The Legend HZ by Synapse Audio now available!

[zvenx]

The thing is what may sound great to one person may not to another person.
There are many synths that are very popular that supposedly sound great to some that I go.. huhhh..

I do fall on the Dune sounds great camp... and your video link shows many sounds that I consider sound great .
Its like a more modern Virus to me.
rsp

[seafire]

I much prefer D3 over any of their current synths. As someone said, it can be as simple or complex as you want, and has much more options. It sounds great to me, tho I mostly use it as a VA, and hardly touch the WT or Sample osc (far too limited)

Haven't delved into the FM osc much

The FX are great too.

Ymmv

[El°HYM]

Do you have any audio examples of Dune 3 sounding great?

[BBFG#]

Anything not swimming in the overeffect?

[El°HYM]

You mean non - ambient.

[Monsieur_FyP]

and your video link shows many sounds that I consider sound great

+ 1

[BBFG#]

You mean non - ambient.

"Club music" is also oversaturated. Just seems most examples rely way too much on the effects more than the synth itself. Not looking for dry/raw, but tasteful and not requiring an inebriated or overstressed listener.

[El°HYM]

Ok.

[BONES]

The thing you always fail to realize is that DUNE 3 can be just as simple as The Legend HZ (an INIT patch is a single Osc through a fully open filter, it doesn't get any simpler than that) if simple is what someone wants and very complex for those who prefer more complex sounds. Win-Win.

It can actually be a lot simpler but that all comes down to how you want to use it. I almost never make patches from scratch, I find a preset I like and tweak it to suit the part. That's where DUNE's complexity gets in the way - you have to work out where the sound is (which layers), then go about editing them one at a time or, more often, turning all the other layers off. It's the layers that make it tough to work with and the lazy way the guys doing the factory patches make them. It seems no-one goes back to tidy up once they get a sound they like.

Legend HZ would also be annoying to patch from scratch but editing presets on it is a lot easier. But mostly I choose Legend HZ over DUNE because I think its core sound is even better.

Most of the lead sounds I use come from D3 and many of them are two or three Oscs but the advantage over Legend is you can have different filters for each Osc, different freq and cutoff, ADSR, FX, etc settings. Complexity leads to depth.

I don't often need depth, it just clutters up a mix. I create depth in the mix, each part only needs to do it's bit in creating that. The advantage of two filters for me is to filter out the bits the mix doesn't need without having to use EQ. Most of my patches are based on a low-pass filter and I'll sometimes use the second filter, if there is one, in high pass or band pass mode to thin it out so it sits in the mix better. If I use a bit of velocity modulation on that second filter, I can use that to make a lead part jump out when I want it to be prominent and sit back in the mix the rest of the time without having to automate anything.

The quality of DUNE 3 is exactly why I use it

Same here, it is one synth I know will always (eventually) give me what I need, when nothing else will. It's just never going to be the first instrument I reach for, especially while have so many SEMulations to choose from. It also used to be the synth I'd go to when I didn't really know what I was going to do for a part, but I knew I needed something. Lately, though, Spire has replaced it in that capacity because it's preset library is geared a lot more towards the kind of stuff that we find useful.

Passing on one of the best sounding synths just because of "workflow" (which can be learned in a short time with as much effort as complaining about it).

The problem isn't learning the workflow, it's mostly developed from the first beta we tested, it's that the workflow is not fluid. I used to hate working with Hive, too, to the point that I'd replace it in anything my bandmate sent me that used it. Then I discovered Ploki's excellent skin for Hive and now it has become one of the first synths I reach for, simply because Ploki fixed most of it's workflow problems. Yes, it took me a while to get used to the new and very different layout but it wasn't a chore, it was more of a delight, really.

When we have so much choice out there, it's the little things that can make the biggest difference. But I have been using DUNE more since Rich put a patch browser into it. My most used of Synapse's synths, by a long way, is the new one we're still testing. Until I got Korg's ARP 2600, it was the first synth I reached for when I needed to do something. I just love the way that thing sounds and the workflow is really good, too. I find it so frustrating that it's been sitting on the backburner for more than a year now.

I was really surprised when you dismissed the ARP 2600 because of its CPU use. To me, that kind of sound quality is worth spending whatever it takes to be able to use it. Because it's not really that hard on your CPU, a $1000 laptop with a current gen Core i5 would run it in a big project easily. It only sucks up about 20%, at worst, on my tiny 8" gaming handheld and multiple instances only raise that incrementally. And that thing has a much steeper learning curve than DUNE but, once you get your head around it, it's actually really easy to use. That's the thing with DUNE, it's easy to learn but it never gets easy to use, in the way I like to work.

