Dune 3 vs Sylenth 1 vs Seum for techno/trance

[Dencheg]

Spire, Ana2, Hive 2, Zebra 2, Diva, etc they are all kinda like next gen Sylenth 1 (more of this and that)...

I think it’s a bit of generic generalisation.
I’d say Spire is a next gen Sylenth.
The others are of quite bigger scope.

If I were Trancer, I’d go with Serum + Spire (the best buddy synths for Trance kind of stuff)

[_leras]

I would too, has good sound quality, a 1000 presets and a farily simple interface though, but I too am... hmmm erm... probably not... Maybe on a blackfriday sale of 75% lol

Not quite 75%, but since we have Brexited, Thomann no longer charge UK customers VAT on digital purchases so during Synapse's 40% sale, you can save an additional 20% on top. This means Dune can be purchased for about £64 (and Obsession/The Legend for £37/36).

When's the sale?

Obsession currently £61 + VAT at Thomann from what I can see...

[chk071]

If I were Trancer, I’d go with Serum + Spire (the best buddy synths for Trance kind of stuff)

I think that's a very nice combo, and will probably do 99.9% of what you're after in that genre. Or... even 100%.

[4damind]

Dune 3.
If you do a lot of wavetable synthesis, Serum is of course the first choice. This also works in Dune 3, but it is sometimes a bit cumbersome because there is not even a proper wavetable browser.
Sylenth.... well known to have little functionality but very resource friendly and easy to use.

If I were starting out on a limited budget and couldn't afford to buy all the synths, I'd start with Dune 3 first and then Serum later. Sylenth has its advantages but I wouldn't necessarily need it.
In the mentioned genres like Techne/Trance/EDM all these synths are used (which is not surprising).

[jasonekratz]

Ok after playing a bit more with Spire... And listening to the shop sound preset bundles/banks... It's a maybe (for me)... If it was Spire or Dune 3 it would be a tough choice, I think you get a lot more with Dune 3 but Spire has a lot of presets which you can buy (not cheap) which are constructed based on trance/edm and tunes we have heard and loved. Another black friday / cyber monday deal decision....

Spire is pretty deep. There is a lot there that might not be obvious without a glance at the manual. And they're always putting sound store stuff on sale. Happens very often.

[chk071]

Spire is pretty deep. There is a lot there that might not be obvious without a glance at the manual.

I considered writing a more comprehensive manual a few times. Frankly, it's not very good. Some stuff is missing, some things are only scarcely described.

On the other hand, it seems like people are more into videos these days, so, I really don't know who would read a written manual... I'm not really an expert either, which adds to the lack of motivation.

[cryophonik]

How long have people been saying that Sylenth1 is too old now, yet it's still as widely used as ever? Anyway, one factor to consider is that Sylenth's CPU hit is way lower than anything else mentioned here, so if you're only going to buy one of them and use it for many tracks, you'll get way more instances of Sylenth in your projects than you would for most of the others (unless/until you freeze or bounce to audio). Hive and Dune aren't too bad, but Spire and Pigments will bring some computers to their knees with just 1 or 2 instances, and I have no idea about Serum (don't own it). That may or may not be a deciding factor for you, but it's something to consider.

[Rastkovic]

Though I agree Hive misses some of that sheen and clarity of Spire or Serum (and that's actually why I like it)

Maybe, the not-very-bright oscillator sound is U-he typical?

I remember discussions about the Zebra oscillators many years ago, the "lack" of brightness.
I'm not 100% sure, but the 'Brilliance' option in Zebra was added because of that discussions? Maybe I'm wrong.

Btw, I found this funny quote from Urs....

I'm on holiday, but here's my quick observation:

Twin & Zebra: No aliasing, efficient, no oversampling
ES2 & Analog: Aliasing, not my cup of tea
impOSCar: No aliasing, oversampled hence probably higher cpu usage

I don't like overly bright oscillators. That's why my stuff donesn't have them.

