Best VST alternative to a Workstation synth?

[IncarnateX]

low cpu... the Korg stuff... M1 and Wavestation

Exactly! Korg M1 VSTi. The mother of Workstations. A no brainer IMO.

And whether it is outdated is up to the user. Plenty of programming options to take it's sounds into this century.

[EnGee]

Xpand2 is a great choice. If you want, you can add to it Arturia Analog Lab which has 5820 presets. I think it will be very useful for you:
https://www.arturia.com/products/analog ... /analoglab

I have all the Collection, so all the presets are fully editable in its original instrument, but there is still some editing. There is a demo you can try as well and the price is right IMO at $89.

Ah, intresting, that was another question of me, does Arturia Lab import other vst's?

Not exactly! It is a VSTi/Standalone Rompler that has many presets, but the presets can be edited fully if you have the specific instruments the presets belong to.

For example, there is a preset that belongs to Prophet V, if I click the "Edit" icon on the right and I have also Prophet V, the specific instrument open and I can edit the preset in its instrument. Otherwise, if I don't have Prophet V, I only can edit with what Analog Lab provides me from parameters (limited parameters like Xpand2).

[JonSolo]

Easy, cheap, good on CPU-
Air Music XPand2
Korg M1 (standalone)
reFX Nexus2 (you can choose in what direction to build this with the sound addons)

More expensive, more demanding, sounds better-
Steinberg Halion Sonic 2 (standalone)
NI Kontakt (uses up RAM, highly flexible, can get expensive adding libraries) (standalone)
IK Multimedia Sampletank 3 (some sounds are dated but it is quite a complete variety of sounds) (standalone)

Alternatively for $30 a month you could get a subscription to EWQL Creative Cloud service which gives you TONS of libraries including their all in one Goliath (or it can be had for $299). Some people have a love/hate relationship with the PLAY software however.

My personal vote would be to go for the Absolute VST Collection by Steinberg which covers all of the bases of the Kronos and is a great bang for the buck, or Komplete 10 which does the same thing but gives you access to the world with Kontakt.

[fmr]

Easy, cheap, good on CPU-
Air Music XPand2
Korg M1 (standalone)
reFX Nexus2 (you can choose in what direction to build this with the sound addons)

More expensive, more demanding, sounds better-
Steinberg Halion Sonic 2 (standalone)
NI Kontakt (uses up RAM, highly flexible, can get expensive adding libraries) (standalone)
IK Multimedia Sampletank 3 (some sounds are dated but it is quite a complete variety of sounds) (standalone)

Alternatively for $30 a month you could get a subscription to EWQL Creative Cloud service which gives you TONS of libraries including their all in one Goliath (or it can be had for $299). Some people have a love/hate relationship with the PLAY software however.

My personal vote would be to go for the Absolute VST Collection by Steinberg which covers all of the bases of the Kronos and is a great bang for the buck, or Komplete 10 which does the same thing but gives you access to the world with Kontakt.

I would agree with almost everything, except that i would add Falcon to the second group.

[fluffy_little_something]

+1 for Xpand!2
It´s my daily workhorse. Full and warm sound (a bit like Roland JV imho).
And it has a relative small memory footprint - so you have instant program changes! This is very important for me.
I don´t want to load (and wait for) 40GB librarys just for a nice layered workstation sound.

Calliope from sonic cat is also a very good sounding (and affordable) multilayer rompler workhorse.
It´s a Kontakt instrument, but it can be used with the free Kontakt player.

And.... of course..... the one and only..... the original..... A MUST HAVE (for oldschool keyboarders like me).....
Korg M1 legacy VST. The best rompler ever - period!

The xpand, which I have never heard of before, seems to sound better than the M1, I mean, at least in terms of instruments. It seems less complex than the M1, which is good because it makes it easier to use, which also shows in the user interface. Even better is the browser with clear categories .

How are standard instruments compared to the M1? Acoustic pianos, strings, brass, etc.?

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Since SampleTank 3 has been mentioned a few times here, I just wanted to post the tutorial-style video we did for the Live page which seems pertinent to OP's needs:

[cyphersuit]

I replaced my Korg M3 with Nexus.

Nexus has all the sounds nowadays and then some. And while Arturia is bugridden, Nexus loads super fast, uses little cpu and is absolutely stable.

[fluffy_little_something]

I just noticed on their site that AIR have another workstation-type plugin, the Structure 2, which seems to be xpand2's big brother.

[aMUSEd]

It's just a sampler, more like Kontakt than XPand

[T-CM11]

Not exactly! It is a VSTi/Standalone Rompler that has many presets, but the presets can be edited fully if you have the specific instruments the presets belong to.

Analog Lab is not a rompler, it uses the synth engines of the Arturia plugins - and not fixed samples (=rompler).
It's a preset plugin with limited editability.
A rompler is like a sampler, without the possibility of user samples. A workstation is any kind of synth (but usually they're romplers) with an added sequencer. So any kind of VST synth is an alternative to a workstation synth.
The OP asked for a VST alternative for the Korg Kronos -> The closest would be: Korg Legacy Collection + an FM synth, like FM8, Blue 2, Sytrus, Dexed, etc... in a DAW.

[aMUSEd]

The OP asked for a VST alternative for the Korg Kronos -> The closest would be: Korg Legacy Collection + an FM synth, like FM8, Blue 2, Sytrus, Dexed, etc... in a DAW.

hmm I think the OP has changed a bit, I don't remember Kronos being mentioned before, more classic Roland/Korg romplers. Kronos is something else really.

[T-CM11]

I don't remember Kronos being mentioned before, more classic Roland/Korg romplers. Kronos is something else really.

Hi guys,

I'm on vst's for some time now but still looking for a good alternative to a synth ROMpler f.e. a Korg Kronos workstation or so. Is there any plugin that comes close to a synth that has nice multi layered presets as we find in Korg or Roland or other???

This all aimed for live use. Quick loading, low cpu.

Anyway, for a rompler I'd recommend the M1/Wavestation or Halion Sonic. The M1 being the one with the most limited synth engine. Or Omnisphere, if you don't care about the more 'traditional instruments' presets.

[aMUSEd]

I don't remember Kronos being mentioned before, more classic Roland/Korg romplers. Kronos is something else really.

Hi guys,

I'm on vst's for some time now but still looking for a good alternative to a synth ROMpler f.e. a Korg Kronos workstation or so. Is there any plugin that comes close to a synth that has nice multi layered presets as we find in Korg or Roland or other???

This all aimed for live use. Quick loading, low cpu.

Anyway, for a rompler I'd recommend the M1/Wavestation or Halion Sonic. The M1 being the one with the most limited synth engine. Or Omnisphere, if you don't care about the more 'traditional instruments' presets.

Last edited by godly on Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:14 am, edited 2 times in total.

[T-CM11]

Well, I replied today, so...

[T-CM11]

And this:

This all aimed for live use.

For live use, a JV1080 (cheap) or Integra7 (less cheap) seems the better option to me.