[BONES]

Do you have any audio examples of Dune 3 sounding great? I listened to a few on Youtube and I'm honestly not impressed at all. It's okay. "Clean", yes, lacking in saturation or analog fatness, sounds a lot like many other VA oscillators. Filter sweeps don't sound great---for example, in the "Dreamy Notch Strings" preset from this demo:

It seems that you, my friend, have ears of cloth and not much understanding of synthesisers. The clue is in the patch name - it uses notch filters which are non-resonant and, therefore, have f**k-all character. If you look at that patch, you'll see that the Drive parameter for both filters is set at zero, so there is intentionally no saturation. Turn Drive up on one or both of the filters and it gets quite gnarly, in a very pleasing way. Also, I'm not sure if you noticed but that patch is only using one oscillator. There aren't too many synths around that can sound that huge on a single osc.

The one patch you have singled out is probably the only one in that video I actually like. In fact, thanks for pointing it out, I'd never come across it before but it's definitely a sound I'll want to use somewhere. Good work! The rest of those patches are horrible but there is no denying the incredible sound quality you can hear throughout that video.

The thing is what may sound great to one person may not to another person.

To a degree but there are certain aspects of sound quality that are totally objective. e.g. Softube's Model 77 is synth that anyone with ears would acknowledge has amazing sound quality but, because of the limitations of its architecture, it doesn't make the kinds of sounds I'm looking for. So I'd say I love the sound of Model 77 but I don't like the sounds (timbres) it is capable of making. Korg's ARP 2600 is a bit the same, I have to work really hard to get the kinds of sounds I want from it but it sounds so good that I am more than willing to go to any lengths for that sound quality.

[MattLeschuck]

When building from scratch i actually find Dune easier to use.. its less cluttered than Legend HZ and for me its easier to keep track of. I just think of each layer as a separate synth. Making pads for example with an arpeggiated layer is a ton of fun. The ability to have 2 Filters in series or parallel, makes it more flexible. That and you can assign Macros (to a certain extent) in the mod matrix.

Anytime im wanting to make more classic analog synth sounds, one layer is generally all i need.

[Teksonik]

Do you have any audio examples of Dune 3 sounding great?

Yes in every project I've made since it was first released. That's why I use multiple instances in almost every project.

Am I going to post an example? No, that would be pointless. If you tried the DUNE 3 demo and couldn't make it sound great to you then it's not the synth for you. I've made many patches with wonderful sounding filter sweeps so my opinion differs from yours on that point. I'm also not going to try making it sound like The Legend HZ because that would also be pointless. They're both great sounding synths with their own character but D3 is far deeper and along with the awesome core sound that's what appeals to me.

If you think ancient synths even an augmented Moog are the pinnacle of synthesis then more power to you. I've owned and played many analog hardware synths going back to the early 1980's and wouldn't trade D3 for any of them. But then my focus is on the present and the future not the past. Been there, done that.

Look, I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy DUNE 3 only to give it a fair demo. Spend a couple of hours with it and if they love it as much as I do then buy it, if not then move on.......

[Teksonik]

The thing you always fail to realize is that DUNE 3 can be just as simple as The Legend HZ (an INIT patch is a single Osc through a fully open filter, it doesn't get any simpler than that) if simple is what someone wants and very complex for those who prefer more complex sounds. Win-Win.

It can actually be a lot simpler but that all comes down to how you want to use it. I almost never make patches from scratch, I find a preset I like and tweak it to suit the part.

I make 99% of my own patches. I never back engineer other people's patches but will on occasion use one with a tweak or two, hence the 99% and not 100%.

But that's when the hands on experience helps in navigating D3's workflow. Once you get a couple of simple concepts down it's really very easy to use even if you don't start from scratch. Even if I want to tweak a patch made by someone else I find it very quick and easy to do.

Is D3's workflow perfect? No of course not, nothing is perfect. But your concerns have been raised over and over again for years now and well....the workflow has never changed so the options at this point are to adjust to it or simply delete D3 and move on to something else. I'm willing to over look any perceived workflow imperfections and use it for the awesome synth that it is......

[Jac459]

The thing you always fail to realize is that DUNE 3 can be just as simple as The Legend HZ (an INIT patch is a single Osc through a fully open filter, it doesn't get any simpler than that) if simple is what someone wants and very complex for those who prefer more complex sounds. Win-Win.

It can actually be a lot simpler but that all comes down to how you want to use it. I almost never make patches from scratch, I find a preset I like and tweak it to suit the part. That's where DUNE's complexity gets in the way - you have to work out where the sound is (which layers), then go about editing them one at a time or, more often, turning all the other layers off. It's the layers that make it tough to work with and the lazy way the guys doing the factory patches make them. It seems no-one goes back to tidy up once they get a sound they like.

