Dune 3 vs Sylenth 1 vs Seum for techno/trance

[chk071]

Question: What are your favorite musical genres, and which kind of music are you producing?

[recursive one]

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

It is of no consequence to me if the OP chooses:
Dune
Sylenth
Serum
Spire
Nexus
Avenger
Rapid
SynthMaster
SynthMaster One
Omnisphere
Hive
Go 2
Icarus
Elektra
Tal-Mod
ACE
etc.

All are quite capable of the sounds the OP may be looking for. I just want them to choose wisely, based on what they like, not what someone else tells them they should like.

You could just direct the OP here and let them choose wisely based on what they like
https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/softsy ... nstruments

I think if someone is just starting out and wants to learn a specific genre it makes sense to stick to one or two synths which appear in most genre-specfic tutorials and for which the most genre-specific preset packs are available. If we talk about trance Sylenth and Serum are definitely a safe bet (I'd actually get both).

[Passing Bye]

If we talk about trance Sylenth and Serum are definitely a safe bet (I'd actually get both).

Absolutely, even for techno, one can even rent-to-own both.

Also if he wants to dive into Syntorial, there's dedicated lessons for them
https://www.syntorial.com/lesson-packs/

[Rastkovic]

Pretty much any modern synth can be used for trance. They all have Stuporsaws and are awash in fx. I'm sure I could throw in a few more names if you don't have enough yet.

Basically you are right, mixing and processing (and composing of course) have a much bigger impact on the results.

But I read the entry post like he is was asking for personal choices, especially for Trance. I don't know, maybe it helps him to make his own choice.

[syntonica]

Pretty much any modern synth can be used for trance. They all have Stuporsaws and are awash in fx. I'm sure I could throw in a few more names if you don't have enough yet.

Basically you are right, mixing and processing (and composing of course) have a much bigger impact on the results.

But I read the entry post like he is was asking for personal choices, especially for Trance. I don't know, maybe it helps him to make his own choice.

Until the OP comes back with more specific requirements, I can't really make any better recommendation.

But of those three, Dune, because of its sweet, sweet filters. I despise Serum, starting with its overall sound, but that's a whole other thread. Sylenth is... ok.

Outside of those three, I'd go with Rapid or a Tone2 synth. Maybe Spire.

[e-crooner]

Every synth has its strengths and weaknesses
One key difference is wavetables of course, S1 does not support them, the others do.
S1's reverb is very bad, I am sure every other major synths has a better one, including the ones I have never tried.
And except for strict emulations, almost every synth today seems to support wave stacking for supersaw and such irritating sounds.

[SamDi]

Need your advice.

For techno / trance. Which vst would be your choice.

Sylenth 1 is no longer very young, but is it obsolete compared to Dune 3 where Dune 3 is more interesting than Sylenth 1?

Serum is perhaps apart for the example?

Thank you for your opinion.

Take Serum for genres, invented after 2007 (the Massive-singularity). Dune for genres, invented before.

Sylenth sounds still amazing, but I see no big advantages over Dune (beside many preset libraries existing for it). So it's out for a non-GASers.

Easy question - easy answer.

You're welcome

[Xbucket]

With dune you can have lots of layers, as with rapid too. sylenth and serum are good, as the others mentioned; you can do trance with every synth, but regarding the layering if i had no synth and had my knowledge from today i´d go with one of those two.

[MegaPixel]

For me it would be:

- Vital (free) pop on forums and find monthly instrument share threads for 100s of sounds for free

- Synthmaster 2 Everything Bundle (you get synthmaster one also and free upgrade to v3 when it comes out - evenything bundle has an insane amount of presets

- PhasePlant + Prof package (or go for sub) - not many presets but great and great for sound design. You also get a lot of effects plugins with it, trancegate is one you will like for techno/trance.

- VPS Avenger (one of the legends - expensive sound packs and an extremely annoying licence key management system)

- Ana 2 / Hive 2 / Zebra 2 (can easily achieve the same thing in all 3 of these, I seem to use Ana 2 the most, and then Zebra 2... Dune 3 would also fall in with this group.)

- Serum (you will find a lot of cheap sound banks for it and they are just duplicates of 100s of the same sound, they are often incorrectly laid out so you will find certain presets dont work till you work out where to put the damn files, I've got so many preset from signups the thing has trouble loading.... Lot of sound design work on this one also like phaseplant, but phaseplant is easier imo). Also I don't ever seem to use it for techno/trance/edm/progressive, it has some great sounds but it's presets are a bit wuba dub dub bassliney for my taste, it is an awesome instrument though. You could do anything with it, if you spend a month or 3 working it out. You will find like 10 packs of serum presets on various websites like WAProduction on sale every couple of week for something like $10.


