Best / worst synth gui

[billinder33]

Viral, Current, PhasePlant, Ghost... Incredible GUIs.

[stoopicus]

Yeah Phase Plant is basically top of list for me.

Pigments too, though requiring multiple pages is a bummer.

[stoopicus]

To be honest worst gui for me Surge XT.

I get that this is subjective and respect your opinion here, but man I have to hard disagree on this one. I really like how Surge is laid out, love the UI contrast, and much like Synthmaster 2/3 I really like how the work flows in it.

[Daru925]

I like a user interface that is snappy, without to much drop down menus, tabs are ok if they don't switch the entire screen, a lot of drag and drop, a quick init button if possible, and something that seems overlooked a lot, when dragging the mouse to turn a knob that is located near edge of screen, don't move the mouse cursor to the edge of screen, interrupting the motion.
I don't like being interrup...

-> Ableton's drift and meld <3

[BONES]

Yeah, nah. I don't much like D'n'D, it is so unintuitive. You can't see by looking what you can drop where, you have to know how to use it and where it will work. It's like cables in a semi-modular, only you can't see what's going where.

[swilow11]

I also agree that Vital has one of the best GUIs. Unfiltred audio plugins are nearby, but the graphics are sharper - this is not very pleasing to the eye.
But I don’t often use plugins for the interface, more often for the sound. Although the really ugly ones are scary.

For me, Unfiltred audio plugins has the ugliest GUIs. Especially their first ones. Some their latest plugins (Lion, for example) make exception and I even like them.

(I don't want to argue with you. It's just funny how different opinion and preferences may be.)

Agreed re: unfiltered audio. Specops is just horrible to look, garish and even worse if you turn the colours off. Same with Silo. And the use of patch cables just complicate the devices unnecessarily.

I actually dig the original/normal skin for Hive2 although I agree that it looks sort of cluttered and doesn't really follow the signal flow clearly.

[SamDi]

Best GUI: Serum, Phase Plant, Pigments

Worst GUI: MSoundFactory

[stoopicus]

Worst GUI: MSoundFactory

This is one I can't decide if it works better or worse than Falcon's. I would think they are tied but I like UVI's colors more, so I guess Falcon is slightly less bad.

[Alexander137]

dont be scared homie

)))) I need to talk to a psychologist about this:
"Hello. I'm scared of this plugin. When I go to bed, it seems to me that there is "Transistow" in a dark corner."

(I just don’t know English well, I think everyone understood)

[swilow11]

Interesting that people seem to like Phase Plant so much. Workflow wise, it's great but I find it horrendously ugly to look at. So bland. I know, I know, the sound is the key but Phase Plant is just so utilitarian and unexciting.

[stoopicus]

Interesting that people seem to like Phase Plant so much. Workflow wise, it's great but I find it horrendously ugly to look at. So bland. I know, I know, the sound is the key but Phase Plant is just so utilitarian and unexciting.

This is exactly what I want in a workhorse synth. I get what you mean - contrasting it with Pigments for looks is unfortunate, but then factor in Pigments requires two pages, has tabbed generators, and while its mod strip is a way better implementation than most synths it can't touch Phase Plant for utility and clarity - all this adds up to I would rather do sound design in Phase Plant over Pigments any time.

[swilow11]

Agreed. Pigments looks great and is all colourful and stuff. But I actually find it significantly harder to navigate than Phase Plant. Always find myself having to remember how to do things in Pigmemts, despite having owned it for a few years now. Phase Plant utterly nails how you would want to structure a monster synth. It can get unwieldy when you've got heaps of modulators but being able to group and collapse these is great. But even so- the UI is just super dull to me. I've also never really gelled with the sound either- like the GUI, it's just sort of drab. Much prefer what I can do in Falcon which is my GOTO behemoth (also dull as dishwater to look at though).

[stoopicus]

Falcon sounds amazing - maybe the best of the workhorses and definitely the best for sample-based work - but for me the UI is a shambled mess of menus and generally suffers from having everything but none of it in one place or simple to access. I have almost bought it several times and remembered while trying it why I never have.

But it sounds so good.

[kraster]

Falcon sounds amazing - maybe the best of the workhorses and definitely the best for sample-based work - but for me the UI is a shambled mess of menus and generally suffers from having everything but none of it in one place or simple to access. I have almost bought it several times and remembered while trying it why I never have.

But it sounds so good.

I think Halion is the best workhorse for sample based stuff. The one killer feature of Halion is that it's a sampler that can actually sample!

It has a much better GUI than Falcon. The hierarchy makes much more sense to me.

The only down side is that some of the UI elements are pretty small and can be challenging if your eyesight isn't great.

[lobanov]

I also agree that Vital has one of the best GUIs. Unfiltred audio plugins are nearby, but the graphics are sharper - this is not very pleasing to the eye.
But I don’t often use plugins for the interface, more often for the sound. Although the really ugly ones are scary.

For me, Unfiltred audio plugins has the ugliest GUIs. Especially their first ones. Some their latest plugins (Lion, for example) make exception and I even like them.

(I don't want to argue with you. It's just funny how different opinion and preferences may be.)

Agreed re: unfiltered audio. Specops is just horrible to look, garish and even worse if you turn the colours off. Same with Silo. And the use of patch cables just complicate the devices unnecessarily.

I actually dig the original/normal skin for Hive2 although I agree that it looks sort of cluttered and doesn't really follow the signal flow clearly.

Something definitely wrong with their 'knobs'. Definitely. It's like a child' painting. They're worse than Valhalla's ones. And I can't imagine more ugly ones. Never have seen.

UA.png