Waves Element(29$ today only) vs Sylenth1(139eu permanently)

[Elektronisch]

Im surprised how Punchy, Organic and in your face it is. I played around to make few patches and it didnt really need any post processing, it cuts so well. Unison works aswel so good, i think it has the right sound for EDM in general, it just sounds right, also the factory patches are very EDM focused and also very well made.

Only couple of downsides, CPU usage and small gui.
p.s. ability to change to version 1 is added bonus that can make dramatic sound change.

[W23]

It’s a great sounding synth, and I found it easy to get some good sounds from scratch (that’s kind of the benchmark for me...I’m no sound designer, so I am generally happy when I don’t have to work hard for a usable patch). I bought Element last year. Keep in mind that Waves would like you to renew/update your plugins every year. It costs about 9 bucks per plugin. I tried to put off a couple of them, and then I bought Logic. For some reason, Logic scans all of my 3rd party plugs every time at start up. Apparently, it runs Waves Central too, because I got the nag window telling me to renew, or delete the plugin. That was kind of lame, I thought. By the way, it never happened when I was running Ableton Live. There is one upside: The money I spent to renew got turned into a voucher that I can apply to more Waves plugins...which will also need renewing next year :p

[chk071]

So yesterday and today i have checked this synth. Why no one is talking about it? it sounds amazing, i was blown by the quality of the sound. Its on par with Roland Cloud synths. I dont know how analog or analog it sounds at all, but the sound is

I can only speak for myself, but... having owned Codex, and immediately selling it again, because i found the sound quality so inrecidbly poor (was a no-brainer buy, because it cost $20 at that time), i always thought Elements was more or less the same ballpark. Happy to see that that is not the case. Still, i need another synth with such a feature set like a third leg. And i absolutely detest Waves Central. So, that's unfortunately quite a few arguments which speak against it for me. YMMV.

[acYm]

I love Element2, it's a well made vst, and with a good control surface, very much feels like a real synth.

However, I got a new CPU this year, which is incredibly fast. With all of my heavy synths except this one, the cpu usage bar has practically vanished. Element however is still able to hog as much as 30% of my dsp with ease with one instance. Ridiculous and disappointing. I think I'll mainly use it to bounce one-shots for tal-sampler. The thing does sound legit - but only because it brute-forces its way there.

[W23]

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[Elektronisch]

Im still playing with this thing and i still cannot believe how amazing it sounds. What i cant understand is why its not hyped, why there arent as much reviews as other synths.

[ramseysounds]

Im still playing with this thing and i still cannot believe how amazing it sounds. What i cant understand is why its not hyped, why there arent as much reviews as other synths.

I bought this in one of the $29 sales. One of my goto synths, but is a bit of a cpu hog as previously mentioned. Gives you an excuse to commit to print early.

[e-crooner]

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but I have been demoing Element 2 again. It seems they have not improved it over the years. The odd envelope pick-up behavior is still the same The scaling is also too extreme for my taste, similar to Dune 3.

Element readily clicks, even with long attack, especially in DCO mode.
When playing a sound in mono mode, the next notes don't seem to react to velocity anymore, unlike in Sylenth1.
While the unison sounds pretty good despite the lack of controls, on pads it sucks because Element runs out of voices fast and then the previous chord gets hacked off with a click.

But the raw sound of the oscillators and filter is way superior to Sylenth1 in my view. It almost hurts my ears when listening to Sylenth1 after an Element 2 session. S1 sounds thin and weak in comparison

The chorus and reverb also sound very good, despite lacking controls. The equalizer is very effective.

Ideally there would be a hybrid: Sylenth1, but with Element's sound inside

[chk071]

I don't really like Element's filter on higher resonance settings. Sounds pretty digital, not like a analog filter.

All in all, it's a OK synth, but, nothing special at all. I think Sylenth1 sounds better, and, I have more than one synth which sounds better than Sylenth1.

You should really check out the new breed of plugins, especially as you seem to be into more classic stuff, musically.

BTW, if you want to buy Elements again, it's available as magware: https://www.beat.de/news/waves-element- ... 76049.html

5 € for the download version of the mag.

[e-crooner]

Sure, there are better-sounding synths out there, but usually they have other issues, like Element 2 for instance. There is always something else...

[chk071]

That's why I own so many soft synths.

[e-crooner]

That's why I own so many soft synths.

Hehe, that's not my approach, I want to use only one, ideally.

[chk071]

Me too, but, as you say, they all have their ups and downs. Massive X is as close to what I want though. It can do analog, it can do wavetable, it can do unison. Close to my ideal synth, although it has its downsides too, of course.

I think, one of the most annpoying things for me is when they don't get the filter modelling right indeed though... I sometimes just need highly resonant sounds for the stuff that I'm doing, and, when the filters aren't good in that regard, there's nothing which helps really.

[e-crooner]

And what's wrong with Massive X specifically? I think I read months ago that it was buggy, right?

Unlike you I don't care about modeled filters and high resonance. As long as it sounds good, I am fine.

[e-crooner]

By the way, I find Element 2 vs S1 odd, they are rather different. S1 is a lot about voice stacking, supersaw etc., while Element is very old-skool, not unlike Noisemaker.