Dune 3 - Was not my cup of tea, at all... Try the demo...

Sylenth 1 - Still awesome but its getting long in the tooth


Here is a really bad demo of some of the VSTs I talked about above...
It's a video, right click open in new tab or it just plays back the sound.
https://aftc.io/share/really-bad-demos-of-some-vsts.mp4

[Passing Bye]

- Serum (you will find a lot of cheap sound banks for it and they are just duplicates of 100s of the same sound, they are often incorrectly laid out so you will find certain presets dont work till you work out where to put the damn files, I've got so many preset from signups the thing has trouble loading.... Lot of sound design work on this one also like phaseplant, but phaseplant is easier imo). Also I don't ever seem to use it for techno/trance/edm/progressive, it has some great sounds but it's presets are a bit wuba dub dub bassliney for my taste, it is an awesome instrument though. You could do anything with it, if you spend a month or 3 working it out. You will find like 10 packs of serum presets on various websites like WAProduction on sale every couple of week for something like $10.

Thing is to actually buy good presets and pay fair price great sound designers ask for their awesome job, stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OKj6jYQoCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM3rEydKWNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlPcSXa3Pok

[Lazarus451]

I would get Vital - (free) and good. Serum from Splice (rent to own) - extremely easy and fast to program, youtube is full of tutorials and presets are everywhere.

Then I would demo Hive 2, Dune 3 and Sylenth1 etc. and get the one I like the most. Sylenth1 looks old but Killihu's Ableton Live skin makes it totally different and modern. There is also Dune 3 skin but I haven't tried Dune yet and can't say anything about the gui.

[functionform]

That demo of Largo sounds pretty nice!

[Trancer]

A big thank you to you for your answers and opinions.

For Rapid, not hooked and regarding Avenger, I got it as a vst and it didn't pack me as a vst. Isn't Hive 2 a more modern Sylenth 1 with a hint of Serum?

Regarding Dune 3, more and more positive opinions about it and apparently excellent sounds. Sylenth 1 isn't it a bit aging, which doesn't detract from its excellent potential despite its years?

Thanks for the information Rob Lee, I am an affiliate at Vstbuzz. They are very professional and extremely kind. Ana 2, isn't that yet another vst?

What does it offer more than a Sylenth 1, Dune 3 for example?

Serum is for many a marvel, is it as versatile as a Dune 3 or really a dedicated wave table vst?

I was very interested at one time in Repro 1 and 5, but repro 5 is apparently a cpu over-consumer, so I resigned myself to missing out.

I have a three year old i7 with 32 gigabytes of ram and have seen reviews that with an i7 and 16 gigabytes of ram not really possible to use multiple instances of Repro 5.

Velltone Music, if I had to take Sylenth 1, I would go through you for additional patches as well. You are not offending at all, you are giving your opinion and that is fine.

It is clear that they are used extensively in productions, I tell myself that one or two can make the difference and has a more techno / trance type sound, others more Edm. Vital is a free Serum?

Vital is more evolved, interesting than Serum?

To answer what style of Trance, that of Armin Van Buuren and Giuseppe Ottaviani. For Techno, Boris Brejcha.

I produced an album, but, over 20 years ago. For the moment, I am equipping myself with equipment.

Dune 3 is a boosted Sylenth 1? Dune 3 is often compared to Virus Ti2, is it a reality?

Thank you very much MegaPixel for the description of each vst. Sylenth 1 and Serum remain a safe bet. Serum compared to other Vst seems to have a longer grip to get the best out of it, am I wrong?

Thanks Passing Bye, the second video, more of Psytrance, but not bad at all.

Largo, yes not bad, but not too much of a fan.

[Examigan]

Sylenth1 looks old but Killihu's Ableton Live skin makes it totally different and modern.

It has other built-in skins to choose from.
I like the one called Apox and a couple of the others.

[MegaPixel]

A big thank you to you for your answers and opinions.

RE: Styles of music
Sounds like I'm into the same kind of stuff as your Trance, Progressive, Armin, EDM, but I often finding myself sometimes writing like movie sound tracking kind of tracks or super mellow stuff when I'm running in insomnia mode which knocks me right out.

RE: Serum is for many a marvel, is it as versatile as a Dune 3 or really a dedicated wave table vst?

