The synths I keep are the ones that make editing feel quick

[ethanjamescolez]

I have owned and demoed enough synth plugins to realize that sound quality is not the only reason I keep using one.

Plenty of synths sound good. Some sound huge in the first five presets. Some have a browser full of polished sequences and cinematic pads. Some make me think I should buy them after ten minutes because the demo track almost writes itself.

But the synths that stay in my template are usually the ones I can edit quickly.

That is a different thing.

When I am actually making a track, I do not want to feel like I am operating a small spaceship just to soften the attack or make a bass patch less wide. I want the basic controls to be where my hands expect them. Oscillators, filter, envelopes, modulation, voice settings, effects. If I can get from "close" to "fits the track" in a minute, I will use that instrument more often than a deeper one that makes every change feel like a trip through tabs.

I am not against deep synths. I like them. I just use them differently. A complex wavetable or modular-style instrument is great when sound design is the point of the session. But if I am writing, the best synth is often the one that lets me move fast and stay musical.

Preset quality can be misleading too. I like good presets, but I trust simple presets more than spectacular ones. A dry saw pad, a basic pluck, a plain bass, a clean keys patch. If those feel good and respond well to small edits, the synth probably has something useful under the hood. If the presets only impress me because they are buried in delay, compression, and motion, I get suspicious.

The modulation system matters a lot. I do not need every possible routing, but I need the common ones to be painless. Envelope to filter. LFO to pitch or cutoff. Velocity to amp or brightness. Mod wheel to vibrato or expression. If those take too much menu work, I stop reaching for the synth.

CPU also affects whether I keep something around. I do not mind freezing tracks, but I do mind interrupting an idea because one patch eats the session. A synth that sounds 90 percent as good and lets me keep writing often wins.

The other underrated thing is gain staging. Some instruments come in extremely loud, which makes every preset feel impressive until it sits in a mix. I prefer synths that do not trick me with volume. Boring, maybe, but useful.

Over time I have started to split my instruments into two groups. Some are for exploration. Some are for finishing tracks. The finishing-track synths are usually not the flashiest ones. They are stable, predictable, easy to automate, and fast to edit.

That does not make them less creative. It makes them easier to trust.

What makes you keep using a synth after the first excitement wears off?

Is it the raw sound, the modulation, the browser, the CPU, the interface, or just familiarity?

[Cuauhtli]

Massive is one of the first soft synths I got. It's my MVP, old reliable, <insert more inane clichés here>. This one hangs around due to familiarity, it's easy to use, and it still sounds fine.

The other keepers are Pigments and Multi/Poly. I have a bunch of other soft synths but I could do without them. Just like my guitar collection, I could do just fine with one single coil and one humbucker guitar but the more the merrier.

[D-Fusion]

The sound is the most important part for me and that the gui is clean so i don't end up with blurry vision after 5 minutes.

[audiojunkie]

I largely agree with the OP. To me, sound is still number one. But easy and quick workflow is right up there as one of the top things I like.

I use Linux, so I don’t have quite as many native options as others. That said, I I try to buy everything I can that fits my needs and goals. I have most of the U-he products, several of the TAL-Software products, several Audio Damage and AudioThing and Plogue products, and many many more. I try to cover as many of my sonic bases as possible: analog modeled subtractive synthesis, wavetable synthesis, FM, granular, sampling, etc, etc, etc.

But out of all of this, I think my favorite plugin at the moment, is Repro. What I like about it, is that not only does it sound fantastic, but also, it is dead simple. I’ve got Zebra 3, and other extremely powerful “supersynths”, and yet I keep coming back to the tools that are the easiest for me to work with.

[surreal]

I have owned and demoed enough synth plugins to realize that sound quality is not the only reason I keep using one.

Plenty of synths sound good. Some sound huge in the first five presets. Some have a browser full of polished sequences and cinematic pads. Some make me think I should buy them after ten minutes because the demo track almost writes itself.

But the synths that stay in my template are usually the ones I can edit quickly.

That is a different thing.

When I am actually making a track, I do not want to feel like I am operating a small spaceship just to soften the attack or make a bass patch less wide. I want the basic controls to be where my hands expect them. Oscillators, filter, envelopes, modulation, voice settings, effects. If I can get from "close" to "fits the track" in a minute, I will use that instrument more often than a deeper one that makes every change feel like a trip through tabs.

I am not against deep synths. I like them. I just use them differently. A complex wavetable or modular-style instrument is great when sound design is the point of the session. But if I am writing, the best synth is often the one that lets me move fast and stay musical.

Preset quality can be misleading too. I like good presets, but I trust simple presets more than spectacular ones. A dry saw pad, a basic pluck, a plain bass, a clean keys patch. If those feel good and respond well to small edits, the synth probably has something useful under the hood. If the presets only impress me because they are buried in delay, compression, and motion, I get suspicious.

The modulation system matters a lot. I do not need every possible routing, but I need the common ones to be painless. Envelope to filter. LFO to pitch or cutoff. Velocity to amp or brightness. Mod wheel to vibrato or expression. If those take too much menu work, I stop reaching for the synth.

