KVR Audio

bugs · Post by **bugs** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:57 pm

mellotronaut wrote:XPhraze

every two months (or 1 1/9 months), when i need something special in a track, i browse and browse all these nice vstis ... and finally: it's always XPhraze and one my weird blubblegluemms, i use.

melloX

wish I could find a copy.

S-N-S · Post by **S-N-S** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:03 pm

1-2-Many wrote:
The Chase wrote:. . . And +1 for Voyager. The GUI is a headache but it's great sounding and very usable....

Have you tried the asseca skin version? Much improved IMO

where is that version??

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:24 pm

bugs wrote:
mellotronaut wrote:XPhraze

every two months (or 1 1/9 months), when i need something special in a track, i browse and browse all these nice vstis ... and finally: it's always XPhraze and one my weird blubblegluemms, i use.

melloX
wish I could find a copy.

http://cgi.ebay.de/Steinberg-Xphraze-1- ... 240%3A1318

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Xphraze-Steinberg ... 240%3A1318

m

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:40 pm

olepro wrote:
Yagushi wrote:
Sonic Boom Samples wrote:The Ensoniq Esq-1 is the most underated synth in the world
And luckily there is (more or less) an emulation...
http://www.buchty.net/ensoniq/#sq8l
And the best emulation of hardware that was ever made, by the way.

considering its digital and the original ROM waveforms are freely available, its no suprise.

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:50 pm

Not all synth's but you should get my drift......

Kawai K4R - great S&S rack synth with AM and super gnarly digital resonant low pass filgter. (Does pretty good Juno emu's also to be honest).

Kawai XD5 - quite possible the best drum synthesis rack module I have ever messed around with and capable of some truly unique results.

Kawai K5000S - the best Additive synth in hardware I've ever used.

Alesis Fusion 8HD - FM, VA, PM, Sampling with (FM modulation of Samples), stupidly huge amounts of polyphony and freely assignable mod matrix too boot.
Sounds rather superb once you program it yourself and is the centre of my studio.

Concrete FX Kubik - way underated in this day and age of Massive, Zebra, Alchemy, Absynth and the like (ok so I did the ambient textures soundbank) and I have a swag more patches I'm loathe to share because they sound very unique IMHO. Beautiful synth and a sound designers work of art.

Yamaha RS7000 - as far as hardware sampling (phrase & drum) slicing and general sequencing duties this thing is the shit !!!! Multiple phrases at multiple lengths with multiple time signatures + clock divisors all at the same time and a killer XOX, Step, Realtime seq mode to boot. Can churn out stuff nothing else I use can and is a programmers delight once you get past the Yamaha SPEAK.

REASON 4 - greater than the some of it's parts and worth it for the REV7000, MClass processing Units, Maelstrom and Thor alone.

U&I Software's METASYNTH - deep, deep, deep...... as in holy shit I fell down the rabbit hole.It's always good to have a whole new working paradigm when composing - way underated in general IMHO.

Dash Signature - DA HORNET - still has a certain something that floats my boat to this day (hard to define in words but it always adds something to the mix).

Ugo's MOTION - ditto ....much overlooked but much loved this side of the pond for what it brings to the table everytime I use it.

Technics WSA-1 - seriously you just have to own this and learn to program it well to love it. Not a synth for everyone but it sounds superb, is rather unique in it's approach to Physical Modelling, makes killer Pads, sweeps, drones, bizarre percussion, noises, fx and has a swag of alternate key tunings and fractioned ratio's of each per oscillator in a patch. Way underated piece of hardware and then some. Pity it never sold well as development in this area could have resulted in a rather unique custom sampling keyboard somewhere down the track methinks.

warp x · Post by **warp x** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:13 pm

Modelonia. Simply amazing, and quite unlike any other synth I've tried.
Automat. Easily the best freeware synth for the mac IMHO.
Metasynth. Just incredible. Nothing comes even close. Sooo much more than just a synth.

olepro · Post by **olepro** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:23 pm

Kriminal wrote:
olepro wrote:
Yagushi wrote:
Sonic Boom Samples wrote:The Ensoniq Esq-1 is the most underated synth in the world
And luckily there is (more or less) an emulation...
http://www.buchty.net/ensoniq/#sq8l
And the best emulation of hardware that was ever made, by the way.
considering its digital and the original ROM waveforms are freely available, its no suprise.

This answer tells me that you don't know anything about what you are talking about and that you have never used the ESQ1 at least for any serious sound programming.
And not surprised this should come from you

Lunatique · Post by **Lunatique** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:27 pm

I always felt that people were too harsh when it comes criticizing the Waldorf A1. For a free synth included in a sequencer during that time period, it really wasn't that bad.

