Is ReFX nexus 2 worth getting?

[2ZrgE]

Listening to the demo on the site, Serum is more than capable of those sounds. Play with the unison, add an envelope to a low pass filter (turn sustain down), add the compressor and check the OTT (multiband) option, simple pluck.

Electro-bass sound; try a bandpass filter on a saw and some distortion. Serum has FM for those deep house basses. None of those Nexus sounds are good, nor worth $250 (plus whatever else for the certain pack each sound is from). It's all about layering, as it is they layer several instances of Nexus in that demo, so you're going to have to do that anyway, might as well just use Serum for it. If you put the time in, you will get far better sounds out of Serum.

Also for supersaws, these sound awful - seconding Spire or Hive. ^

Free USB-port for eLicenser

Yes the USB key is mandatory according to the site.

edit; adding onto the above post, there's nothing wrong with ROMplers - use whatever sounds good for sure, but that's my point; in my opinion Nexus doesn't sound good (to me at least)

If you can really do Nexus sounds adequately with Serum, you should do a preset pack, it will sell like sliced bread.

Some of the best preset designers work for Nexus (Manuel Schleiß, Big Tone for example) - and Nexus' main selling point always was providing up-to-date sounds from popular genres for instant and easy use. And pros don't care about "It's just a rompler" discussions, they want to get their job done. Hence the 'pro' price tag.

Of course this product is useless for those "I-do-all-my-sounds-myself-and-never-use-samples" guys.

[recursive one]

Why do Nexus users act on the defensive so often? Nobody says Nexus is useless but is neither the best sounding nor the most cost effective option out there imo.

Nothing wrong with using romplers, samplers, presets, loops or whatever.

[chk071]

Why are romplers and samplers always considered "pricey"? As far as i understand it, apart from coding the plugin, you have to do LOTS of sampling, which is a hard and tedious (and therefor expensive) work. Hence it's quite obvious that samplers and romplers cost a bit more than normal synthesizer plugins... they all do, Omnisphere, Halion, Kontakt, Nexus, you name it. Of course it's also a matter of placing your product in the market, so you won't sell it for 1000 €, or 100 €. But the work being put into the plugin is significantly more than you would have to put into a plugin which has no sample library.

[keisuki]

My point was, if you can save $250 and a USB port and get a better result with what you have, why not?

The reason Nexus sounds so "pro" is because the sounds are layered - as I said. No one particular Serum preset will have that sound on it's own, but throw a bunch of similar ones together and you have that sound. However if Nexus has all the sounds you want, then there's no compromise, nobody can change your mind. At the end of the day it's about what makes you, the producer, happy.

edit; it's also not about making sounds from scratch, who cares about that? it's just about good sounds and versatility.

[Kinh]

Yes, it definitely worth getting. Its by far the most accessible and widely used synth I got.

[frizzbee]

The question was is it worth getting it.
You get access to modulators rather than the internal sounds parameters. So there are presets which have something like an internal arp you cant turn off with the global arp button. Designing your own sounds is not possible the way it is in a synth. There are also lots of presets called SQ where you get an full "arranged and mixed" sequence with drums, bass, lead, pad, maybe a little melody from the arp. and i remember vengeance (one of the sound designers) said thats the way nexus works. loading 1 preset to make a complete song without worrying about sound design or mixing. But thats also why some songs sound pretty identical (not just the fault of nexus, but the lazy producers).

Also the expansions don't evolve anymore (excepting the hollywood things). There are no sounds you didn't get with an earlier expansion. And its more like you get (identical) supersaws (or basses) in nearly every pack. Not just one. Often they get layerd e.g. with an piano or the envelope is different. And you just get an expansion with 4 sounds called "LD Charthopper 1, ..., LD Charthopper 4". You'll get the feeling they needed to fill these packs and just duplicated the sounds, tweaked them a minute and they are ready to sell.

And you should be aware of the companies product handling. So expansions you bought could be deleted from the website (and your account) the other day and without warning, just to give it away for everyone as a free gift to christmas or to recycle the sounds into another expansion, selled with a new name.

