I WANT to love it...

[sQeetz]

Zebra: Awesome synth, great deal with the Legacy content. It is the essence of a chameleon to me. It doesn't come with a big attitude and obvious sound. It is rather neutral. And can go into so many directions. This can be very cool and very annoying. Depending on the point of view and situation.
It can sound mega awesome and it can sound like dog vomit. Depending on the presets. Bought another pack of presets this BF. So yeah, I have tons of great presets for it being well prepared for many situations with it now.
Rather low on CPU
Overall: 9 out of 10

I've bought Zebra because of the discount and the HZ stuff... but is it just me, or does everything in Zebra sound like GM Sounds? Apart from the HZ presets it sounds so freaking boring

[i need Help]

Vanguard 2 that just came out lol. I made the mistake of sleeping on it a few days and the nostalgia has worn off lol.

[BONES]

I'm not disinterested in Vanguard but I want to be able to try before I buy.

[machinesworking]

Zebra: Awesome synth, great deal with the Legacy content. It is the essence of a chameleon to me. It doesn't come with a big attitude and obvious sound. It is rather neutral. And can go into so many directions. This can be very cool and very annoying. Depending on the point of view and situation.
It can sound mega awesome and it can sound like dog vomit. Depending on the presets. Bought another pack of presets this BF. So yeah, I have tons of great presets for it being well prepared for many situations with it now.
Rather low on CPU
Overall: 9 out of 10

I've bought Zebra because of the discount and the HZ stuff... but is it just me, or does everything in Zebra sound like GM Sounds? Apart from the HZ presets it sounds so freaking boring

Zebra has a massive amount of boring presets. I've been a fan of it since the v1 AU only version, but U-He apparently release any preset from anyone with Zebra. I've never had a problem with making interesting patches with it, but the sheer amount of vanilla patches it comes with would have you thinnk otherwise. Another part of this, Zebra personally is my most used soft synth, maybe precisely because it can be either an upfront sound or some secondary buried sound in a mix.

The one IMO legit complaint with Zebra is the FX, only so so, nothing but the basics and not that great. I would bet that wavetable import/creation and beefed up FX sections are coming in Zebra 3.

[sQeetz]

I would bet that wavetable import/creation and beefed up FX sections are coming in Zebra 3.

Looking forward to it

[Boy Wonder]

Reaktor. Visually, it's beautiful to the eyes. Do I reach for it when laying down tracks? No. Monark does inspire me, but I suppose the workflow, and wrestling with the modular bits, keeps me at bay.

[Danilo Villanova]

Reaktor. Visually, it's beautiful to the eyes. Do I reach for it when laying down tracks? No. Monark does inspire me, but I suppose the workflow, and wrestling with the modular bits, keeps me at bay.

Lately I've been making fx chain presets of my favorite synths and fx in reaktor and put them in categorized folders in Reaper's VST browser. So, they'll be right there along with my other VST's in the same category.

[NikkiA]

Thorn.

Every few months I forget how frustrating it is, and start to use it again, then try to load a custom wavetable and fall down the week long rabbit hole of trying everything under the sun to make it load wavetables properly, before swearing off it in frustration again.

The worst part is that I'm sure importing wavetables worked once, but seems to have been lost in an update somewhere.

[Boy Wonder]

The new Klevgrand Tomofon. I tried the demo. Didn't impress me. I kept thinking, "Hmm, what can I use this sound for?" or "What can I use that sound for?" Tomofon just came off like a fancy AKAI sampler c. 1990. I think had they included a sequencer/arp, that might've helped. Maybe.

[CrystalWizard]

Falcon. It's such a great thing but programming it was very frustrating for me. i've been synthesizing for a while. i understand how it works, it's just not how my mind works. Yes, i read the manual, and referenced it every time i opened Falcon.

