Finding my Ultimate Flagship Wavetable Synth

[DCrown]

Aren't AIR Hybrid 3 and AIR Hype Wavetable synths, too?
What about Avenger?

[shonky]

Have Massive X, Phase Plant, Icarus, Rapid, Hive, Vital and find each has different qualities and omissions, but probably use PP the most as I just love the workflow and sound (think it has one of the better wavetable editors too)

[DCrown]

I am wondering why Icarus2 doesn't even get mentioned here... I seems I should spend less money into development and more money into advertising

http://www.tone2.com/icarus.html



Summary

Icarus2 is a powerful synthesizer-workstation
& Hold

You offer, but didn't manage to get it for the second time. Very strange!??
______________________________

I would also vote for Pigments as one of the most boring synths ever. The cheap sound quality is matchless

[Sleepwalker]

In addition to Icarus, you should check out Modwave by KORG. It's a CPU hog but sounds nice. Hive may not be the most advanced wavetable synth, bug it sounds damn amazing. ANA 2 and Viper also support Serum wavetables. The upcoming Zebra 3 will support both Uhm and Wav wavetables! Personally, I am not impressed with the sound of Pigments. No matter how many times I tried it, it sounds bland to me.

Try Pigments with its new MS20 filter and you’ll find it anything but “bland.”

I can't believe this MS20 filter was offered for free for a while as standalone vst by arturia. The sound is indeed amazing and colorful.
Arturia rocks....

Its cool! I focused on bandpass because my demo sound was using those filters. I use bandpass a lot in my productions. The ms20 filter in Pigments do not have a bandpass.

I wish all these synth companies would include a bandpass on these classic filters even if they did not originally have it! Just a re-imagine of what it would be like. Native Instruments Monark filter (Based on Minimoog) has LP, BP and HP even though the original only had Lpf. Massive X uses it, as well as the Monark synth for Reaktor. I thought that was great and very usable modern extension of a classic LP filter. I do not care much about hardware limitations in software modeling.

[fmr]

In addition to Icarus, you should check out Modwave by KORG. It's a CPU hog but sounds nice. Hive may not be the most advanced wavetable synth, bug it sounds damn amazing. ANA 2 and Viper also support Serum wavetables. The upcoming Zebra 3 will support both Uhm and Wav wavetables! Personally, I am not impressed with the sound of Pigments. No matter how many times I tried it, it sounds bland to me.

Try Pigments with its new MS20 filter and you’ll find it anything but “bland.”

I can't believe this MS20 filter was offered for free for a while as standalone vst by arturia. The sound is indeed amazing and colorful.
Arturia rocks....

Its cool! I focused on bandpass because my demo sound was using those filters. I use bandpass a lot in my productions. The ms20 filter in Pigments do not have a bandpass.

I wish all these synth companies would include a bandpass on these classic filters even if they did not originally have it! Just a re-imagine of what it would be like. Native Instruments Monark filter (Based on Minimoog) has LP, BP and HP even though the original only had Lpf. Massive X uses it, as well as the Monark synth for Reaktor. I thought that was great and very usable modern extension of a classic LP filter. I do not care much about hardware limitations in software modeling.

Arturia Pigments has both the Matrix-12 filter and the SEM filter. Both are excellent, IMO, and both have BP options (actually the M12 filter has more than one BP option, and the SEM is a filter that morphs between LP and HP through BP, in a very unique way).

[DJDJ]

I am wondering why Icarus2 doesn't even get mentioned here... I seems I should spend less money into development and more money into advertising

Hey Markus, quick bit of feedback: I own Icarus and really wanted to love it and make it #1 wavetable synth when I got it. But there’s a few things that hold it back imho.

-The main one is how the wavetables don’t smoothly interpolate, but have steps in them. I want to be able to smoothly morph between each snapshot of the wavetable like I’m used to with other synths

-also, the factory library has a lot of patches that aren’t that well tuned to modern electronic music

There’s some other minor complaints I have about the interface and the routing, but those are minor quirks. The main thing holding it back is smooth interpolation, and better presets.