Legend HZ would also be annoying to patch from scratch but editing presets on it is a lot easier. But mostly I choose Legend HZ over DUNE because I think its core sound is even better.

Most of the lead sounds I use come from D3 and many of them are two or three Oscs but the advantage over Legend is you can have different filters for each Osc, different freq and cutoff, ADSR, FX, etc settings. Complexity leads to depth.

I don't often need depth, it just clutters up a mix. I create depth in the mix, each part only needs to do it's bit in creating that. The advantage of two filters for me is to filter out the bits the mix doesn't need without having to use EQ. Most of my patches are based on a low-pass filter and I'll sometimes use the second filter, if there is one, in high pass or band pass mode to thin it out so it sits in the mix better. If I use a bit of velocity modulation on that second filter, I can use that to make a lead part jump out when I want it to be prominent and sit back in the mix the rest of the time without having to automate anything.

The quality of DUNE 3 is exactly why I use it

Same here, it is one synth I know will always (eventually) give me what I need, when nothing else will. It's just never going to be the first instrument I reach for, especially while have so many SEMulations to choose from. It also used to be the synth I'd go to when I didn't really know what I was going to do for a part, but I knew I needed something. Lately, though, Spire has replaced it in that capacity because it's preset library is geared a lot more towards the kind of stuff that we find useful.

Passing on one of the best sounding synths just because of "workflow" (which can be learned in a short time with as much effort as complaining about it).

The problem isn't learning the workflow, it's mostly developed from the first beta we tested, it's that the workflow is not fluid. I used to hate working with Hive, too, to the point that I'd replace it in anything my bandmate sent me that used it. Then I discovered Ploki's excellent skin for Hive and now it has become one of the first synths I reach for, simply because Ploki fixed most of it's workflow problems. Yes, it took me a while to get used to the new and very different layout but it wasn't a chore, it was more of a delight, really.

When we have so much choice out there, it's the little things that can make the biggest difference. But I have been using DUNE more since Rich put a patch browser into it. My most used of Synapse's synths, by a long way, is the new one we're still testing. Until I got Korg's ARP 2600, it was the first synth I reached for when I needed to do something. I just love the way that thing sounds and the workflow is really good, too. I find it so frustrating that it's been sitting on the backburner for more than a year now.

I was really surprised when you dismissed the ARP 2600 because of its CPU use. To me, that kind of sound quality is worth spending whatever it takes to be able to use it. Because it's not really that hard on your CPU, a $1000 laptop with a current gen Core i5 would run it in a big project easily. It only sucks up about 20%, at worst, on my tiny 8" gaming handheld and multiple instances only raise that incrementally. And that thing has a much steeper learning curve than DUNE but, once you get your head around it, it's actually really easy to use. That's the thing with DUNE, it's easy to learn but it never gets easy to use, in the way I like to work.

I agree on the immediacy of Legend HZ vs Dune 3...
But to me the problem of the reasoning of Dune 3 vs Legend HZ is that if I start to really think about Dune 3, then I will pick Avenger 2 and call it a day.
I am not trying to convince anyone because I own Dune 3 and I really like it. I also own Obsession and I also like it and I also own Antidote, the RE from Synapse which is supposed to be the v0.5 of Dune and I freaking love it. It is an awesome synth, with one panel, a dead simple.... but efficient architecture.

Dune 3 hasn't the immediacy of "one panelled" legend HZ, antidote or Obsession. With Dune 3 you need to plan your sound, think ahead, navigate panels. There is nothing wrong about it, it is just a different type of product and a type of product for which I strongly prefer Avenger 2...
But again, it is only me... YMMV.

[Teksonik]

When building from scratch i actually find Dune easier to use.. its less cluttered than Legend HZ and for me its easier to keep track of. I just think of each layer as a separate synth. Making pads for example with an arpeggiated layer is a ton of fun. The ability to have 2 Filters in series or parallel, makes it more flexible. That and you can assign Macros (to a certain extent) in the mod matrix.

Exactly! The reason I don't use Legend HZ much is because I'm always running into a wall after just a couple of steps. "I want to route Osc 2 through another filter". Nope, can't do that. "I want to send some Oscs through the Arp/Seq and bypass others". Nope can't do that and so on. DUNE 3's wall is miles down the road which is the appeal to me.

One trick I use is that instead of using Osc 2 or 3 in one Voice Layer I'll simply add another Layer and use Osc 1 in it.

That gives me the ability to use different filters, ADSR, FX, etc settings for each layer and I can Mute/Solo the layers which can't be done with individual Oscs in a single layer. That gives you 8 Oscs before you run out which is generally enough and then if you still need more you can always add the rest of the Osc 2 and 3's for a total of 24 with a mix or match of different synthesis types.