Sylenth1 Awesome Alternatives?

[recursive one]

In for sharing my valuable opinion on some synths pointed here as Sylenth alternatives.

ANA. I have both Sylenth and ANA and they sound quite different even on similarly designed patches. Ana is brighter and thinner, i would call it more modern sounding. Sylenth is darker and has more weight in sound. I like ANA for electro-dubsteppy wobley stuff and prefer Sylenth for supersaws, plucks, huge pads and 303ish sounds. BTW, ana has much more osc waveforms than Sylenth hence sonic pallette is potentially wider.

DUNE. Only demoed it. It also sounds different than Sylenth, more mellow. It somehow lacks Sylenth's bite. DUNE seems to be pretty well suited for chilling/ambient productions but not so much for trance or other EDM styles.

Saurus. Demoed it yesterday and was very impressed. Like Sylenth it has very strong, alive and pleasing sound, but with different vibe. It seems to be very limited synth, just plain subtractive architecture, but on the other hand very easy to program, and any knob movement makes some pleasing result (also demoed their Electrax and strangelly did not love the sound. There are some similar factory patches in both synths, and comparing them side by side I always felt that ElecraX lacks something improtant, that Saurus has and proudly shows)

Z3ta+ Very old synth (2003 or so), recently reissued. Before Sylenth it was a staple for ITB transe producers. Sounds kinda lo-fi, but that may be called "character". It can make some very lovely transey sounds but is tricky to program.

LUSH-101, Diversion. Both sound amazing but barely usable with such CPU load.

Never liked any of Rob Papen synths.

Having thus said, if you vant THAT Sylenth sound (which is really that good)just by Sylenth. No other synth can 100% replace it. The development actually seems to be stopped but the product itself is mature and well supported and updated at least on Windows (Mac guys seem to be not that lucky)

[juffi]

The gem with sylenth1 is when you fiddle with the sound and patches and its amazing filter and unison possibility. When i did some demos with sylenth1, i sold my virus c xl via ebay. I think there a lot of competitors to sylenth1 like Dune, Zeta2, Ana, Zebra2, Synth Squad, Harmor, Korg Legacy Collection ... but none of them where so fascinating with the sound like sylenth1 does for me. So actually i dont need an update, maybe gui update would be a nice to have. Its running stable and its feature packed, sound is excellent and one of my powerhorses.

[4damind]

Sylenth has his usage but we have today a lot more (and often better) options.

[pdxindy]

I've never purchased Sylenth. There are some particular sounds it does which are just gorgeous. But then in other areas I'm not taken with its sound and it is not very versatile. Sylenth is rather feature limited.

If you really just like Sylenth in all aspects and it will satisfy your needs, get it...

[djanthonyw]

z3ta+2 was cool, but NOT in Logic; serious issues, which cakewalk is NOT fixing. otherwise, really like it

What issues? Did you try the latest update? I'm running Logic and there are no issues for me.

[Examigan]

I've never purchased Sylenth. There are some particular sounds it does which are just gorgeous. But then in other areas I'm not taken with its sound and it is not very versatile. Sylenth is rather feature limited.

If you really just like Sylenth in all aspects and it will satisfy your needs, get it...

I used to own Sylenth1, but after a while just felt it was a bit too limited. It does have a nice sound though.

I tried out the demo of Dune, and I kind of like it, but it just doesn't give me a wow-factor to get me to go and actually buy the full version.
I do have the Dune BE and CM versions though.

Throw some effects on it like Warmverb (just got that one) and/or DiversionFX CM and it can sound great for the price of a CM magazine.

[ariston]

Ime nothing sounds really like Sylenth.

I second this. I sold it a while ago and have regretted it now and then... especially when I listen to some old tracks of mine and think "oh, that was Sylenth right there... hmmmm."

Just for a lark, I tried to duplicate a simple pluck sound with a number of my other synths, and I couldn't get it right. I'm talking about a run-of-the-mill pluck here - not really synth rocket science. No go. That Sylenth pluck had a certain depth, a fine abrasiveness to it that sounded soooo nice.

Now, the difference may not be huge, but it's there. Whether that matters to you is your decision. Your audience won't care, so really any of the ones mentioned in this thread will serve you well.

[PlasticSoul]

Synthmaster.

[Examigan]

Synthmaster.

For EDM, there are tons of great presets made by Rob Lee available for Synthmaster. Also Insigna/Umit Uy has some really nice presets as well.

For classic/prog synth sounds, Nori Ubukata's presets are awesome.

[fisherKing]

z3ta+2 was cool, but NOT in Logic; serious issues, which cakewalk is NOT fixing. otherwise, really like it

What issues? Did you try the latest update? I'm running Logic and there are no issues for me.

i had issues with arps not staying in sync, and with PLAYED PARTS not staying in sync... anyway, jumped thru a lot of hoops to get a refund...after helping their tech support peeps troubleshoot, and then having them abandon me..

glad it's working for you!

[Edmsoundware]

It's weird that noone metioned Toxic biohazard - in my opinion and i now what i'm writing this synth can reproduce patches from sylenth or saying in other worlds it sound almost the same(95 proc),unison included. Dune z3+ and synthmaster sounds different, i dont own ana so I cannot say nothing. Zebra also sounds different.

[Sendy]

ANA's basic tone and filters are very nice, but am I the only one who's noticed how much that thing aliases? It's like it's a time traveller from 2002 or something We're not talking about "if you enable distortion and play a C in octave 10 with vibrato some bats might be able to hear mirror tones", it aliases across the whole range of registers. It still manages to be a good synth for what it does (I like the filters and distortion especially) but still... an oversampling feature might be nice?

[ferez21]

DUNE. Only demoed it. It also sounds different than Sylenth, more mellow. It somehow lacks Sylenth's bite. DUNE seems to be pretty well suited for chilling/ambient productions but not so much for trance or other EDM styles.

I'll have to disagree. As a matter of fact, i think that Dune is actually EDM oriented - it's main feature is the differential unison engine which can create some astounding supersaw leads\plucks, which we all know are best suited and widely used in electronic music. Although i "only" have the Dune BE edition (free from Beat magazine), it is my go to synth and the first to load to any new production (i'm producing dance\house music).

I agree that Sylenth1 has its certain bite and timbre that defines it, but i don't really think that it makes it more suitable then Dune regarding electronic music.

[4damind]

ANA's basic tone and filters are very nice, but am I the only one who's noticed how much that thing aliases?

Have you tried a different waveform like the PSaw?

[Edmsoundware]

Hey guys i do think that both sylenth/toxic and dune fits to trance like virus fits. They sounds a bit different but ther'e perfect fot trance.