Enough vintage already. How about some "Modern" synth suggestions?

[vurt]

reaktor form. lovely modern sounds.

Komplete is life.

indeed, probably the best way to get form, and then inkludes massive x and other top modern stuff.

[BONES]

When I first got Komplete, the tier that came with Maschine Mikro, I was blown away by it but now, two or three years later, I don't really use any of it any more. I do use some NI stuff, TRK-01 ad Kontakt Player (but none of the NI content) mostly, but nothing that actually came with Komplete when I got it.

[Tj Shredder]

Nusofting's new upcoming Sinmad, synth for last months OSC, definitely will fall in OPs category...

[dblock]

Nusofting's new upcoming Sinmad, synth for last months OSC, definitely will fall in OPs category...

This one surprised me. I like it.Thanks for the suggestion!

[crickey13]

Nusofting's new upcoming Sinmad, synth for last months OSC, definitely will fall in OPs category...

Thank you for mentioning it. I've never heard of the company before, but after a short inspection, I'm extremely intrigued by their synth repertoire. Probably gonna end up buying Sinmad. Anyway, thanks.

[excuse me please]

Sinmad. No download, clicked through the site in a cycle.

[crickey13]

Sinmad. No download, clicked through the site in a cycle.

It hasn't been released yet as far as I understand, it's still in beta.

[excuse me please]

Sinmad. No download, clicked through the site in a cycle.

It hasn't been released yet as far as I understand, it's still in beta.

Thanks for the info!

[vurt]

Nusofting's new upcoming Sinmad, synth for last months OSC, definitely will fall in OPs category...

Thank you for mentioning it. I've never heard of the company before, but after a short inspection, I'm extremely intrigued by their synth repertoire. Probably gonna end up buying Sinmad. Anyway, thanks.

can't say anything about the later stuff, but in the past ive used nusofting stuff, quality goods and a great guy behind the company too

[yellowmix]

Native Instruments is one of the biggest music software developers but they put out some really innovative stuff. Form is from 2016 but I hardly hear anyone discuss it. It helps to perhaps watch some tutorial videos that NI provides to get a sense of what it's capable of, because it's a lot. There's nothing else like it. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... rutorials/

Along "nothing else like it" lines, MOK Waverazor was introduced about 3 or 4 years ago but only got the full-blown editor 2 years ago. But don't let that fool you, there are two levels of patch editing. The "full" editor is basically a synth designer down to the user interface. The front end patches aren't just sounds but user interfaces someone else designed that are very flexible. The star of the show is the oscillator, which is basically a waveform that is divided such that cycle portions of it are totally independent of each other (pitch, shape, amplitude). You need to be an innovator because this is uncharted (and patent pending) territory. There's a Eurorack module of the oscillator, currently out of stock: https://1010music.com/product/waverazor ... tor-module

Speaking of Eurorack, there's Unfiltered Audio Lion. A lot of people focus on the wealth of modulatable post-generator FX but to me the generators and mixer are what makes it special. It's all mathematical, but think of different ways of mixing signals. My go-to is the min-max... either the smallest of two values or greatest of two values. Combine that with non-standard and innovative generators and you can get some really interesting textures. UA's been talking about making a Eurorack version of this as well. If you've heard negativity about it, it's largely because they didn't supply bread-and-butter factory presets. I'd argue it's not in the spirit of the synth but it's not hard to make them either.

Along these modular lines, don't neglect Bazille. It was introduced in 2014 but like other u-He synth's it's future-proofed now that CPU is catching up. You're patching wires, and it's based mostly around phase distortion (in layman terms FM) generators but it's an open-ended playground. There's a lot of depth I can't cover (read the manual, it's worth it), just think about why there's a spring reverb supplied that complements it well. u-He's Hive may seem like a straightforward substractive but the arp + sequencer + shape sequencer + West Coast and other modulators allow it create generative sequences in a way most synths can't do. Honestly, you need to read up on or watch videos about "hidden" features which I don't know works for or against the marketing.

MSoundFactory is pretty modular but works in lanes so you need to use modules to do the routing, including feedback. It's basically a kitchen sink of generators and filters and more. I like the additive generator in particular, you can analyze spectrums from samples and interpolate between four captured states, and modulate the harmonics. It recently got a sampler, it has a very complete drum machine with drum articulation sequencing, the value is immense if you can handle the GUI. People have been creating clones of popular plugins with it, you can create your own instruments if you wish. If you're new to Melda there's a steep learning curve but watch some of the tutorial videos and you'll get up to speed.

Pendulate/Generate have already been mentioned. Chaos-based generators that sound good is no small feat! Back to Native Instruments, don't neglect Massive X. Its launch was hampered by some things of their own doing but also unreasonable expectations. Basically it's its own synth. It has wonderfully curated wavetables that sound good and a higher degree of routing flexibility than its predecessor.

Phase Plant isn't really that innovative but I love it for phase distortion. From electric pianos to neurofunk, it's got quite the range you can spend a lot of time exploring. Though if you're into sound design you'll want to invest in most of the snap-ins. Pick up freebies over time from Plugin Boutique et al and premium free from Computer Music cover giveaways, wait for the sale rotations, take advantage of generous upgrade offers, and you can complete the set for a reasonable flagship price.