[nanostream]

I own a few Unfiltered Audio fx plugins and I love them, so I had high hopes for Lion. But for some reason I haven’t been able to get great sounds out of it. Everything sounds thin and cold, and not in a good way. I guess I’ll try again some day, maybe it was just user error. But for now it’s collecting dust while I’m having fun with Pigments, Massive X and Reaktor (Toybox) Blocks.

[3lu5iv3]

same as CrystalWizard. i wanna love Falcon but the complicated design let me stay away from this.

[k2006]

hi NikkiA,

..to make it load wavetables properly..

for Thorn(CM version) to load into a single frame single cycle wave has to be exactly 256 samples,after loading you have to do "bin shift down".

[Kozysworld]

Agree with @machinesworking. Most soft synths are the same (get better as you learn to use them well). I’ve found that learning a handful and using them very well to do the job you desire - is key! Less is more. Go beyond just touching the surface of a few synths and if you like to just get on with it then grab yourself some good quality sound packs or learn to design sounds yourself so that you can improve your workflow! Patience, watch tutorials, stop buying hundreds of synths that you’ll never use!

[perpetual3]

Massive X is IMHO the best sounding of all those synths and I have most of them. Probably should use DIVA more.

The drift is elsewhere in this thread right now but I thought anyway that it is the right thread for my rumble. So yeah...

For this year's BF I thoroughly checked quite some stuff.
Here's a brief overview of what I found during my personal comparisson of the synths I own and several synths that I demoed in this context. This is VERY subjective and just my opinions. For what it's worth to you. So relax and enjoy the food for thoughts. Or just stop reading if you can't stand the personal popcorn and the lenghty novel of my findings.

Rapid: Sounds VERY good. I bought it. It's sound has depth and substance that I miss in several other synths.
Clever interface with these +/- macro knobs.
Very usable and good sounding presets. The best I can describe them is as inspiring. Other synths often have presets that are somewhat good but sometimes I don't know what I would do with them musically. Like I would have to find or make a place for them where they would fit.
With most of the Rapid presets that I checked so far it's the other way round. They inspire me to do things with them.
The quality of the presets and the character of the synth have their fair share in this.
Rediculously low on CPU.
Bought 4 extensions: Cinematic, Electronic, House and Trance. Great stuff.
Overall: 9.8 out of 10
For certain sounds it's the best synth I know and own right now.

Zebra: Awesome synth, great deal with the Legacy content. It is the essence of a chameleon to me. It doesn't come with a big attitude and obvious sound. It is rather neutral. And can go into so many directions. This can be very cool and very annoying. Depending on the point of view and situation.
It can sound mega awesome and it can sound like dog vomit. Depending on the presets. Bought another pack of presets this BF. So yeah, I have tons of great presets for it being well prepared for many situations with it now.
Rather low on CPU
Overall: 9 out of 10

Diva: Still after all these years, for me this is THE analog mega synth collection in one synth. And this is foremost about quality. So many classic sounds in there. Big fat Moog, quirky MS20 (those filters!), elegant and polite Jupiters, adolescent Juno, and even the Obie filter which sound so ... pretty. So many details and features that are love crafted into it that makes this synth such a piece of modern tech art. It's not easy to make it sound bad. To me that is. So many obvious sweet spots. Fun to tweak for hours. Yeah.
Rather hungry for CPU
Overall: 9.8 out of 10

Hive: For years this was my go to synth. Was using a rather weak laptop so that I couldn't run Diva seriously without rendering every second little fart.
In this comparisson Hive didn't look as good as others. In comparisson to the better ones in my reach it sounds rather flat and bland. And this is not absolute. Hive is a great synth and has tons of cool presets. But the better is the enemy of the good says a German proverb. At least to me in this comparisson. I wanted to have better reasons and a more informed opinion to grab a certain synth in the future. And this I got.
Low on CPU
Overall: 7 out of 10

Repro-1: Lotsa 80ies attitude, aggressive analog, typical 80ies sounds, bully sounds, beauty and the beast, can sound very beautiful and very angry too, tons of character
Medium hungry for CPU
Overall: 9 out of 10