Serum is far more involved than what Dune 3 is and can do, there's a lot of presets out there and it heavily sound design based. You might want to check out PhasePlant monthly sub as it's considered the main contender to Serum. I find PhasePlant much easier to use.

Serum is flexible but PhasePlant is endless, you can just keep stacking modules and effects and lfo's till your computer runs out of cpu cycles and ram. Serum is easier on the CPU however. But both sound great.

RE: Isn't Ana2 just another VST
Yes but it has very nice sound quality and all the controls you would need and more. Does some nice stuff with chords and key mapping, which I've only seen done in Hive 2. The program does glitch a lot but you just click the init button and it resets and your good to go again, this only happens when your switching presets. Thre are loads of tutorials and videos on their site and youtube. If I'm just going to mess about to see play something Ana2 is what I would probably load up 1st. I linked a video of me using all the VSTs I listed in my previous post, badly done but shows you their general presets and some GUI shots etc.

RE: WaveTable Playgrounds
That would be nearly all of the above.

RE: Three year old i7 with 32 gigabytes of ram.
- Vital = Can be very very heavy on the CPU & GPU (I've had single sounds push my i9900k 32GB to over 60% usage in bitwig with just 1 instance/instrument. I use BitWig and its pretty light on cpu use, also its modularity and me as a heavy piano roll / midi controller user, non live event etc kind of user, it suits me perfects. I loved FLStudio but once I got into BitWig I never looked back. Couldn't get into Ableton or Cubase but am trying out StudioOne but everything I use now I miss the modular capabilities and the plugins reverbs, eqs etc that come free with BitWig. Its just so easy to strap an LFO or any note effect outside of an instrument to any parameter that is exposed by any instrument in BitWig and chain them. Made FLStudio seem complicated after.

- PhasePlant = you can construct anything (sound design, the limit is your computer but you probably wont run into issues, but you can add so much stuff or create something that will consume any computers CPU & RAM). But PhasePlant is huge, it comes with many plugins which can be used by your DAW or by the PhasePlant VST itself, one of the reasons I bought the full thing.

- Serum = Pretty light on CPU and RAM

- Ana2 / Hive 2/ Zebra 2/ Dune etc all fairly light on CPU and RAM, but again depends on what you load up and then how far you take your sound design.

- Sylenth 1, it's an oldy but goldy and is quite easy on the cpu and ram.


RE: Is vital is more evolved, interesting than Serum?
Vital is actually easier to use, serum I find is more complicated. You can do awesome stuff with both. But in different ways. The forums on vital help you a lot and give you lots and lots of free samples on the monthly posts. Can also buy the pro version at $80 and get extra wavetables etc.

RE: Is Dune 3 is a boosted Sylenth 1?
Well most of the VSTs especially the ones from uhe all are really. I went with Hive 2 and Zebra 2, Zebra 2 is very nice indeed. But I don't know why I couldn't get along with Dune 3, Zebra 2 should come with more presets but the way it works is quite nice once you get into it. Hive 2, I'm still finding my way around that, dont know why but I'm finding it a bit hard going.

RE: Serum compared to other Vst seems to have a longer grip to get the best out of it, am I wrong?
No, it's been around for a long time and you can find a billion presets for it, but be warned you join these website newletters they give you 100 presets for free, then you buy a bundle on discount from WAProductions of 800 or so and 50% of them are duplicates and 30% are complete rubbish. You will see from the video I posted previously the number of presets I had in serum, I'm literally thinking of deleting them all and just starting again. But I've not used it much since I got PhasePlant and Ana2.

But Serum for me is more about finding that right preset, then get into the sound design element of it and cook up something that hits the spot or takes me in a completely different direction. But I find PhasePlant makes this a lot lot easier, but in a much different way. Both are impressive instruments.

RE: Sylenth 1
It's still worth a buy and lots of presets floating around out there, is a great instrument.


Where to go from here?
Install the DAW of your choice, download a few demos and see which ones you like. Might want to give yourself some time between installing them all in 1 go, so you have more time on your hands to work out how to use them.


Messing around with Ana 2
https://youtu.be/bvxQz0dEcOc

Messing around with Serum
https://youtu.be/vqChtycbPOM

Messing around with the demo of Dune 3
https://youtu.be/Vne5CR8mbNA

PhasePlant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lizjPo2NxG8


RE: Dune 3
It does have good sound quality and some nice features, but wish it came with a few more useful presets to play with in the demo (1000 with the full version and $20 for packs of 75ish). One big thing I did notice however many of the values/dials/envelope points etc from Dune3 were not accessible from BitWig so like the others I couldn't slap note effects/lfos etc on them from the daw.