Which synths have become your go-to instruments over the years?

[grandmasterbird]

Your English is fine.

Long time fan of your sounds so the prospect of you setting up shop is exciting.

Trying to stick to the question asked without turning this into a list-all-my-synths thread.

I always come back to Ana2, and use Dune3, and UAD Opal quite extensively. In fact those are really the only 3 I use.

So longevity probably Ana2 and Dune3.

Opal sounds incredible but is severely lacking with regard to 3rd party presets. I'd love to hear what you could coax out of that plugin. Look forward to seeing/hearing what you do.

[jules99]

Synths come and go for me, but for all things bass, I just can't find a replacement for Sublab XL. The variety and sonic might is unparalleled. And so many producers in trap, house, and hip hop use it. Not sure how easy it is to make sound packs for it.

[kraster]

Mainly Serum 2, Current and Dune 3.

For sample based stuff kontakt and Tal Sampler.

[Dirtgrain]

Diva, DS Thorn, Phase Plant, Repro--those get used the most.

[wintoid]

Yeah I will join the chorus of people who are fans of your sounds!

In terms of synths I'd actually pay money for sound packs, and you're probably the only designer whose sounds I would want to buy, Serum 2 is a clear leader, and after that probably Uhe synths for me (Bazille/Diva/Ace/Repro/Zebra) and maybe something like Falcon. I imagine the market for Zebra 3 sounds will be large when it comes out!

[whassup]

I am a big fan of your sound design! You're one of my all time favourites.

Long time favourite synths:
Hive
Diva
Bazille

I guess there is "no market" for Synth1 and Vital presets?

Dunno if you're into teaching but I would be interested in a sound design course by you.
How to make good drums, FM, general thoughts on sound design like working with sound attributes and how to get there.
Yea, dreaming out loud!

[foosnark]

Go back about 15 years and I would have said mda ePiano. I used it to test effects plugins because it was simple and familiar, and worked nicely with any kind of effect. So I wound up using it fairly often, transformed by effects chains like it was a guitar.

For the last few years it's been Madrona Aalto. It's very easy to work with once you're used to it, simple but not overly stripped down. It works very well with MPE with 100% pressure control and no envelopes, which is a thing I like to do and can be very expressive when playing into distortion, but it's equally good with envelopes and more plucky sounds. It's basically a modernized and expanded Buchla Music Easel -- it doesn't have that exact character of course, but the architecture is similar, and the added waveguide delay and filter expand the possibilities.

[zvenx]

....But i was under the impression that my english was actually not too shabby. And i thought my question was clear. Well... There you go. One never stops learning.
Thanks again.

To be honest, in all our communications and your posts, your English was spot on, so when I saw these my first thought was, were you hacked .

It's all good..
Your English will forever be vastly superior to my German.

rsp

[Nug Wrangler]

Charlatan 3

[aanano]

i do sound design for my living since quite a long time.
creating a few presets here and there just for fun. So i might do that as well concentrating on synths where i know they are being frequently used by you guys out there.
So i would be interested in which these synths are.
Thanks in advance.

A lot of the plug-ins mentioned are pretty saturated for sound design.
Some of the more recent ones that have few sets for them and they would be better imo.
Some great plug-ins would be more popular with some sound love from people like you.
Things for Dawesome, MOK, Tracktion and Physical Audio would most get me to check them out.

[Michael L]

If you make presets for new synths like Dawesome Zyklop, consider adding descriptive notes on how you designed them. Simon Stockhausen did that with his Iris subscriptions & it increased usefulness a lot. Also, few people are making presets for new free synths, and some of them are quite nice like Pivot so consider that.

[Examigan]

Tone2's Saurus 4 and Electra3
Sylenth1
OP-X Pro II
Dune 3
Synthmaster 2 (and now v3)
Hive 2


I have many others, but those are the ones I used the most over the past 13 years or so.

[Examigan]

If you make presets for new synths like Dawesome Zyklop, consider adding descriptive notes on how you designed them.

The preset wizard can’t give out his secrets. He’s sworn to secrecy.

[brok landers]

If you make presets for new synths like Dawesome Zyklop, consider adding descriptive notes on how you designed them. Simon Stockhausen did that with his Iris subscriptions & it increased usefulness a lot. Also, few people are making presets for new free synths, and some of them are quite nice like Pivot so consider that.

I always do that - wherever the synth in question has that option (which i actually prefer). Sadly not all synths have that feature. On the synths that don't have that feature i always - if i am permitted by the developer - add the important modulation sources like modwheel/pitchbend, aftertouch or velocity in brackets after the preset name, so that there's at least some hint to that (but then very often the name field is too short).
mw = modwheel
pb = pitchbend - here i even differentiate between pb (up only) and pb (down only) - even pb (up&down) - just to communicate that _both_, up and down are important.
at = aftertouch
vel = velocity
However - even if the synths feature a preset description field - if it's not obviously placed, my experience is that even then people often don't check this useful information. I wish people would do that, as sometimes only then the preset unveils its (full) potential. I remember urging Urs from U-He to put this feature into Zebra back then.

[swilow11]

Honestly, Serum 1/2 is 70% of what I use although I make wavetables and samples to use in it with everything else.

Beyond Serum, I use Current, Massive X, Tal Mod, Reaktor, Bitwig Grid, Bitwig Phase 4 and Polymer, Razor, Abyss, Hive 2, Falcon and FM8. Imo, the best sounding of those is Massive X, and the most user friendly is Serum with Current very close behind.