What is the most underrated virtual synth?

[Dencheg]

Along with some posted opinions, must be ArcSyn and Dagger.
Dagger is even the most underrated by coolness x (underrated by users + underrated by the dev)

Come on Mr Beepstreet, give Dagger some love

[SamDi]

Pigments!

[EnGee]

I think some of Tone2 synths are underrated. They are Rayblaster, Gladiator and Nemesis. I think Icarus, Electra and Saurus are more known.
To be honest, all are excellent synths with different methods (and synthesis mostly). Rayblaster uses really unique synthesis not like any I have known. I read the manual, but I probably need to read it again and make some sounds with it so it gets stuck on my mind (I also need to give attention to Nemesis and Gladiator).

[syntonica]

I agree HyPoly is quite nice, as is Invader2, Aspect, Phonec, etc. Unfortunately, they are up against the feature rich powerhouses that give a lot more value for money, including regular maintenance updates. (Phonec and ArcSyn are still not Mac M1-compatible.)

I don't see how you get better value for money from a $200 synth than from the right $20 synth. I get far more use from my low cost "indie" synths that I do from PhasePlant, Hive or DUNE, which makes them far better value for money to me.

I haven't used ArcSyn for a while but it is definitely very under-rated. It's got a good set of features, is easy to work with and it sounds great.

I think your compressor is broken. Not all of the big fish are up to $200 and most of the little fish are in the $60 to $80 range. (Invader2 is an outlier here.)

I may just be viewing the issue through my Mac-goggles, but I do have quite a number of old plugins from small devs (or who were small-ish at the time, like reFX) that have been abandoned, discontinued, or otherwise not updated and are no longer usable on my shiny new Mac. If I add all the money spent on them, they would add up to more than the cost of one juggernaut VSTi.

As for versatility, the Spires and Divas and Icaruses (Icari?) singly more than make up for the collection of noises the produced by the handful of plugins that have fallen by the wayside.

I imagine the issue is not quite as pronounced on the PC side, but they all have their own issues to deal with, such as surprise updates and the aftermath of replacing/updating components.

Anyway, I'm not trying to take anything away from the smaller dev houses and I don't expect free updates/upgrades for life. I'm more than happy to pay a nominal fee (like $10 to $20) for an updated version of ArcSyn or Phonec or similar, or even a few bucks more for some new features. Imagine my insane surprise when for $35, my entire AAS suite was updated AND upgraded--UltraAnalog 2->3 and Chromaphone 2->3 AND I got the new Multiphonics modular! I would've expected such a package to be more in the area of $100.

[_leras]

And in the future NI Massive X will be severely under rated.

I think it already is very underrated tbh.

[chk071]

And in the future NI Massive X will be severely under rated.

I think it already is very underrated tbh.

I always wonder if such synths are really underrated, or widely used outside the KVR bubble. Considering the popularity of other synths here which are widely regarded as the golden standards out there, I suspect the latter.

[_leras]

ACE

Ace is very good, but I think it could do with an update to oscillators and filters.

For me sometimes the raw sound is just not quite there. I still do get some great sounds out of it, but it's not all sweet spot, and over time I've leaned into other synths more.

[Azbest]

Massive X got a lot of (unjustified imo) shit at launch, it doesn't seem to be popular nowadays.

Also Europa.

[syntonica]

Along with some posted opinions, must be ArcSyn and Dagger.
Dagger is even the most underrated by coolness x (underrated by users + underrated by the dev)

Come on Mr Beepstreet, give Dagger some love

He's been enticed to the darkside, a.k.a. iOS development. I guess he's making bank there with Drambo and the like, only having to fuss with one format, one platform, one codebase.

But I'd love an update/upgrade to both Dagger and Sunrizer to become available.

[_leras]

And in the future NI Massive X will be severely under rated.

I think it already is very underrated tbh.

I always wonder if such synths are really underrated, or widely used outside the KVR bubble. Considering the popularity of other synths here which are widely regarded as the golden standards out there, I suspect the latter.

Maybe more it is 'spurned' because NI, preset menu and not all controls visible for automation only the macros. To me this still means underrated as the sound side makes it worth working past the preset menu.

But what are the golden standards out there as opposed to in here? Phaseplant, VIper, Serum?

[chk071]

An indicator might be the stuff the artists use, or rave about: https://equipboard.com/c/synth-plugins?sort=most-used

Not really scientific, but, it might give a better picture than talk here.

[BONES]

Why? Most of those fucktards only know what gets put in front of them, they don't spend hours/days researching, they got shit to do.

I may just be viewing the issue through my Mac-goggles, but I do have quite a number of old plugins from small devs (or who were small-ish at the time, like reFX) that have been abandoned, discontinued, or otherwise not updated and are no longer usable on my shiny new Mac.

Me too but the thing is, apart from backwards-compatibility, I'd stopped using those things years before they stopped working. Maybe you buy a $50 plugin expecting it to last you a lifetime but I get everything I expect out of it if I use it in a few songs when I first get it. It's a very rare synth that still holds my interest after a year or two and, interestingly, those that do tend to be the cheapies, like JP6K ($29) and Union ($15).

If I add all the money spent on them, they would add up to more than the cost of one juggernaut VSTi.

They'd also get a lot more use from me. OTOH, the last time I used DUNE was when I was beta-testing v3, several years ago.

As for versatility, the Spires and Divas and Icaruses (Icari?) singly more than make up for the collection of noises the produced by the handful of plugins that have fallen by the wayside.

Maybe for you but I couldn't see the value in Diva, for example, when it was half-price. I don't need versatility, I need synths I can work with quickly and easily with zero learning curve.

I imagine the issue is not quite as pronounced on the PC side, but they all have their own issues to deal with, such as surprise updates and the aftermath of replacing/updating components.

That's never been any kind of issue for me, PCs just work.

I don't expect free updates/upgrades for life. I'm more than happy to pay a nominal fee (like $10 to $20) for an updated version of ArcSyn or Phonec or similar

I don't care even a tiny bit about updates because they rarely, if ever, deliver anything useful. With ArcSyn, for example, the only thing I'd like to see done to it is improve the GUI but that won't happen and I'm fine with that because I lost interest in ArcSyn years ago.

[_leras]

Maybe for you but I couldn't see the value in Diva, for example, when it was half-price. I don't need versatility, I need synths I can work with quickly and easily with zero learning curve.

It's actually not that versatile and pretty simple for most things. Modulation is fairly limited all things considered.

Sure, it's got a few oscillators, but they're all fairly simple, as are the filters. These are more like tone switches in some ways though.

I wouldn't really call it complicated.

[dionenoid]

Why? Most of those fucktards only know what gets put in front of them, they don't spend hours/days researching, they got shit to do.

You'd be surprised.

[pdxindy]

ACE

Ace is very good, but I think it could do with an update to oscillators and filters.

For me sometimes the raw sound is just not quite there. I still do get some great sounds out of it, but it's not all sweet spot, and over time I've leaned into other synths more.

ACE is fairly unique because of the Soft-Sync, Ringmod and CrossTalk and how they interplay together along with the Circuit Bent options. The LFO's can work as Osc's and do some lovely FM. The strength of the filters is in how they handle gain and feedback and the resonance sounds good. And now with the CLAP version in Bitwig, Bitwig's per voice modulation system can be used with ACE. There is nothing else quite like ACE.

Here is a RingMod example:

https://dandelionaudio.com/sound/ACE-RM-1.mp3