choosing Between - Surge - Serum - Synthmaster one- Vital and Synthmaster 2.9

[digitalboytn]

They advertise that sm has every form of synthesis. But from the ones they actually have none is implemented properly in a usable way.
I basically just bought it because it was really cheap (i had sm one and there was a crossgrade sale) so I don't really care but yeah I still don't like it ^^

Tough crowd

[kv331]

But My main concerns are still there. They advertise that sm has every form of synthesis. But from the ones they actually have none is implemented properly in a usable way.

Can you please elaborate on that?

Thanks

[Auplant]

Surge is free, just take it. It's always a good addition to other synths and it has crazy envelope and lfo mods

[GeneralQ]

But My main concerns are still there. They advertise that sm has every form of synthesis. But from the ones they actually have none is implemented properly in a usable way.

Can you please elaborate on that?

Thanks

Ok I'll try my best to explain it. These are just a few things that I mentioned and some of them may even come down to a lack of understanding or because they are unintuitive.
Lets start with sample play back: You go to osc>basic click on the waveform and select samples umltisamples to select a sample. If you want to use that sample playback for anything else than adding whitenoise to a sound (for which you could just use the noise in basic selection) you would need some more settings. I would want to specify a start point, an end point and a loop point. the phase knob seems to have an effect on the starting position but then it should be called like that rather than phase. Also none of the controls on the right side of the sample do anything. (base note,amount,speed,and amount have no effect).

Next would be FM. You can select an osc and for each one an FM source. Its hard to figure out how this has to be set up. First of what is the difference between mod1+mod2 and mod1xmod2 i suppose one of them are both modulators modulating the oscillator and one of them is where 2modulates 1 wich modulates the osc then. But which one is which. Another thing is taht it is not possible to set mod2 as an fm source for mod1 you can only select lower ones. For example it is possible in mod3 to choose mod2 but not mod4. The sources which are not available should be not selectable imo. Also it would be nicer to simply select the fm algorithm. Maybe with those little boxes like the dx7 had them. Also for Fm synthesis it would be really handy to have the option to tune the oscs and mods in ratios.

Next is additive. I am not really experienced with additive synthesis. But I think 8 partials is really few. Also all partials should be sine waves by defaut rather than one beeing a saw.
Then cotrolling the envelopes of the partials is not really handy. You would need to manually assign envelopes to each partial and set them up individually. I think I would either have morphing between two states like in the arturia synthclavier or simply some additive osc fx similar to the way ni razor works.

I hope you find this helpful.

[bungle]

Don't buy Serum, Duda has stopped allowing licence transfers, that is disgraceful at the price he charges.
I was a Serum fanboy but would happily get rid of it now.

[yzcoruhT]

Well, Synthmaser One is now on sale just for 20$. Could you recommend it to buy even if I own Hive2? Hive is the only commercial VSTi I own (I'm using u-he freeware/magware and ThornCM). Thanks

[telecharge]

Well, Synthmaser One is now on sale just for 20$. Could you recommend it to buy even if I own Hive2? Hive is the only commercial VSTi I own (I'm using u-he freeware/magware and ThornCM). Thanks

I don't have Hive, but I'm happy to have Synthmaster One along with other synths. There are 11 days left on the $20 deal, so why not try the demo?

Even if you're not interested in (or ready for) synth programming, it comes with 1250 presets for you to audition. I also suggest watching some YouTube, listening to some SoundCloud, and reading some reviews.

[Elbenderman]

Vital seems wonderful but it freaks out my MacBook in Ableton. Diva doesn’t seem to have that kind of cpu burn. Ymmv.

[Lilshaun94]

Well, Synthmaser One is now on sale just for 20$. Could you recommend it to buy even if I own Hive2? Hive is the only commercial VSTi I own (I'm using u-he freeware/magware and ThornCM). Thanks

I'm interested in this too. Wouldn't it make more sense to get their other synthmaster vst since it's newer?

[LeVzi]

Get them all, to hell with it

[Norqa]

Get them all, to hell with it

Exactly get every one of them.
But only ever pay for the One you use.

[Agreed]

For "super-synths," my opinion is Serum is baseline quality for a modern synth and established the features that a synth needs to have to be truly modern. Vital is a direct response to Serum and one-ups Serum on a number of important fronts, but in use it doesn't really feel drastically more powerful than Serum to me so much as an alternative (and a very low cost one, for what it is capable of - I have tons of respect for Vital and own its pro version, it's my go-to speech synthesis tool as well as being for me basically I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Serum). Serum's status as an industry standard has lead to having absolutely tons of useful presets if you are a preset user and not so much into sound design, but man, why get Serum or Vital or anything super-synthy to begin with if you're just after some presets IMO. Still, it is a factor, and even just having preset libraries to get inspired by and try to make a sound in a similar direction may be helpful, don't want to discount that aspect.

