuitive to use. but if you think it’s worth all that much more money then just diva and a midi controller for thousands cheaper...unless you are like made in life and have that kinda money to throw around.

I also don't want to attack ITB synths. In fact i vastly prefer ITB nowadays, even for sound standards, except for the last few % that are missing when it comes to analog distortion behavior (not that “digital“ behavior has to be bad, or inferior), which of course doesn't matter anymore when it's just played back. During sound creation though, the difference is still there, for the better or worse
[/quote]

I really enjoy using hardware, it's a very organic way to make music (who is arguing? ) but I don't have a constant place to store in ready-to-experiment condition. I think most of us really understand that hardware is unbeatable and deliver instant good sounding results but there are many laptop-warriors on the road now ))

[Dombaeb]

triple post, sorry

[Dombaeb]

triple post, sorry

[Dombaeb]

I don’t mean to attack analogue synths, having a physical synth in front of you is cool and all, and useful in that it’s intuitive to use. but if you think it’s worth all that much more money then just diva and a midi controller for thousands cheaper...unless you are like made in life and have that kinda money to throw around.

I really enjoy using hardware, it's a very organic way to make music (who is arguing? ) but I don't have a constant place to store in ready-to-experiment condition. I think most of us really understand that hardware is unbeatable and deliver instant good sounding results but there are many laptop-warriors on the road now ))

[FapFilter]

There's an edit function for your posts.

And even your last post messed the quotation

[derschönekarsten]

Not sure whether underrated or just not mentioned that often, but the non-iOS BeepStreet synths are super fun to work with and both have a specific sound.
Dagger is a moog-ish monosynth that - surprise surprise - is very useful for basses, leads, and fx.
Sunrizer is more of a generic polysynth that seems to be broadly aimed at trance sounds; however, it also does 90s techno sounds really well. Both synths have feature sets that are broad enough to allow for some versatility, but are limited enough to avoid decision fatigue.

+1 for PortaFM. It's just very very good. Not necessarily unique in terms of features, just a very clever layout.

Also, Wavestation and M1 from the Korg Collection get relatively little attention. They just nail that cheesy, late 80s-early 90s new age/synthetic-"ethnic" sound.

As for overrated, I'll jump on the Diva-train. Sounds great to me, but in terms of versatility, it kind of falls into a niche I don't like. It's neither as all-encompassing as Reaktor/M4L, nor as streamlined as Repro. I'm kind of hoping for u-he to incorporate the "views"-concept of Presswerk into Diva.

[GRUMP]

I don’t mean to attack analogue synths, having a physical synth in front of you is cool and all, and useful in that it’s intuitive to use. but if you think it’s worth all that much more money then just diva and a midi controller for thousands cheaper...unless you are like made in life and have that kinda money to throw around.

I really enjoy using hardware, it's a very organic way to make music (who is arguing? ) but I don't have a constant place to store in ready-to-experiment condition. I think most of us really understand that hardware is unbeatable and deliver instant good sounding results but there are many laptop-warriors on the road now ))

Great for jamming - but Recall your Settings later on? Quickly while working in sth else? 10 yrs later?

Lately made some Comparisons again and yes - those wet FS1R Beats were simpl awesome.

But I have suffered severe Losses with HW already, I See many Advantages with Software as Well as Workarounds. SW makes me flexible and I don't need a second flat. But sampling HW is surely better...