Sektor

Sektor is a good little synth with a real edge to it's sound that elevates it beyond it's seemingly humble feature set. It has great workflow and is so intuitive you shouldn't need a manual to get into it. That said, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials to get you started if you need them.

The synth has two wavetable oscillators, as well as a sample oscillator taken from the developer's Heat Up 3 VSTi. It ships with several gigs of content so there are no shortage of either wavetables or sampled content> I'd say there something like 250 wavetables, a similar number of single samples and more than 100 multi-sampled instruments to choose from, which is enough to cover most people's needs several times over, I suspect. It also comes with a ridiculous number of presets. A good browser makes them relatively easy to find. The wavetable oscillators can have up to 16 unison voices with detune and spread. There is a phase parameter, which means phase modulation is possible, and FM is also offered. There is also an OSC+ page in the central screen that allows you to mess with the unison voices in each wavetable oscillator for some slightly DUNE-style complexity.

The two filters are probably the weakest part of the signal path. They aren't terrible but they are nothing special, either. They do the job you need them to and that's about all. They only run in parallel and you can control how much of each wavetable oscillator is fed into each. One good feature is the Drive parameter, which does add character to the sound without being too over the top.

Modulation sources are plentiful - 3 x ADSR envelopes, 3 x multi-segment envelopes and 4 x LFO. Modulation can be assigned using drag 'n' drop and there is a mod matrix for fine control. Modulation also shows up in the controls so you can see how it is affecting parameter values. It's pretty comprehensive.

Elsewhere you get two racks of effects, each with 9 simultaneous effects. I have found them to be quite usable. There is also a fully programmable sequencer/arpeggiator. The UI is very customisable, with several different skins, choice of colours within each and it is also resizable. Sektor also supports MPE, although I've never put that to the test.

The best part of Sektor, though, is the sound. It has it's own, gritty character. It is very in your face and more than a little bit digital sounding most of the time. Normally that would put me off but Sektor manages to do it in a way that's not as harsh as some other synths. With unison and the OSC+ page it can sound absolutely massive, yet CPU use is very low. On my modest Core i5 dual-core CPU, I can play a three note chord with 16 voice unison on both oscillators and the CPU stays under 10%.

Overall, I think it is a very useful synth that anyone would find plenty of work for. I don't think it would be anyone's go-to synth but it has something a bit different to offer that makes it easy enough to justify owning. At full price it is OK value but it is often on sale and at sale prices it's a no-brainer. The developer is also quite responsive to user's needs and it gets updated fairly regularly with the most requested fixes/features.