If You can only keep Four VST Synths You have. Which Ones ?

[BONES]

Now we see once again why you've been banned so many times but you always manage to weasel back in.

What are you, 10 years old? "Mommy, the bad man said a naughty word!" Grow the f**k up, FFS.

[BONES]

That's a pretty crazy comment there Mr Bones...

Not when you first open it up and are presented with mostly empty space that you have to fill up yourself to make it look anything like a synth. PhasePlant is a bit the same way and I find it similarly uninspiring.

I think Vital has one of the best GUI's of any soft synth on the planet...

It looks more like an audio editor, like Audition, to me.

Everything is laid out logically and the visual feedback makes it a pleasure to drive

Just pointless bells and whistles to me, shiny things to distract idiots.

Personally I find Vital to be the most pleasing to my eyes, and how I want to work with a synth... I don't like the feeling I get about it maybe being abandoned, but at the same time the synth works well for me, without issues.

I've been using SoundSpot's Union for more than a decade now and it was abandoned almost as soon as it was released. It's made no difference, it is still my most used synth. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[machinesworking]

Have to agree on Vital, it's one of the more logical GUI's. I don't find it's sound that inspiring but I only have the free version.
Pigments is IMO easily the most logically laid out synth out there. The New Absynth is solid as well. I don't mind some skeuomorphism but I think I've been moving away from it in terms of instruments, doesn't matter at all with FX.

[_leras]

Oh we hear from another non-player character. Stay out of it junior.

Ok boomer.

You've got more noise to sound ratio than my fuzz box.

[Tj Shredder]

Mike says : ' Tell him double nothing is nothing and it's the pirates that made it a "hobby", I spent a year of 70 hour weeks getting Poly-Ana just to version 1.0, not to mention the 36 updates it's had since. It's up to date, 100% bug-free, no products are better supported and nobody supports their customers better. But for some reason these people think they have a right to steal from me because I'm a little guy and not a big corporation, which I've never been able to understand. I treated my customers the way I wanted software companies to treat me, and this is the thanks I get!

Hey, I am willing to buy, just not for that price… Certainly that would result in more than nothing. If he’d ignore the pirates and focus on the honest part of the world, he could even be happy…
I would even help out with Apple silicon to make it up to date, but I guess Berlin is too far away…

[TheMaestro]

Grow the f**k up, FFS.

The irony...

[TheMaestro]

My grown-up list:

1. OmniF**k
2. Pu**y Liquid Audio Mangler
3. Ti*s Bounce2Audio
4. A** Distortion Reverb

[vata44]

Alchemy
Linplug Alpha
Kontakt
Piky

[xx JPRacer xx]

BONES, what do you think of Minimal Audio Current and FabFilter Twin 3 GUI?

[rACatkvr]

1.Omnisphere
2.Falcon
3.Zebra 3
4.Alchemy

[digitalboytn]

BONES, what do you think of Minimal Audio Current and FabFilter Twin 3 GUI?

GRRRRRRR!

[surreal]

NI Kontakt
Roland Zenology Pro
Roland XV-5080
Dreamtonics Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro

Hi Aloysius, how does the Zenology Pro xv 5080 bank compare to the actual Roland xv 5080. I am still contemplating on getting the Zenology Pro, its a pity that the soundcanvas is not available anymore and i regret still to this day for not snatching it up at $69 before they removed it.. I have an old xp 10 keyboard that is unstable that has similar sounds which i like as bread and butter sounds for general midi work

[BONES]

Have to agree on Vital, it's one of the more logical GUI's. I don't find it's sound that inspiring but I only have the free version.

Oh, it's logical, I just find it utterly uninspiring, visually.

Pigments is IMO easily the most logically laid out synth out there.

Yeah, shame it doesn't quite sound good enough. I keep installing the free updates, I keep trying to find uses for it but it never really works out. There is always something else that does the job better. I find the V Collection synths to be the same, really. I try 'em out, I play around with 'em but they never end up getting used for anything.

BONES, what do you think of Minimal Audio Current and FabFilter Twin 3 GUI?

I've not used either but looking at some screen shots, they don't seem to put much on the screen at once, especially Twin 3. Aesthetically they are really nice but it doesn't look like they'd be much fun to actually use.

When I load a patch, I like to be able to see what's going on, I don't like having to dig through tabs and pop-ups to see what's happening with what. The little windows in Current look like they might do that well enough but without having tried it, I'd not be overly confident. Big graphics with 3d representations of wavetables and filter slopes seem to be de rigueur these days but I don't see that they serve any actual purpose. I'd rather see all the LFO settings.

(BTW, the reason I haven't tried them is that they cost more than I'm willing to pay for a VSTi. Interestingly, though, I have no trouble justifying more expensive Kontakt libraries - I have 23 Heavyocity products, for example, although a few are VST effects.)

One of my favourite synth GUIs is NI's TRK-01 (Reaktor ensemble). Even the freebie TRK-01 Bass does it well. It's not my preferred "see everything at once" layout but the way it gives you a decent overview and uses the middle section of the GUI to display more comprehensive settings works really well, I think. It's a synth I actually want to use, that I look for excuses to load up and work with. That's what a good GUI should do for you, I reckon. Of course, it helps that it also sounds good.

Screenshot 2026-05-24 103213.png

Then there are other synths that sound so good that I'll use them despite not finding them particularly good to work with. DUNE and Union fall into that category. Union, in particular, can be really painful to work with but nothing else I own can hold a candle to the monstrous sounds it makes. Plugin Boutique tried to overhaul the GUI, with WaveOSC, but it's still just as awkward to work with. At least it's pretty simple, so it's not as painful as it could be.

[machinesworking]

Have to agree on Vital, it's one of the more logical GUI's. I don't find it's sound that inspiring but I only have the free version.

Oh, it's logical, I just find it utterly uninspiring, visually.

Pigments is IMO easily the most logically laid out synth out there.

Yeah, shame it doesn't quite sound good enough. I keep installing the free updates, I keep trying to find uses for it but it never really works out. There is always something else that does the job better. I find the V Collection synths to be the same, really. I try 'em out, I play around with 'em but they never end up getting used for anything.

Yeah that's me in pretty much 99% of my synth collection. I over the years have used Zebra, Kontakt and Absynth for more than 50% of the instruments in my songs. Everything else rotates. I wouldn't say any of those have great GUI's, though all three got more flack than they deserve over it.

Pigments sounds tons better after some low end enhancements, though I still mostly use it for modulated heavily affected sounds. I have a few favorites in V-Collection, CS-80, SQ80 and Synclavier do get used, the MS-20 clone sounds great but I haven't reached for it in a song yet.

[Examigan]

NI Kontakt
Roland Zenology Pro
Roland XV-5080
Dreamtonics Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro

Hi Aloysius, how does the Zenology Pro xv 5080 bank compare to the actual Roland xv 5080. I am still contemplating on getting the Zenology Pro, its a pity that the soundcanvas is not available anymore and i regret still to this day for not snatching it up at $69 before they removed it.. I have an old xp 10 keyboard that is unstable that has similar sounds which i like as bread and butter sounds for general midi work

You can save a bit of money and just buy the XV-5080 on sale for $64. @Ivybirds and @beely mentioned some differences worth noting recently.
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