Additive syth recommendations

[Korg Supporter]

When it was available Linplug's Spectral looked like the best one. Powerful, usable and great sound. Has anything come out since then which really compares? Razor feels a little limited and clunky in comparison, although the sound quality is good.

Spectral sounds really nice, but you can't do inharmonic sounds. The closest things that come to it are Albino Legend, Predator, and imo DS Thorn.

[kraster]

Msoundfactory has a really powerful additive synthesis component. Even the regular oscillators can be edited on a partial basis. Similar to Zebra.

The problem, which is an issue with a lot of additive synths, is that the dedicated additive component is cumbersome to control.

Sumu by Madrona labs is fundamentally an additive synth that relies on resynthesis of samples for its partial maps.

The advantage of Sumu is that simplifies the process of dealing with a large amount of partials by running the basic controllers and shapers in parallel. ie. you have 64 partials with FM/AM and spatial positioning that can be altered via the various controls and modulators.

Sumu isn't a traditional additive synth but it's one of the most interesting takes on additive synthesis I've seen.

[swilow11]

Was playing around in Reaktor today and remembered the Atomic block pack from Toybox which is an additive synth that can be FMed. Pretty damn interesting sounds.

[Parpfrat]

Was playing around in Reaktor today and remembered the Atomic block pack from Toybox which is an additive synth that can be FMed. Pretty damn interesting sounds.

Now that does sound interesting!
Gotta link?

[Julien_LL]

Was playing around in Reaktor today and remembered the Atomic block pack from Toybox which is an additive synth that can be FMed. Pretty damn interesting sounds.

Now that does sound interesting!
Gotta link?

https://www.toyboxaudio.com/pages/atomic-pack

[pdxindy]

Zebralette 3 is my favorite additive synth.

[DorianBloom]

Very interesting topic.
Just opened loom 2 for the first time in ages. This has to be one of the most unique and powerful additive synths out there. It has modules I have never seen before in an additive synth.

I agree regarding icarus - not a traditional additive synth, neither is it a traditional FM synth....but in both cases its capabilities are actually shocking. Mostly for how good they sound,.
Icarus probably has the best sound quality of any digital synth I own.

Falcon - pretty good, Pigments - pretty good. Something interesting coming from sound radix. We will see how that goes,,,im currently testing that and Zebra 3.


Honestly I still kinda feel like ir AIR did a proper update on Loom it would be the best, purely for its capabilities.


As for Razor - I should really try that again!

[VariKusBrainZ]

discoDSP Vertigo is a lot of fun - I wish there was a way to record playing with the partials as a type of automation but I dont think there is

Record audio, hit a key and draw in the spectrum window

[VariKusBrainZ]

The most Radiophonic Workshop fun Im having is is with Melda Oscillator > Relab Color Drive > The Drop

Additive analog filter saturated goodness

[swilow11]

Honestly I still kinda feel like ir AIR did a proper update on Loom it would be the best, purely for its capabilities.


As for Razor - I should really try that again!

I pruned my collection significantly since starting this topic and find myself left with only Razor which is honestly an absolute beast. It is relatively simple at base but can do some truly unique stuff. There is something annoying about the workflow though- maybe it's the relative dearth of modulation? But I've create several Bitwig insteument racks for Razor with a number of additional mod sources (particularly randomisation) and have gotten extremely familiar with the various sound shaping capabilities so am now able to consciously aim for a sound and know how to get there. Definitely one of the best synths out there.

I've also used Zebralette 3 extensively. Tbh I demoed Zebra 3 and loved it but just don't think I need another monster synth especially when I can just layer several instance of Zebralette 3 in Bitwig and share modulation sources. I do find a lot for the waveform editing functionality arcane and hard to grasp but damn this single oscillator is amazing.

[Ah_Dziz]

Zebra 2 (and 3), alchemy (now apple only), harmor. I'm not exactly sure what you're going for, sound wise, but those 3 are all great and cover tons of ground. Alchemy and harmor do complex additive resynthesis. Zebra gives you an 8 way morph through whatever spectrum you draw in (I'm not sure if they expanded the max number of frames in zebra (lette) 3), and then pipes that through a top notch synthesis engine. All 3 allow for pretty in depth editing of the evolution of your additive spectrum over time, with harmor and alchemy allowing for far more intricate control.

[morphex]

From all of the additive synths that I’ve tried, the most impressive ones for me personally are NI’s Razor, Zebra 3 (and Zebralette), Icarus3, and Loom II.

I also have a license for the new Sound Radix Radical1, and I think that it has plenty of potential. But at the time of this post, it’s still somewhat in its infancy with their “preview release.”

If you read the full description on their website, you’ll see that it’s feature dense, with a built-in MIDI effects rack, spectral effects, and a modular signal flow. It’s also MPE-ready, and it has a fascinating feature with Formula Blocks that lets you write custom DSP code directly inside of the plug-in, which is the first time I’ve ever seen something like that.

It has spectral sample resynthesis for “turning recordings into fully controllable additive structures.” The envelopes are pretty snappy for percussive sounds, and it includes polyphonic, per voice processing and modulation.

I’m still exploring it as much as time will allow, but it’s clear to me that it will be a synth to keep your eyes on as it matures. I’m not quite sure if I like their choices for the UI and layout.

It seems like they could make better use of the screen real estate, instead of putting so much focus on lots of moving colors. But it’s still new and they’re very welcoming about suggestions from users. I also think that it needs more complex presets to show what the synth is capable of.

[IvyBirds]

Modern Additive Synths are great, but they do a lot of stuff behind the scenes where you don't really have a lot of control and do things in batches

I think sometimes old school style additive like on the Arturia Synclavier V is nice because you can manually adjust the additive partials with your mouse. You get 24

If you have a MIDI controller with a bunch of knobs and faders (at least 12 but more is better) you can run a few instances of Dexed or Plogue OPS7 on algorithm 32. That will give you six sine wave generators each with their own envelopes per instance (OPS7 is dual layer by default and gives you 12. Use the course tune to set each one one higher then the one before. You can go all the way up to 31, but you can also program the first one or the fundamental to .5 then use the transpose function to set the whole thing up an octave. That will give you up to 32 partials that you can easily assign to a CC and play around with using a controller. (I do this with a Launch Control XL) It's loads of fun. But you can also have fun with just 12 or 18 or 24 or however many knobs and faders you have available to

OPS7 is better for this as you can use enhanced mode and and add feedback to every operator, for even more options you can use other waveforms besides sine as it has waveforms from the TX81Z. Waves 2,3,&4 are interesting because they add extra odd harmonics with 2 being the weakest and 4 being the strongest

[ksandvik]

Zebralette 3 (free) and Zebra3 (free beta just now).

[DJDJ]

Just reminding anyone reading that if you want additive for modern bass sounds, there's also Lazerbass for Reaktor. Nobody ever talks about it, but it's pretty great too.