What are the best of these synths?

[fmr]

If I were you and broke, I’d not buy anything and root around for the best freeware synths like Surge and Tyrell. Those both sound great and have decent amounts of features to keep you busy. In the meantime, save your pennies for something like Falcon or Omnisphere.

Good advice. I would add to the list Zebralette, OB-Xd, PG-8X and Vital. All of these are absolutely great, IMO, and FREE.

A great synth that many times goes on sale for pennies is Synthmaster.

Oh, and if you "really" want to learn about synthesis, VCV Rack can be your school. Free too.

[k2006]

If 32bit is ok,you can try H.G.Fortune's Altair and Blade free synths for sci-fi ambient sounds.

[Andrew189]

VCV Rack can be your school. Free too.

I don't use it in my works because I find it difficult, but sometimes I like to study Voltage Modular and understand the various modules
Is Vcv Rack better than Voltage Modular?

[fmr]

VCV Rack can be your school. Free too.

I don't use it in my works because I find it difficult, but sometimes I like to study Voltage Modular and understand the various modules
Is Vcv Rack better than Voltage Modular?

It has a lot more modules, and most of them are free. So, given the immense world of possibilities it offers, I'd say it is better. Regarding sound, I guess it depends on the modules themselves, but generally speaking the modules on VCV are of very good quality.

[EdSfer]

Another vote for Vital, you really should try it. It's free, has one of the easiest GUI, with a lot of visual feedback, which is great, especially when you're beginning in synthesis, and it has one of the most complete feature set of the game, free or paid. Go for it!

On a more analog side, TAL Noisemaker is another great choice (totally different beast).

[leeleema]

Fair play to OP for frequent posts . Aye, stay away from Wusik, lots of posts about dodgy developer/ email spam. I'd drill down a bit into what you mean by sound design and end product. Do you mean design your own sounds as a means to make finished tracks i.e not use any samples or sound design as an end in itself? The former will probably be a bit much for a beginner, or indeed anyone and presets/ samples will be pretty much essential or there will simply be too much for one person to do. If the latter, then presets and samples will also be necessary as starting point so you can deconstruct them. Layering may be a key skill you need to develop, in which case Xpand!2 would be useful as it uses up to 4 samples in each preset. Bones' rec of Vacuum Pro is great as it is a very under-rated synth IMO, with excellent presets, layering and hey, is cheap too. Basically, be careful of taking too much on at first and be clear about what you want to achieve. Making all sounds from scratch will make getting to a finished track much more difficult and time consuming

[BONES]

Wusik, dodgy? I don't think so. He is an eccentric man, to be sure, but he knows what he's doing. Many years ago he gave us a copy of WusikStation for free, just because. It's all over our third and fourth albums. We haven't used it for a while now but it's a great tool and would be particularly well suited to soundtrack work.

[Andrew189]

Making all sounds from scratch will make getting to a finished track much more difficult and time consuming

At first I thought I was making sounds from the beginning.
Reading your posts and trying, I realized that it's not a short job .... as you say, I risk investing more time in creating the sound than in composing.
I think I need to reevaluate the presets, or process some pre-existing samples.
I have xPand2 and I will try to layer the sounds: honestly I have always thought of creating confusion by layering sounds and I have never tried.

My goal is to create original sounds to add to my soundtracks.
I give up (for the moment) to create them from the beginning.
But the Synth I am looking for must allow to modify the Presets / Samples in a clear way to suit my use ... and obviously have an acceptable sound.

[leeleema]

Making all sounds from scratch will make getting to a finished track much more difficult and time consuming

At first I thought I was making sounds from the beginning.
Reading your posts and trying, I realized that it's not a short job .... as you say, I risk investing more time in creating the sound than in composing.
I think I need to reevaluate the presets, or process some pre-existing samples.
I have xPand2 and I will try to layer the sounds: honestly I have always thought of creating confusion by layering sounds and I have never tried.

My goal is to create original sounds to add to my soundtracks.
I give up (for the moment) to create them from the beginning.
But the Synth I am looking for must allow to modify the Presets / Samples in a clear way to suit my use ... and obviously have an acceptable sound.

Every synth and sampler will allow you to tweak the sound or sample. That's what they do. I'd get stuck in if I was you, have a play about, read up on what filters, envelopes, oscillators do, etc. You may be over-thinking it all, trying to get the perfect tool, but there is no such thing. However, there are many, many excellent tools and a few have been recommended to you. I'd also narrow down your genres to just one or two, find songs you like and deconstruct them. One other thing is that none of it will be instant, it all takes quite a bit of time

[BONES]

Another low cost synth that you might get a bit of value from is Adam Szabo's JP6K. It's $29 but it does the most beautiful strings and some great pads, as well as having a big bottom end for basslines. It's also really easy to program from scratch and uses very little CPU. I only discovered it recently but it is fast becoming my most used synth.

[kylie]

While you are over at Plugin Boutique, check out Soundspot's Union - https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... ion-Bundle
The bundle is only $7 more than the plugin by itself and for that money you get a brilliant sounding synth. The workflow isn't necessarily the best but the sound is incredible. It is easily my most used synth and it will handle any synth sounds you need. Sometimes you can pick it up for under $10, too.

Thanks a lot, Bones, for reminding me of Soundspot Union. Currently the Santa's All-In Deal is gone at PluginBoutique, but right now you can get all their products 90% off at their own website https://www.soundspot.audio.
For around 13GBP you'll get Union and all 6 expansions. Installing expansions is a bit weird and fully undocumented, but they promised to get back to me on this soon.

Ah, well, and thumbs up for JP6K, too...

[Trensharo]

AIR has practically no documentation for their Synths. They really didn't set themselves up for success, there.

[fmr]

AIR has practically no documentation for their Synths. They really didn't set themselves up for success, there.

You can download a trial, fully-functioning version, that also installs a manual. What else would you need?

[leeleema]

AIR has practically no documentation for their Synths. They really didn't set themselves up for success, there.

Hybrid 3: 74 pages; XPand2!: 19 pages; Vacuum Pro: 22 pages; Loom 2: 25 pages. Is this what you mean?

[fmr]

AIR has practically no documentation for their Synths. They really didn't set themselves up for success, there.

Hybrid 3: 74 pages; XPand2!: 19 pages; Vacuum Pro: 22 pages; Loom 2: 25 pages. Is this what you mean?

Well, I actually didn't read them. I don't know how good or how bad they are, but there is documentation And you can try the fully functioning thing, anyway