Smartelectronix GalactiX is one of the easiest synths to program, even for people who don't know a damn about synthesis. I'm surprised it's not recommended more to synth beginners (though the unconventional structure may have something to do with it).

The Roland Groove Synth in Sonar is actually quite good for what it does (essentially a sound module).

Krakatau · Post by **Krakatau** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:40 pm

I think, if you allow me, that there is an overall underestimation related to musical or composition styles that aren't commercially considered

For instance, i'm sincerely persuaded that drone effects (like in Oli Larkin's dronebox, but its not the only case) are much, much underrated just because of this...

honestly...

bugs · Post by **bugs** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:42 pm

mellotronaut wrote:
bugs wrote:
mellotronaut wrote:XPhraze

every two months (or 1 1/9 months), when i need something special in a track, i browse and browse all these nice vstis ... and finally: it's always XPhraze and one my weird blubblegluemms, i use.

melloX
wish I could find a copy.
http://cgi.ebay.de/Steinberg-Xphraze-1- ... 240%3A1318

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Xphraze-Steinberg ... 240%3A1318

m

Thanks!

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:47 pm

olepro wrote: This answer tells me that you don't know anything about what you are talking about and that you have never used the ESQ1 at least for any serious sound programming.

amazing how wrong you can be, isnt it boy.

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:25 pm

cryophonik wrote:Albino and Predator are subtractive synths (w/rudimentary FM capabilities), whereas Blue is a FM-hybrid synth that also does subtractive, waveshaping, etc. synthesis. It's got 6 oscillators and one of the nicest, most intuitive layouts I've used in a soft synth.

Ready for a good laugh? I'll add that another underappreciated "synth" is Nexus. I only say that because all the Nexus haters always want to perpetuate the same tired old myths: Nexus is a preset machine, you can't alter the sounds, you'll sound EXACTLY like everybody else, etc. That's a bunch of BS derived from people with no creativity, little understanding of synthesis, and/or who haven't actually used Nexus (or bothered to look at the interface). Don't get me wrong - I'm NOT saying that Nexus is an incredibly deep synth - all I'm saying is that its synthesis capabilities are unnoticed or imcomprehensible to many, so for that reason, I consider it to be an underestimated "synth." And, you CAN very easily alter the presets very dramatically and beyond the point of recognition using only Nexus' onboard parameters.

Lastly, if we're also considering hardware, I'd say the Dave Smith Mono Evolver is an underestimated synth.

You chose three of the synths I think are OVERestimated

. And my candidate for the most underestimated synth is... Zebra2.

ew · Post by ew » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:40 pm

FaX wrote:Kawai K4R - great S&S rack synth with AM and super gnarly digital resonant low pass filgter. (Does pretty good Juno emu's also to be honest).

A great example of what works for you may not work for others.

I really tried to like the K4R, but I found it fairly meh at the end of the day. The K1 with its 8 bit waves and no filters had a lot more personality to my ears than the K4 with its 16 bit waves and digital filters. In the K4's defense, the filters were really good for digital filters of that era, and the additional outputs with the R model made it useful in a lot of situations.

I've got a K4R in one of my racks; I don't think I've turned it on in five years

ew

chris_b · Post by **chris_b** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:00 pm

FaX wrote:Technics WSA-1 - seriously you just have to own this and learn to program it well to love it. Not a synth for everyone but it sounds superb, is rather unique in it's approach to Physical Modelling, makes killer Pads, sweeps, drones, bizarre percussion, noises, fx and has a swag of alternate key tunings and fractioned ratio's of each per oscillator in a patch. Way underated piece of hardware and then some. Pity it never sold well as development in this area could have resulted in a rather unique custom sampling keyboard somewhere down the track methinks.

A shame that the uninspiring factory presets didn't come close to showcasing the possibilites of the synthesis engine...compared to Roland's JV/XP synths it sounded pretty thin and over-priced at the time.

I picked one up recently - I've not explored programming it much yet, but it makes an awesome controller keyboard due to its numerous wheels and balls.

jobromedia · Post by **jobromedia** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:23 pm

dreaddd wrote:every vst very creative but, god forbid us, built with the evil Synthedit

No you're wrong. Allmost everything built with SynthEdit / SynthMaker nowdays are underestimated because of the tag "Made with SynthEdit / SynthMaker". If that tag was omitted then these plugins would get more of a serious chance that they truly deserve. If you ask me I'm not gonna bother a millisecond of my time with a C++ compiler that generate stuff that doesn't work when on the contrary SE / SM gives me stuff that works straight out of the box and tweakable as I program it the way I want it to be. No tag is ever gonna change that fact.

The most underestimated synths...