AFAIK they also don't sell physical products anymore. You'll get no DVD and no USB copy protection.

I think it nexus was worth it years ago. But its not yet anymore.

[tristan-]

There are also lots of presets called SQ where you get an full "arranged and mixed" sequence with drums, bass, lead, pad, maybe a little melody from the arp. and i remember vengeance (one of the sound designers) said thats the way nexus works. loading 1 preset to make a complete song without worrying about sound design or mixing.

Check out the demo of House 3. it's really incredible sounding. I want it

in the comments of the video, Vengeance replies:

It seems you dont know, that you can split the SQ presets apart. With the new Nexus versions, you can mute unwanted stuff, turn off the arps and you end up with a single sound (the bass, the lead, the drums, whatever you want from the SQ) furthermore, these SQ presets only make ~25% of an expansion, 75% are normal presets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4979PEuG8

[yobare]

I have refx nexus. I can say if u wana have some nice sounds is great synth. But if u have hard time for waiting dont get it.

Loading time about 3-5 second for 1 layer.

The sounds = realy awesome.

I would say for basses use another synth. even if nexus 2 is great. U will get disapointed on the loading time.

And for accoustic sounds it has very good stuff.

But i still like this synth and will use it for accoustic sounds if need. Just 1 layer.. If i use more it takes to big loading time and to high cpu.

But over all 3/5 still a good synth.

Also support is good. Takes maximum 1 day to get response.

But its very expensive if u wana work with others.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

I have been looking at ReFX Nexus for quite awhile now. I currently only use Xfer Serum as my main synth. How do the two VSTs stack up quality wise? I know they are substantially different, but since I have Serum already, is Nexus worth the investment? Why?

Also I looked on their website, on checkout it says you need to buy some sort of usb physical copy as the license for $20. Is that mandatory?

Thank you very very much!

they couldn't sound more different.

Sure they would be a great complement to one another.

The physical copy is not mandatory, they refund the postage cost to you if you put in your comments on the order that you only want the download (i.e if you already own an elicenser dongle).

Nexus might be a rompler (a very fancy one internally as the sound designers with access will tell you), but it's also surprisingly tweakable for the end user and is one of the very few products that lives up to the hardware romplers of old - i.e there are legions and legions of stunning, usable presets.

[Naenyn]

To me, it really depends on how much time you want to spend on sound design. Nexus 2 sounds awesome out of the box. Most sounds are usable with little post-processing. So if you're looking to quickly bang out tunes without learning synthesis, then it is a great tool. It's also good in a pinch when you've got the other parts of your track figured out but you need that one sound that you just can't quite seem to find/make on your own.

One thing to take in to consideration is that they don't exactly have the best track record with customer service. There are people who will state that they have great customer service. I'd have been one of them until recent events. It isn't too hard though to go through the forums here and elsewhere and find posts about people describing their rude treatment of their customers.

Overall, I think you'd be better served to pick up some of the leading synths (or just one!) and learning to make the sounds yourself. You may find that it is really fun, too .. and even if you don't, most popular synths these days also have a large amount of preset libraries that you can use to work from that can be comparable to what you'd get from a Nexus preset.

Edit: Some synth suggestions: Serum, Spire, Zebra2, Dune 2, ...

[shonoob]

To me, it really depends on how much time you want to spend on sound design. Nexus 2 sounds awesome out of the box. Most sounds are usable with little post-processing. So if you're looking to quickly bang out tunes without learning synthesis, then it is a great tool. It's also good in a pinch when you've got the other parts of your track figured out but you need that one sound that you just can't quite seem to find/make on your own.

One thing to take in to consideration is that they don't exactly have the best track record with customer service. There are people who will state that they have great customer service. I'd have been one of them until recent events. It isn't too hard though to go through the forums here and elsewhere and find posts about people describing their rude treatment of their customers.

Overall, I think you'd be better served to pick up some of the leading synths (or just one!) and learning to make the sounds yourself. You may find that it is really fun, too .. and even if you don't, most popular synths these days also have a large amount of preset libraries that you can use to work from that can be comparable to what you'd get from a Nexus preset.