CPU also affects whether I keep something around. I do not mind freezing tracks, but I do mind interrupting an idea because one patch eats the session. A synth that sounds 90 percent as good and lets me keep writing often wins.

The other underrated thing is gain staging. Some instruments come in extremely loud, which makes every preset feel impressive until it sits in a mix. I prefer synths that do not trick me with volume. Boring, maybe, but useful.

Over time I have started to split my instruments into two groups. Some are for exploration. Some are for finishing tracks. The finishing-track synths are usually not the flashiest ones. They are stable, predictable, easy to automate, and fast to edit.

That does not make them less creative. It makes them easier to trust.

What makes you keep using a synth after the first excitement wears off?

Is it the raw sound, the modulation, the browser, the CPU, the interface, or just familiarity?

What Synths do you use that meets your Criteria?

[Seafire Mk2]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

[IvyBirds]

When I am actually making a track, I do not want to feel like I am operating a small spaceship just to soften the attack or make a bass patch less wide. I want the basic controls to be where my hands expect them. Oscillators, filter, envelopes, modulation, voice settings, effects. If I can get from "close" to "fits the track" in a minute, I will use that instrument more often than a deeper one that makes every change feel like a trip through tabs.

I am not against deep synths. I like them. I just use them differently. A complex wavetable or modular-style instrument is great when sound design is the point of the session. But if I am writing, the best synth is often the one that lets me move fast and stay musical.

Sounds like you need to learn your Synths better. These days unless I need a specific emulation of something for a specific task, I am pretty much always using what most would consider deep Synths like Falcon, Omnisphere, HALion7, Zebra 3 etc. It's dead simple to soften the attack and or make a bass patch less wide if you know them. Literally seconds

Have to say that these are all things that would be dead simple to assign universally to a controller, which is the real time saver and will always keep you in the flow. Want to soften the attack? Simple I have a fader for that. It's always the same fader no matter the plugin and all I have to do is move it and it's done, don't even need to look at the screen

Also have to say the biggest buzzkill when writing or working on something new isnt speed or lack there of as you describe, it's lack of options. That's why I use so called Deep Synths, because if I need it want to change something or tweak something the more options I have the better. That is far superior than wasting time with a synth that doesn't quite do the job

As far as speed goes if I have a musical idea and want to quickly get something going so called deep Synths have thousands of presets that cover every musical scenario. So I can quickly drop in a piano, or strings, or a pad, or a Minimoog, or a tuba, or whatever and get the arrangement and chord progression down and worry about specific sounds later

[audiojunkie]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

Ah! I didn’t even think to look! If you’re right, I’m going to feel like a sucker!!

[TechHaus]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

They launched a couple of essays at once last night. One right after the other (I'm a chronic "Latest Posts" checker).

The others:
Delay became more useful when I stopped treating it like extra reverb
viewtopic.php?t=631579

The DAW feature I care about more now is mistake recovery
viewtopic.php?p=9268594

Leaving space in a dense mix is harder than adding another layer
viewtopic.php?p=9268581

AI-detector flags in audio software and production posts
viewtopic.php?p=9268578

[audiojunkie]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

They launched a couple of essays at once last night. One right after the other (I'm a chronic "Latest Posts" checker).

Look at the post history to see the others.

Most of my posts end up looking like essays. If I were one, I’d be immediately outed!

[TechHaus]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

They launched a couple of essays at once last night. One right after the other (I'm a chronic "Latest Posts" checker).

Look at the post history to see the others.

Most of my posts end up looking like essays. If I were one, I’d be immediately outed!

Sure, but you don't post 5 at once!

Maybe they were just trying to DM someone and wanted to hit their 5 posts quickly, if I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

[audiojunkie]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

They launched a couple of essays at once last night. One right after the other (I'm a chronic "Latest Posts" checker).

Look at the post history to see the others.

Most of my posts end up looking like essays. If I were one, I’d be immediately outed!

Sure, but you don't post 5 at once!

Maybe they were just trying to DM someone and wanted to hit their 5 posts quickly, if I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

Agreed. Several essay-length posts all at the same time though would be pretty difficult to pull off.

[whassup]

A long 'what do you use' post from a new user....hmmm

They launched a couple of essays at once last night. One right after the other (I'm a chronic "Latest Posts" checker).

Look at the post history to see the others.

Most of my posts end up looking like essays. If I were one, I’d be immediately outed!

Sure, but you don't post 5 at once!

Maybe they were just trying to DM someone and wanted to hit their 5 posts quickly, if I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

Agreed. Several essay-length posts all at the same time though would be pretty difficult to pull off.

Just wanted to mention that I like your insightful "essays". I read them often.
To me you have a lot to say which is useful and beneficial.
And I like your sig!

[audiojunkie]

That’s kind of you to say, Wassup! I don’t usually hear any feedback, other than disagreement and complaints. Thank you!