Repro-5: Not as unapologetical as Repro-1, lotsa character but less than R-1, can sound seriously massive analog, generally not obviously pretty sounding though some charmingly soft sounds are in there.
Medium to hungry for CPU
Overall: 8 out of 10

SynthMaster: This was one of the great surprises to me. Never tried this one before. Never liked the name and the company name, blablabla. Yeah. I got me the Synthmaster Player a few days ago when it was free for some time. Just in case. Tons of presets for free? I'm in! In this comparisson I finally found the time to listen to some sounds and after less than 20 presets into the session I bought Synthmaster. So much character that tickled several buttons inside of me. Bam, so cool. And for less than 50 Euros on BF.
It feels like a rock star or a super sports car. Crank the power carefully or stuff might blow up. Increased filter resonance can bring up the levels substantially. But yeah, awesome character, great sounding filters. Fun synth with a few rough edges.
Rediculously low hunger for CPU!
Overall: 9 out of 10
Note to self: Should have checked out that one many years ago... facepalm

PhasePlant: It's sound reminds me of Hive but it has more character more attitude, more aggressive, more depth, very versatile.
The quality of the factory presets varies irritatingly much. Some real gems are in there.
Medium hunger for CPU
Overall: 8 out of 10

Super8, Massive and MassiveX: Some good presets in these. Not so cool interfaces. Soundwise they didn't convince me in comparisson to the others in the field. This is the polite, public version of my opinion about them. Nuff said.
Rather low on CPU
5, 6 and 6.5 out of 10

Dune: I had high hopes for it. Audio demos sounded great, I wanted to like it! Demo presets are surprisingly uninspiring, rather one trick pony, basic character sounds same same, good modern super saw, that's it. Hard in the gabba sense, not appealing to me. And I like very hard sounds. Kinda crazy.
Very low on CPU
Overall: 7 out of 10

SurgeXT: Has character, some sounds have lotsa character, while overall it is not as super exciting as other synths in this field but still really good sounding. Has depth but not mega appealing. Doesn't sound all same same which comes in very handy when adding lotsa sounds to an arrangement. Maybe too much a team player to bully others or to heavily impress as the nice boy or the bad ass? Some presets argue against that but this is my overall impression after working with it quite some and listening to many of it's presets. It has close to 2800 presets. Some presets are real gems: E.g. the ones by DataBroth and Giana Brotherz. They make me grin. Bam!
Important: If a sound is good but could be better I recommend to check the different filters. The filters vary a lot in character. Gazillions of filters in there. Not obvious, check the manual. Just sayin.
Medium hungry for CPU
Overall: 9 out of 10

Bazille: aggro, cold and digital but mostly in the better sense, aggressive, massive. So much character that again and again it irritates me as I think that it is "only" a FM synth. Well, yeah...
My love synth for FM things with punch, aggression and attitude.
Medium hungry for CPU
Overall: 9.5 out of 10

There was another dozen or so that fell through the grid, soundwise. So I spare them serious meantioning here.
Only these ones rather briefly:
Serum: Finally I demoed it. Good sounding synth. Not what I am looking for right now. But I understand the hype now.
CS-80 somethings: Nice, polite, good sounding, boring. Next.
Saurus: Good sounding. But the sound didn't grab me by the balls or the heart to help me beyond the ... not so good looking GUI.
Avenger: Good sound. Nothing grabbed me. Too much instant taste and not enough beef. For lack of better words.
Pigments: Good sounding but nothing really stood out to me or moved me compared to the rest. Ommited because of redundancy and better options.

One last thought here: I experienced it often that when people demoed things in a video then it sounded awesome ... or just lousy. And when I checked it for myself, in my context, it was quite different. Had this with guitars, amp sims, synths, compressors, etc.
This is a huge grain of salt then.

Peace