Edit: Some synth suggestions: Serum, Spire, Zebra2, Dune 2, ...

I do infact have Serum already, I suppose I just don't have sufficient grasp on the VST to make sounds to my liking yet.

[Naenyn]

I do infact have Serum already, I suppose I just don't have sufficient grasp on the VST to make sounds to my liking yet.

In that case, if you're interested in pursuing synthesis and sound design, I'd recommend checking out Syntorial. It is a great way to learn synthesis. It may also be worth taking a look at training video companies like Groove3. Pretty sure they have one on Serum.

[Kinh]

The question was is it worth getting it.
You get access to modulators rather than the internal sounds parameters. So there are presets which have something like an internal arp you cant turn off with the global arp button. Designing your own sounds is not possible the way it is in a synth. There are also lots of presets called SQ where you get an full "arranged and mixed" sequence with drums, bass, lead, pad, maybe a little melody from the arp. and i remember vengeance (one of the sound designers) said thats the way nexus works. loading 1 preset to make a complete song without worrying about sound design or mixing. But thats also why some songs sound pretty identical (not just the fault of nexus, but the lazy producers).

Also the expansions don't evolve anymore (excepting the hollywood things). There are no sounds you didn't get with an earlier expansion. And its more like you get (identical) supersaws (or basses) in nearly every pack. Not just one. Often they get layerd e.g. with an piano or the envelope is different. And you just get an expansion with 4 sounds called "LD Charthopper 1, ..., LD Charthopper 4". You'll get the feeling they needed to fill these packs and just duplicated the sounds, tweaked them a minute and they are ready to sell.

And you should be aware of the companies product handling. So expansions you bought could be deleted from the website (and your account) the other day and without warning, just to give it away for everyone as a free gift to christmas or to recycle the sounds into another expansion, selled with a new name.

AFAIK they also don't sell physical products anymore. You'll get no DVD and no USB copy protection.

I think it nexus was worth it years ago. But its not yet anymore.

Almost everything in this comment is WRONG. So I wouldn't base your decision to go with it on this. The SEQ can be broken down into parts, they're not just fully 'arranged and mixed' (And songs sound identical on the radio in order to GET on the radio, not because producers are lazy and prefer to use arpeggiators). And there is no global arp button but there doesn't need to be cause a lot of the arp and seq are actually the same plucks and leads contained within the expansion anyway.

And about Nexus not evolving, you couldn't be anymore wrong. The expansions of yesteryear, "commercial electro", "dance orchestra" etc are waaaayyy behind the new ones as far as quality goes and files size, are 4 times as small. Clearly you haven't added an expansion for quite some time. And they dont just take a preset from a previous expansion, tweak it then use it for the next one, the presets in every expansion are genre specific.

And your final statement "I think nexus was worth it years ago. But its not yet anymore"...its actually the complete reverse. Nexus wasn't worth it years ago when the sound was pretty average but since they've lifted their game and dramatically improved the quality of their presets, it is.

[Apostate]

Nexus is terrific for quick inspiration, at least in my experience. Of course, it depends on what you're looking for, and it might be wise to keep in mind that the expansion packs often sound wildly great yet run the bill up even more. I mean, it can turn into a crack habit real quick in that way (I bought two dozen myself, and have gotten so much, inspired mileage out of them I regret them not in the least).

Would I say the flat price for the plugin is worth it? If you've got extra cash and want something you can make demos/sketches with fast, hell yeah. Does it supersede more malleable synths like Camel or Kontakt? That's a tougher call, especially for me. I don't like relying too much on predone sounds, because that's how you start sounding like everyone else. But again, it gives me something I can put down nice and tight and save, where I can go back and pick up where I left off, even if I left off it weeks ago and barely remember what the hell I was doing. Things get sooo much easier in that respect.

[neverfall]

Why do Nexus users act on the defensive so often? Nobody says Nexus is useless but is neither the best sounding nor the most cost effective option out there imo.

Nothing wrong with using romplers, samplers, presets, loops or whatever.

Why do non-Nexus users always mention cost when trying to sway potential customers away?

Oh yeah....because they can't afford it themselves.