Is the Sylenth 1 still good?

[Teksonik]

LD probably rolls his eyes, thinking to himself, children, ts...

You calling something childish.....Oh the Irony....

Now you're just arguing for the sake of it....careful or someone will start calling you names.

To me one of the great features of software is being able to configure it to work and yes to look the way I want it to.......makes for a much more comfortable and yes productive environment.

Anyway I'm just messing around on the lappy while watching a football game. I would hope that nobody would take anything too seriously. It's just a forum guys, chill........

[fluffy_little_something]

I am not sure, but I think he might have done it that way so that when one uses very different cutoff and resonance values for both layers, one can change the global brightness with one knob without changing the balance between the two layers, i.e. the global sound character.

I also get the impression that it allows more extreme settings in combination with env amounts settings.

[wagtunes]

No idea how it is in regards of readability, but i found this skin quite awesome:


Btw, it has been proposed before, but i think one should not disregard the built-in Windows screen magnifying features, if one has problems with reading GUI elements. It may be a bit more tedious, but then, why not give it a go instead of disregarding software just because their GUI element are hard to read.

I'll give you a perfectly valid reason for disregarding software that I can't read.

There are plenty of good synths out there that I can read.

So why struggle with something when you don't have to? I mean it's not like Sylenth1 is the only option. Dune 2 has a great interface. Yes, it's essentially tab based (each voice has its own control) and it can be easy to get a little lost when doing complex patches, but I'd rather that than have a separate section for every voice on one screen. That would be a nightmare.

I can list at least 50 synths where I love the GUI.

So why should I struggle with Sylenth1?

In fact, there have been a number of synths whose sounds I loved that I didn't buy either because of too small or too cluttered GUIs.

Symptom
Rhino
Enzyme
Lush 101
Helix
Surge

And that's just a short list.

Symptom is one of my favorite sounding synths and probably one of the most unusual ones out there. But the GUI is a disaster. Even the alternate skin I don't like.

Many synths of years ago were made when screen resolution was 800x600. Today, those synths are horrible to look at. The only reason I don't regret getting the Arturia V Collection is because of the SEM. Most of those GUIs are microscopic, especially the modular and CS 80, which is a crime because they'd be so much fun to program.

This isn't a personal crusade against Sylenth1. The synth, unfortunately, suffers from the same problem as a lot of old synths.

Maybe if it goes on sale again some day and the developer has made a GUI the size of Bazille or something similar, I'll consider getting it. The sound is fine. It's obviously popular, and if I made a good sound set I could probably sell it. But working with it right now the way it is, is simply not an option.

[chk071]

I am not sure, but I think he might have done it that way so that when one uses very different cutoff and resonance values for both layers, one can change the global brightness with one knob without changing the balance between the two layers, i.e. the global sound character.

Yeah, i guess that was the intention. Still a bit weird, especially when you modulate filter cutoff with an envelope, and the global cutoff won't apply to the envelope modulation then...

[ENV1]

Sorry, but people are spoiled today. With the overwhelming majority of products it is not possible to change their skin, painting, coating or whatever. Playing around with such aspects has something childish to it, as if plugins were cheap plastic toys

Well, as someone who has had a lot of fun making custom skins i beg to differ, (obviously), but im glad that you took the post the way it was meant, i.e. in good humor.

[fisherKing]

I got to say, i can't demo the latest version in Cubase and logic 64 so i had to decline.

I mean why the 7 year old demo still? How do i KNOW it will work properly on my machine, and if there are bugs, indeed if they are bugs *I* can live with?

With Lennard's track record, I have to be sure it is working 100% perfectly NOW.. as i can't imagine there will be any updates again for the next few years. What a shame.

That said, http://aiynzahev-sounds.myshopify.com
are having a sale on their banks.

Sami is a very good sound designer. Listening to his sylenth banks vs his hive bank.... Hive sounds better. Quite a bit.

And Sami knows what he is doing. I am thinking.. perhaps since i haven't used sylenth in 5 years, perhaps i really AM remembering it being better than it is after all?

Hive really stood out out of all aiynzahev-sounds demos, will have to pop over to u-he and give it a whirl.