If you want to go up a tier in terms of capabilities while still staying in the digital super-synth wheelhouse, there's Phaseplant. The limits that Serum and Vital have, it doesn't have. Unbelievably powerful semi-modular beast. The snap-in plugin ecosystem and working with SnapHeap and especially MultiPass are unbelievably powerful tools also. I feel you kinda need to do the subscription with them, or just have a lot of outlay to get access to at least Phaseplant and then like... most of the unique snap-ins like Trance Gate or Disperser, but also some of the ones that do a relatively normal thing but in a really clever and handy way, like Dynamics. Since PhasePlant's effects system is basically a few SnapHeap lanes that can be routed and mixed differently, having just PhasePlant but not the effects feels kind of like having half a synth compared to other contenders. It'd be like if you bought LION but it was just oscillators, filters and the mixer and you couldn't use any effects with it unless you actually owned BYOME too. Not my favorite limitation but it's just part of their business model, you know? Amazing tools, regardless.

Speaking of LION and other PA synths, I got opinions

I really love and use Thorn regularly as it is pretty CPU efficient and I feel it has better filters and driven filter behavior than the aforementioned plugins, with a great harmonics-based filter also that's quite precise and can strongly change a patch just on its own. It has some very uniquely implemented effects and glitching capabilities plus a nice, robust arpeggiator. And, its modulation capabilities are very diverse, with anything being able to modulate anything else and lots of modulation slots to set up complex patches with various kinds of envelopes, lfos, and other control features. It lacks visualization of the modulation relationships, but that is the only drawback IMO. Well, that and not being able to load your own wavetables. Little less modern in that regard I guess. But, its oscillators sound great, and its oscillator FX enable so many different kinds of cool, modern sounds - I really favor this tool, friends.

Big fan of bx_oberhausen too, I use it for simpler synth sounds as a go-to as I feel its oscillators sound great when doing FM/PWM internally compared to some emulations. I wish its modulation setup was a little deeper, as even though it is a fairly straightforward synth setup it would be nice to be able to do just a few modulation changes more, get aftertouch doing a little more than it can while the mod wheel is also doing stuff etc. because of the somewhat low number of slots. Still, for convincingly analog-ish sound it's super, love it for making plucks, strings, brass and e-piano sounds.

I mentioned LION from Unfiltered Audio and that too has become a go-to for me for droning and metallic sounds and for some kind of experimental, granular stuff (I'd kill to have LION's oscillators and mixer section available with everything in PhasePlant, 'tis only a dream). Its effects are provided in the form of an internal BYOME lane, with all of the BYOME effects in it but now with direct MIDI control from keyfollow, note input, aftertouch etc., which can be handy in making evolving sounds. It has great visualization of effects and controllers, too. Might have a bug or two, though.

Oh, I should not forget, their Knifonium plugin emulation does external audio sidechained FM/AM/RM/PWM synthesis and has a unique gain structure that drips like crazy with massive harmonics, so there are certain sounds I go to it for, though having all of that going at once (a separate synth in front of it to feed its side chain, plus Knifonium running in polyphonic or unison mode) can be a strain on my system in a project with much going on otherwise. Need to build a new computer, though, this Haswell 4770K is starting to feel its age. But the sounds that I've got from the above, just huuuuuge and complex and very enjoyable. Unique tones from this thing. Man, I'd love a real one, anyone got a spare $17k lying around

Surge is really interesting and capable, too, and costs zero so definitely check it out!

[telecharge]

Well, Synthmaser One is now on sale just for 20$. Could you recommend it to buy even if I own Hive2? Hive is the only commercial VSTi I own (I'm using u-he freeware/magware and ThornCM). Thanks

I'm interested in this too. Wouldn't it make more sense to get their other synthmaster vst since it's newer?

It's a bit confusing, but SynthMaster One was actually released after SynthMaster. SynthMaster was released nearly a decade ago. SynthMaster One was released in 2017.

Product Version History for KV331 Audio - https://www.kvraudio.com/versions.php?d=818

[pierb]

The thing is as a beginner you don't really know what you want yet. Objectively all synths have pros and cos and it all depends on what you want.

My advice would be to stick a couple of months with Vital because it's free, very easy to use, sounds great, and is fairly powerful. Maybe buy the $25 version so you get more presets.

Once you have more experience, you will be able to decide if Vital is all you need, or you want to get more in depth into synthesis with something like Zebra, Bazille, or Phaseplant. Or maybe you want more analog mojo and you can go with something like Repro, Diva, or The Legend. Or maybe an all-rounder like Dune.

[Lilshaun94]

Well, Synthmaser One is now on sale just for 20$. Could you recommend it to buy even if I own Hive2? Hive is the only commercial VSTi I own (I'm using u-he freeware/magware and ThornCM). Thanks

I'm interested in this too. Wouldn't it make more sense to get their other synthmaster vst since it's newer?

It's a bit confusing, but SynthMaster One was actually released after SynthMaster. SynthMaster was released nearly a decade ago. SynthMaster One was released in 2017.

Product Version History for KV331 Audio - https://www.kvraudio.com/versions.php?d=818

Got it, thanks for clarifying! Do you think this deal is worth it then? I know it's only $20 but I already have enough VST's that I don't use enough as is, lol.