Urs

[chk071]

How long have people been saying that Sylenth1 is too old now, yet it's still as widely used as ever? Anyway, one factor to consider is that Sylenth's CPU hit is way lower than anything else mentioned here, so if you're only going to buy one of them and use it for many tracks, you'll get way more instances of Sylenth in your projects than you would for most of the others (unless/until you freeze or bounce to audio). Hive and Dune aren't too bad, but Spire and Pigments will bring some computers to their knees with just 1 or 2 instances, and I have no idea about Serum (don't own it). That may or may not be a deciding factor for you, but it's something to consider.

To be fair, Spire isn't nearly as demanding as Pigments.

I double what you say about Sylenth1 though. Its strength is the sound quality to CPU ratio. It's not an evergreen for nothing. Although I rarely reach for it, TBH... I just happen to like Spire's sound better. And, as I said, it's not really that demanding either. I think the dev posted a comparison picture once, which showed that Spire hardly takes more CPU than Sylenth1 with similar patches.

[chk071]

Though I agree Hive misses some of that sheen and clarity of Spire or Serum (and that's actually why I like it)

Maybe, the not-very-bright oscillator sound is U-he typical?

I remember discussions about the Zebra oscillators many years ago, the "lack" of brightness.
I'm not 100% sure, but the 'Brilliance' option in Zebra was added because of that discussions? Maybe I'm wrong.

Lack of brightness/brilliance can be a serious issue on some soft synth. A synth I'm not allowed to name (which gets hyped a lot here) has that quite severely IMO.

I think Zebra 2 got a mode which avoids that "low pass filter" like dampening of the higher frequencies, not sure what it's called though. Never noticed that Hive is lacking brightness, but, I didn't spend so much time with it. It always sounded a bit harsh and metallic to me, that's why I discarded it. Not my cup of tea, sonically.

Massive X is the brightest I've heard so far. Every now and then, it can almost become a bit piercing with higher resonance settings...

Sometimes I feel like "defusing" some synths which can be a bit too piercing, while, on others, I always feel like there's a cotton ball dampening it. Better to have synths which are too piercing than the ones which always sound like you do music in a tin can, I guess.

[e-crooner]

Why are you not allowed to name a certain synth in such a discussion that is all about comparing stuff?!

[chk071]

Just having a bit of a laugh about it. Of course, I could name it, but, I don't see the point.

Just replace it with synth XY, which has the same behavior. If you have SPAN, just open up a couple of your synths, play some sawtooth wave notes, and take a look at the upper frequency spectrum. Especially with some old plugins, it's very interesting what's happening up there. Or rather, what's not happening up there.

[dionenoid]

Spire + Serum. Killer combo, and they have the most available presets for those genres.

Spire is the quintessential trance synth btw. I know a few guys that are quite big in trance (understatement) and they all use Spire in every production.

[e-crooner]

Just having a bit of a laugh about it. Of course, I could name it, but, I don't see the point.

Just replace it with synth XY, which has the same behavior. If you have SPAN, just open up a couple of your synths, play some sawtooth wave notes, and take a look at the upper frequency spectrum. Especially with some old plugins, it's very interesting what's happening up there. Or rather, what's not happening up there.

Retrologue 2 and PG-8X have a similar roll-off of high frequencies.
I don't consider that negative at all, then again, my hearing ends at 13k, anyway
Neither of those two synths sounds dull or muted or dark.

The new Invader 2 doesn't have such a roll-off according to the frequency analyzer, very bright...

[Spring Goose]

Another benefit of Serum is updates for life, you get Serum 2, 3, 4,.. 100,.. 99999 etc for free.

I like Serum, but seriously the development isn't fast.


For Trancer: I was in the same boat, i didn't know which expensive synth to buy so i decided to take both Serum and Sylenth on rent-to-own. I'm still paying for it now. Then i bought Diva, Repro, Hive, and Zebra 2 in a sale bundle then i bought Spire in a sale. I'm not unhappy with any of my purchases. If it were me making trance i'd start with Sylenth on rent-to-own then i'd buy Diva and Spire. The trance i like is 1995-2000.