His virus stuff sounded great too as well as ultra analog!

you can check with lennardigital, but...there IS a beta for logic (a 64bit AU), that's what i'm running, seems stable. and has been mentioned, you can bump up the GUI to 200%...HUGE. AND there's some custom skins included with the plugin which helps (i always thought the default was crazy ugly).

am working on a remix, going back and forth between sylenth1, spire 1.1, and nexus 2 for a lead:
spire is awesome, nexus 2 is awesome when i find something that just works. sylenth1 needs...a little help, to compete; some eq, maybe external distortion, a little compression. but it's minimal effort.

whatever works! all these plugins have their place (and am glad i am not legally bound to only one)...

[Teksonik]

and has been mentioned, you can bump up the GUI to 200%...HUGE. AND there's some custom skins included with the plugin which helps (i always thought the default was crazy ugly).

Well then there you go. That should satisfy everyone's GUI needs........

Looking forward to the Windows update. They seem to be stuck on the Mac beta.

[chk071]

That said, http://aiynzahev-sounds.myshopify.com
are having a sale on their banks.

Sami is a very good sound designer. Listening to his sylenth banks vs his hive bank.... Hive sounds better. Quite a bit.

And Sami knows what he is doing. I am thinking.. perhaps since i haven't used sylenth in 5 years, perhaps i really AM remembering it being better than it is after all?

His demos (and probably also sound design skills) got better with the years though IMO. If you listen to some of the demo for his older soundsets, the production is not quite up to par with the demos to his newer soundsets. E.g. the (newer) Electra2 Dark Energy demo is absolutely awesome, hardly ever heard any more professional sounding soundsets demo. I really like the pads in the Hive demo, but there are sounds in there too, like some of the bass sounds, which i find a bit ordinary. Each to his like of course. Must admit though that his Sylenth bank isn't my favorite either.

[fisherKing]

and has been mentioned, you can bump up the GUI to 200%...HUGE. AND there's some custom skins included with the plugin which helps (i always thought the default was crazy ugly).

Well then there you go. That should satisfy everyone's GUI needs........

Looking forward to the Windows update. They seem to be stuck on the Mac beta.

should see a windows update easily before 2021. the mac 64bit beta only took 5 years...

[acYm]

I think you are exaggerating when you say the most digital sound possible. When it came out, reviewers praised it for its analog sound. And while 8 years or so have passed, it surely did not turn into the opposite all of a sudden.

Maybe it's time for a Diva-style Sylenth vs analog hw blind test thread

well it's like I said, digital sound done right sounds very good, it can output any converted analog waveform 1:1. back then was a very different landscape, and nobody at all gave "digital sound" any credit, or not from real-time plugins anyway. like, before sylenth and massive the big soft synth most people knew was z3ta which has very dirty waveforms that sure look analog but it didn't sound as such because it relied on waveshaping without modern oversampling. as such, nowadays some people describe it as being a bit "lo-fi".

LD went for another approach, the cleanest possible waves just like a brand new and freshly tuned modern analog osc - nothing at all like a pro one but still very analog-like in nature. because the basic shape is kept in such good form under filtering, this means less waveform offset and amplitude variation, and therefore a more powerful sound.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[Teksonik]

should see a windows update easily before 2021. the mac 64bit beta only took 5 years...

You're right............

[Teksonik]

Oh and lest we forget DUNE 2 is on sale for $99 now as well. As much as I like Sylenth I'd have to choose D2 over it due to the wider range of sounds. Having both makes perfect sense to me......they do complement each other quite well.........

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[pdxindy]

And is that a good or a bad thing?

well, neither, it's just a part of why sylenth is still seen as a unique or worthwhile synth today. it's just not trendy with plugin makers to go for the most digital sound possible, more like the opposite.

another reason why sylenth would be "still good" is for hardware control integration. in many newer plugins you will simply need the mouse at some point to make your patch and just fiddle with that before you can move on. sylenth is one of the better options when it comes to jam synths.

I think you are exaggerating when you say the most digital sound possible. When it came out, reviewers praised it for its analog sound. And while 8 years or so have passed, it surely did not turn into the opposite all of a sudden.

Maybe it's time for a Diva-style Sylenth vs analog hw blind test thread

hehehehehehehe.... that's a good joke... Sylenth analog? only in the crude sense of it being a subtractive architecture. It's a digital synth through and through (nothing wrong with that). Sylenth's main calling card feature is the supersaw and that is itself a digital creation.

Then it is lacking common analog features like PWM, Osc Sync, Ring Mod, Osc or Filter FM...