Best / worst synth gui

[chagzuki]

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.

Yes, I agree. The majority of UI design is moving towards clarity and elimination of anything that adds unnecessary cognitive load. It's boring if you're treating it as a picture, but in the middle of doing stuff it generally works best. I guess it's different for synths that cater for a specific aesthetic/vibe, emulations and such, but for open-ended sound design a neutral UI is appropriate.

[Sinisterbr]

Massive X and Sugarbytes Factory.

[Sinisterbr]

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.

It gets a lot better if you edit the GUI colors to your liking

[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.

It gets a lot better if you edit the GUI colors to your liking

Ahh yeah most people don't know you can skin it now. They need to make support for that more first-class.

[SamDi]

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.

MSoundFactory and Falcon are similar in complexity, but I think MSoundFactory is much worse. Don't forget: Falcon is this Hybrid Sampler/Synth thing with multi--programs, layers, key-zones and this makes things more complicated, than a normal synth. In this hybrid-league with Kontakt, Halion, Falcon, etc. I think Falcon is still the nicest to use, even if there are some inconsistencies in the GUI though.

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.

As mentioned above. As a normal synth Falcon is way too comlicated. But if you use it for it's sample/keyzone/layer thing, it's relatively good solved, workflow-wise.

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.

Complete different opinion here:
1.) Sampling is not a killer feature (except semi-automatic instrument sampling), because in DAWs you don't need it. Just record with the daw and pull the WAV-file in each sampler.

2.)GUI/workflow ist the worst in Halion because
a) It's easy to make failures and hard to find and fix them
b) Limited polyphonic Envelopes/LFOs per keyzone
c) Mixer and Effects on several layers is somehow messy for me
d) And OC the non-resizable GUI

3.) Not saying Halion is shitty. It has it's qualities, but I like working with Falcon waaaay more

[stoopicus]

As mentioned above. As a normal synth Falcon is way too comlicated. But if you use it for it's sample/keyzone/layer thing, it's relatively good solved, workflow-wise.

Yeah for sample based workflows I think Falcon is awesome, in particular you want its ability to keyboard-map as a first class part of the workflow like it does, ideally down to individual samples on each key over a range.

Even so I think its UI is a mess even for sampling, but it does get a lot more right there.

[No_Use]

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https://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/down ... /Cohmpost/

edit: Ok, it's an FX, not a synth.

[Mushroom Sounds]

Wiggle has a neat GUI, with the little light on top there is warm "at home" kind of feeling.

The sound is awesome as well. Unfortunately the synth went to the shadow realm I guess mainly because the CPU load was way WAY too high especially at the time it came out.

Maybe someday they will make a v2 ?

[n9research]

My favourite synth GUI is MSoundFactory.

Yes, I am being serious.

Worst? Dunno.. Loom 2 comes to mind.

[SamDi]

As mentioned above. As a normal synth Falcon is way too comlicated. But if you use it for it's sample/keyzone/layer thing, it's relatively good solved, workflow-wise.

Yeah for sample based workflows I think Falcon is awesome, in particular you want its ability to keyboard-map as a first class part of the workflow like it does, ideally down to individual samples on each key over a range.

Even so I think its UI is a mess even for sampling, but it does get a lot more right there.

Hm beside these inconsistencies between clicking on tree elements and selecting appropriate modulators, parameters, etc. and vice versa I can not imagine, how they could make it less "messy".

[eLawnMust]

Nawww... Worst is OhmForce SymptOhm MelohMan 'Funky Skin' with fonts for presets unreadable & number of other bad news... Best is no GUI at all just sliders or knobs labeled which is all you need... Graphics for audio dabblers is like twirling mobiles for infants fire for 'fascination' not necessary time to grow up...

[stoopicus]

Hm beside these inconsistencies between clicking on tree elements and selecting appropriate modulators, parameters, etc. and vice versa I can not imagine, how they could make it less "messy".

That’s why though. I think its entire UI needs to be rethought - too much tree/menu diving and (for lack of a better term) context to get to stuff.

The opposite end of the spectrum would be something like Phase Plant, where everything is just right there.

[jrwaltb]

Wiggle has a neat GUI, with the little light on top there is warm "at home" kind of feeling.

The sound is awesome as well. Unfortunately the synth went to the shadow realm I guess mainly because the CPU load was way WAY too high especially at the time it came out.

Maybe someday they will make a v2 ?

This is deprecated right, I own this lol?

[ChanceB]

Nawww... Worst is OhmForce SymptOhm MelohMan 'Funky Skin' with fonts for presets unreadable & number of other bad news... Best is no GUI at all just sliders or knobs labeled which is all you need... Graphics for audio dabblers is like twirling mobiles for infants fire for 'fascination' not necessary time to grow up...

Symptohm is terrible. It’s kinda cool looking but absolutely horrible to use.

[kidslow]

I nominate HY-POLY for best GUI.

Worst, I've seen a few mentioned that I would agree with. Won't name names to protect the innocent.