Non-emulation VA synth recommendations.

[SHall1000]

Lots of interesting suggestions thanks, although some are wavetable and additive etc. To be clear I was thinking traditional subtractive Osc, filter, vca, lfo, env config of which I have quite a few emulations of old stuff. I was not aware of many non-emus of this architecture than the ones I mentioned in my original post. I won’t be ditching my other stuff!

Fire up a wavetable synth and load a sawtooth into oscillator one...

What do you have ?

Good point! Widens the scope somewhat!

[SHall1000]

Just use what you have

OK. Thanks!

For real

Super 8, AA Ultra VA 3, Diva are all subtractive virtual analog. Even VA is in a name of AA Ultra Virtual Analog 3

You are probably right. Been playing with AA Ultra VA3 and it does sound good to me.

[zerocrossing]

Underrated? Surely not around here.

It has the same loyal following as Spire.

I think DUNE 3 is looked at more as a Wavetable synth by the general public at KVR. Its VA capability is often over looked or rarely discussed.

At any rate "VA" can mean many things. Lush Pads or the Bleeps and Bloops of Modular and so on.....

VA is a weird term that’s lost a lot of meaning. Early VA didn’t sound all that much like analog, so maybe it should have been called “digital subtractive.” Things like Diva are way more “virtual analog” than a Virus. I’ve got multiple folders in my plugin directory. I put things like Dune 3 (which I highly recommend to the OP) in “multi-engine” and things like Diva in “analog emulation.”

[SHall1000]

Dune has cropped up a few times here. I will give it a demo. Not sure why I haven’t before. Probably the price, looks expensive in todays market.

[Dencheg]

Dune has cropped up a few times here. I will give it a demo. Not sure why I haven’t before. Probably the price, looks expensive in todays market.

I think there is a reason for that.
Even though people are less aware of Synapse than for instance of u-he, I think Synapse is like u-he (but Synapse).
I tried to put it as scientifically as it can be.

And yes, best non-emulation VA? I guess it's Dune 3 today, by the sheer amount of features and sound quality backed by the CPU efficiency

[gentleclockdivider]

Dune is great but the lack of real master-slave sync osc is a real misser , dune's 3 osc sync slaves to an internal master osc .

[zerocrossing]

Dune is great but the lack of real master-slave sync osc is a real misser , dune's 3 osc sync slaves to an internal master osc .

Why is it a problem? It’s better in a way, because you don’t lose an oscillator to get sync. It’s not like the sync osc isn’t modulatable. Works just like regular osc sync, but better.

[zerocrossing]

Dune has cropped up a few times here. I will give it a demo. Not sure why I haven’t before. Probably the price, looks expensive in todays market.

Dune’s great. It’s one of the few synths that let you use an oscillator in the mod matrix. (If you do this, make sure you put modulation quality up to full in the settings) It’s got lots of filter types, including really good analog emulations. There are wavetables, with a wavetable editor, a FM oscillator mode, per voice oscillator effects, two effect busses, and more. It’s one of my go-to instruments.

[gentleclockdivider]

Dune is great but the lack of real master-slave sync osc is a real misser , dune's 3 osc sync slaves to an internal master osc .

Why is it a problem? It’s better in a way, because you don’t lose an oscillator to get sync. It’s not like the sync osc isn’t modulatable. Works just like regular osc sync, but better.

Because it doesn't allow some configurations which yield great results , like modulating the frequency of the synced slave by the master osc etc ..as found in the prophet 5 , jupiter 6 , odyssey etc..

[WatchTheGuitar]

Can you count Omnisphere because that can sound non generic and pretty analog irrespective of how the sounds were made.

[Teksonik]

Because it doesn't allow some configurations which yield great results , like modulating the frequency of the synced slave by the master osc etc ..as found in the prophet 5 , jupiter 6 , odyssey etc..

Is this what you're talking about? From the manual:

"When sync is enabled, DUNE 3 automatically generates
a virtual master oscillator needed to perform the synchronisation. The frequency of this oscillator is adjusted by the frequency knob (FREQ), relative to the given pitch. The sync frequency can be modulated using the modulation matrix".

At any rate the "prophet 5, jupiter 6, odyssey" can't have 16 different synced Oscs each with their own pitch/amp settings, different Unison/Spread settings, 16 different filters in a single patch, etc, etc.

DUNE 3 is well suited to those who want to go beyond the limitations of traditional analog synths and I believe it fits exactly what the OP is looking for in this thread. It's a synth that can go from the INIT patch which is a single Osc on a single active layer and light years beyond by using the layers and different Osc engines. It's a synth with a lot of sound design "headroom".

One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is DUNE 3's Sample Osc. No, it's not multi-sample and yes we all wish it was although you can load 8 different samples into the Layers.

If you take a well looped sample at C3 or 4 depending on the sample it will cover the range of a 61 key midi controller fairly well and you can then layer it with the VA Osc or WT,FM, or any combination.

This allows the import of analog samples and they can augment the VA Oscs giving a wider range of tones. Choir samples also work well.

Here's a couple of examples of the Sampler Osc in use:

Tek Sample Patches 082622

[Biome_Digital]

It would have to be a synth that covers a lot of different synthesis types.

I think that's a stupid way of looking at things. Why does synthesis type matter at all? Any two oscillator synth with cross-mod can do FM and there is nothing particularly special about wavetables. Ultimately, they are all just different ways of achieving the same result so one is as good as another.

[Biome_Digital]

Lots of interesting suggestions thanks, although some are wavetable and additive etc. To be clear I was thinking traditional subtractive Osc, filter, vca, lfo, env config of which I have quite a few emulations of old stuff. I was not aware of many non-emus of this architecture than the ones I mentioned in my original post. I won’t be ditching my other stuff!

Well then most of the recommendations are still great for VA, even wavetable, and sample oscillators.

[Uncle E]

One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is DUNE 3's Sample Osc. No, it's not multi-sample and yes we all wish it was although you can load 8 different samples into the Layers.

Are there synths let you run external audio as "oscillators", side-by-side with the internal oscillators? I think Logic ES1 does it. That would be better than having a sample oscillator.

[Teksonik]

One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is DUNE 3's Sample Osc. No, it's not multi-sample and yes we all wish it was although you can load 8 different samples into the Layers.

Are there synths let you run external audio as "oscillators", side-by-side with the internal oscillators? I think Logic ES1 does it. That would be better than having a sample oscillator.

I imagine there are modulars that allow such a thing but what would be better than a single sample Osc would be a full on multi-sample Osc. That would open up any sound imaginable without the need for external audio.

The Zampler .sfz Osc which already exists would make a great addition to DUNE 3. There are quite a few gigs of sample content available for Zampler right now.

Multi-sampling has been asked for in DUNE 3 many times over the years and the answer is always that it doesn't fit the developer's vision for the synth so it is what it is.....