Icarus is amazing though. It’s definitely feature rich, sounds unique (sometimes it’s a bit too wide and different / doesn’t blend well, but that’s also a strength), and I think has the best mix of wavetables, filters, and effects. I love that it does resynthesis too.

It’s close, but missing a a couple crucial things to be “the best” imho

[Winstontaneous]

It can't possibly be the "Ultimate Wavetable Flagship Shootout" when you've left out so many wavetable synths.

All you've done is waste your time and the time of your readers.

Or, change title to "Penultimate" and proceed as planned...

[zerocrossing]

The problem with shoot-outs like this is that they weigh each attribute the same in the final score, but from where I stand, that's not realistic. Massive X has a lot of issues for me, but in some ways, it's the best sounding wavetable plugin I own. MPowerSynth, which I'm not sure has been even mentioned in this thread, blows away pretty much all other synths in its class... but if you want to start making patches from scratch, you'd better pack a lunch, because it's deep... and wide.

A "flagship" does not a navy make. The USA's navy uses 16 different classes of ships, and that's not including submarines, aircraft and land vehicles. My software instruments often run circles around my hardware instruments, but for specific kinds of things, the hardware wipes the floor with the software.

[zerocrossing]

In addition to Icarus, you should check out Modwave by KORG. It's a CPU hog but sounds nice. Hive may not be the most advanced wavetable synth, bug it sounds damn amazing. ANA 2 and Viper also support Serum wavetables. The upcoming Zebra 3 will support both Uhm and Wav wavetables! Personally, I am not impressed with the sound of Pigments. No matter how many times I tried it, it sounds bland to me.

Try Pigments with its new MS20 filter and you’ll find it anything but “bland.”

I can't believe this MS20 filter was offered for free for a while as standalone vst by arturia. The sound is indeed amazing and colorful.
Arturia rocks....

Its cool! I focused on bandpass because my demo sound was using those filters. I use bandpass a lot in my productions. The ms20 filter in Pigments do not have a bandpass.

I wish all these synth companies would include a bandpass on these classic filters even if they did not originally have it! Just a re-imagine of what it would be like. Native Instruments Monark filter (Based on Minimoog) has LP, BP and HP even though the original only had Lpf. Massive X uses it, as well as the Monark synth for Reaktor. I thought that was great and very usable modern extension of a classic LP filter. I do not care much about hardware limitations in software modeling.

Arturia Pigments has both the Matrix-12 filter and the SEM filter. Both are excellent, IMO, and both have BP options (actually the M12 filter has more than one BP option, and the SEM is a filter that morphs between LP and HP through BP, in a very unique way).

I was just going to write this myself. I picked the MS20 filter because it's just so colorful and quirky, but to say that Pigments only has a single interesting filter is pretty harsh, IMO. Feel free to dislike it for any reason at all... or none, but if you find yourself getting boring sounds from it, me thinks the issue is not the instrument.

[vurt]

pigments sounds pretty damn good!
im sure that will surprise at least one person here, but credit where it's due, they did a fine job!

[Sleepwalker]

The problem with shoot-outs like this is that they weigh each attribute the same in the final score, but from where I stand, that's not realistic.

I actually did compensate for just that. I weighted the attributives differently! For example the manual would only give max 2 points, while filter sound quality went up to 5. Obviously this shootout is weighted towards what I personally prioritized to my needs.

Those who want to take something form this can look at the scores of each separate section and decide themselves what is more impotent for them personally.

[Erik_Lucas]

If SurgeXT hasn't been mentioned and talked about already, it should be. They have a ton of Waldorf wavetables that I haven't been able to find in other software-wavetable synths. It's also free...

[_leras]

It can't possibly be the "Ultimate Wavetable Flagship Shootout" when you've left out so many wavetable synths.

All you've done is waste your time and the time of your readers.

Nah... That's unfair. He's tried a lot. So it can be helpful for people to have an opinion about which is which. Categorising it was nice too.

[ReiKru]

What about Steinberg Halion / Anima?

[pdxindy]

-The main one is how the wavetables don’t smoothly interpolate, but have steps in them. I want to be able to smoothly morph between each snapshot of the wavetable like I’m used to with other synths

There is a smooth/fade knob.