Continuing redundancies, Vital doesn't offer much more given what you already have. Though some great sound designers have some really cool patches in there to pick apart and learn from. It is getting a lot of attention as the sexy open source project, so don't neglect Surge. The team has been incorporating some interesting open source projects like Jatin Chowdhury's and Airwindows' prodigious works.

If you're into MPE there's some really interesting stuff coming from Madrona Labs. If you're into microtonal look at MTS-ESP ready synths, such as the aforementioned LION, Surge, Serum, Generate/Pendulate and more: https://oddsound.com/usingmtsesp.php

Honestly, you need a lot of time to begin to explore a lot of these.

Edit: Corrected error about Madrona Labs.

[pdxindy]

If you're into MPE there's some really interesting stuff coming from Madrona Labs, and if you're into microtonal they are MTS-ESP ready, along with the aforementioned LION, Surge, Serum, Generate/Pendulate and more: https://oddsound.com/usingmtsesp.php

Honestly, you need a lot of time to begin to explore a lot of these.

Hive, ACE and Bazille are both MTS-ESP ready (Diva and RePro as well but they are vintage) - download the latest Bazille and ACE betas to for that

[PieBerger]

Maybe he wants a plasma trumpet

Damn it, now I want a plasma trumpet

[Damon @ ODDSound]

If you're into MPE there's some really interesting stuff coming from Madrona Labs, and if you're into microtonal they are MTS-ESP ready, along with the aforementioned LION, Surge, Serum, Generate/Pendulate and more: https://oddsound.com/usingmtsesp.php

The Madrona Labs plugins aren't MTS-ESP ready AFAIK, there's no way to dynamically microtune with them. As pdxindy points out, all the U-he synths have MTS-ESP via the latest betas : viewtopic.php?t=563131

[] Peter:H []

[...]

Along "nothing else like it" lines, MOK Waverazor was introduced about 3 or 4 years ago but only got the full-blown editor 2 years ago. But don't let that fool you, there are two levels of patch editing. The "full" editor is basically a synth designer down to the user interface. The front end patches aren't just sounds but user interfaces someone else designed that are very flexible. The star of the show is the oscillator, which is basically a waveform that is divided such that cycle portions of it are totally independent of each other (pitch, shape, amplitude). You need to be an innovator because this is uncharted (and patent pending) territory. There's a Eurorack module of the oscillator, currently out of stock: https://1010music.com/product/waverazor ... tor-module

[...]

MSoundFactory is pretty modular but works in lanes so you need to use modules to do the routing, including feedback. It's basically a kitchen sink of generators and filters and more. I like the additive generator in particular, you can analyze spectrums from samples and interpolate between four captured states, and modulate the harmonics. It recently got a sampler, it has a very complete drum machine with drum articulation sequencing, the value is immense if you can handle the GUI. People have been creating clones of popular plugins with it, you can create your own instruments if you wish. If you're new to Melda there's a steep learning curve but watch some of the tutorial videos and you'll get up to speed.
[...]
Pendulate/Generate have already been mentioned.
[...]
Honestly, you need a lot of time to begin to explore a lot of these.

+1 Waverazor - Most underrated synth along with Tranzistow! They both have a steep learning curve because of their GUI, but both Wavearzor and Tranzistow are very unique.

+1 MSF - The Melda take on modular, though not really modular in a "traditional" sense. Gate signals missing... and it's weird that oscillators cannot modulate oscillators in a natural fashion... only possible with workaround.

Regarding Pendualte you could as well check out Oscilloscope Music and the SoundEmote Plugins: https://www.soundemote.com/plugins/spiral-generator or you go and use Jeromes stuff (there was some software mentioned on this site: https://oscilloscopemusic.com/)

I would really love to add Bitwig - It might be strange but for me Bitwig more and more becomes blured between DAW and Instrument. The Modulation Facilities and the well thought out synths they have, like Polymere... amazing: Only one example. Polymere adds a Stereo Frequency Shift to the panel. In contrast to "Pitch" setting you can shift by a fixed frequency in hertz, for instance 1 Hz and make this stereo, i.e. left is shift -1 Hz, right side is shift +1 Hz which gives insta width.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

I have Bazille which I like but not a go-to because it's kind of out there and it's complicated to me.If I want to make changes,I usually have to spend time guessing what is doing what so I can change it.

I’ve bounced off Bazille a couple times myself. I hope to invest more time in studying it someday but I also wonder if I could develop a better intuition for what it’s doing by using some other synth with vaguely similar capabilities. That’s not a long list, though. The closest thing I’m aware of is Phase Plant. I’m curious how good or bad a comparison that actually is, and what experienced users think after having spent a lot of time with both.

Hey guys....if you haven't already go check out the Bazille cookbook. It is a free pdf that was released late 2020. It is written by Howard Scarr and is a great way to get involved with Bazille. It goes along with a patch bank that is not free but still alot of info in the PDF.

https://u-he.com/products/soundsets/baz ... dsets.html