KVR Audio

Reefius · Post by **Reefius** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 12:45 am

ANA Synth from Sonic Academy is also great and not expensive.

Igor Amos · Post by **Igor Amos** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:39 am

No doubt Reaktor. Sometimes on sale for $99. You can explore infinite possibilities at your leisure.

Infinite might be a little strong way to put it but sometimes it seems like it.

The other 4 synths that come to mind are Synplant, Circle, Bazille and Alchemy.

By the way, I should say, I choose these synths cause for me they yield the most interesting sounds across a wide variety. If I had it all to do over again, I'd pick Reaktor and possibly never buy any other synth. but so much depends on how you work and what you are after! I love Enzyme as well. And good to have a really good granular synth. Once again, Reaktor provides there. Check out:

http://www.native-instruments.com/en/co ... r-content/

werp · Post by **werp** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:44 am

I'd suggest an Arturia keyboard. Not only do you score a well made keyboard, but all the soft synths that come with it.
Arturia Keylab in whatever size suits your budget.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:46 am

Another option might be Tone2 Electra2 or Nemesis. Just watch out for whatever psycho acoustic processing stuff they use..

fluffy_little_something · Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:54 am

werp wrote:I'd suggest an Arturia keyboard. Not only do you score a well made keyboard, but all the soft synths that come with it.
Arturia Keylab in whatever size suits your budget.

And Bitwig, too

Dr. Zigg · Post by **Dr. Zigg** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 8:31 pm

Get something free. All commercial synths are overused and will make your sound designing sound completely bland and unoriginal.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 8:41 pm

Dr. Zigg wrote:Get something free. All commercial synths are overused and will make your sound designing sound completely bland and unoriginal.

Yeah. Same as with all those classic hardware synths. Totally bland. Onepingonly ftw

Pacific05 · Post by **Pacific05** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:45 pm

Komplete would be the best choice because you can have all you want. But it's very expensive.
I second Synthmaster, cheap and powerful, and Zebra 2, a great workhorse.
A third choice, since you're into ambient, d'n'b etc., is Alchemy, to mangle sounds and get infinite inspiration.

Edit the message just to say: I guess you have tried some freebie like Synth1 or Oatmeal. If you didn't, give them a try.

Nokenoku · Post by **Nokenoku** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 2:06 pm

Don't forget the Korg Legacy plugins.
At the moment they are ridiculously cheap at 50% off:
http://www.korguser.net/

kuzami · Post by **kuzami** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:30 pm

Chris-S wrote:Dune2, Serum, ....

Many options for a nice christmas synth.

This. Two of my three favorite synths from this year (the third being Bazille).

Throbert · Post by **Throbert** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:03 am

1st...OPX or OPXII, can't remember if II was out back then.

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:10 pm

I think FAW Circle is probably the best synth for a begineer because of the interface, fafilter twin a close second. But Circle has more timbre possibilities because of the waveforms.

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:29 pm

Oatmeal was my first softsynth that got heavy usage.
I was all samples, effects and offline processing before that. The sound isn't bad (although not quite to the high quality of the top-end synths of today) and the options are extremely broad for a freebie. It's very flexible, and I do still use it today, along with the much-lauded Diva, and Bazille and other more modern circuit-modelling-type things, and it really doesn't sound so out of place.

For someone starting from scratch, I'd probably suggest something like Massive - simply because of the innumerable tutorials and tips that use it that are available on youtube and elsewhere. But from your second post, it seems you're not after the learning bit so much.

If you've got the dosh then I'd second or third fourth or whateverth the suggestion of Komplete as you won't find a more complete set of tools for so little despite the bigger initial investment.

If you just want one really good synth that can do plenty of stuff, but won't bamboozle you with so many options you don't know where to start, then Diva all the way! There's hidden depths to plumb, but quick and intuitive access to the main options expected in a polysynth.

excessional · Post by **excessional** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 6:53 pm

Yes - the question is do you mean budget or not?

If you want a decent budget synth (sub $50) then Synthmaster is worth looking at - you can get the player with 800 presets for $9 to test it out and and it gives you another 20% off the upgrade to Factory.

Z3ta+2 is often on Steam sales for $40 (comes with a basic Cakewalk DAW at that price too).

These are obviously a step up from the various CM cut-down and free synths (though you should definitely try the free Synth 1 and its 10,000 presets), but aren't as cutting edge as the stuff you pay £150-300 for ...

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:40 pm

I'd invest in NI Komplete.

My first Software Synthesizer