Synth advice

jiltloop

Hey guys, I'm basically looking for some advice on synths. I currently (and for the last number of years) make electronic music in Reason (Reason 3 at the moment) but I find I have exhausted all my creativity with the Subtractor and Maelstrom synths. I've used them so much that I'm nearly sick of the sound of them now. I've more recently started using Reaper along with Reason and have been using various free VST synths but I looking into buying a commercial VST synth. I was thinking along the lines of Absynth because I'm looking for lush pads and soundscapes but not eclusively those kinds of sounds. My other option was upgrading to Reason 4 and seeing what the new Thor synth is like. Has anyone used the Thor synth and can they tell me what it's capable of and how it sounds? And any other advice about Absynth or other suggestions are welcome.
Thanks!

Neurojazz

Omnisphere - worth a look - huge pads, organic sounds - lots hidden within it.

and

Sylenth - for stock leads/basses/acidic weirdness

jiltloop

I've heard of omnisphere alright but I'm a bit confused about what exactly it is. Is it a fully functioning synth or is it a sampler that comes with a huge bank of sounds?

Neurojazz

It's both, sampler and synth.... also works as a wavetable synth - meaning that there are also masses of old synths tucked away in there that they've sampled.

It's very huge.

jiltloop

Just had a look at omnisphere on their site, looks interesting but it's out of my price range at the moment. Sylenth looks interesting aswell, just downloaded a demo I'll give it a go later.

seannash

minimonsta,imposcar,predator(alot of people will disagree).those are the 3 i use most as well as the logic synths.
arturia have good synths.

Neurojazz

Arturia jv8 is a nice analog emulation, cpu heavy though. Sylenth is very, very low cpu usage and sounds very sweet. Jv8 is very sweet sounding also... I have both here and don't use the JV8 anymore since sylenth turned up

Omnisphere - my install is up to about 60gig now - *large*.

Ah, also, have reason 4 - thor is ok, but still has that reason sound about it - they've really messed up the workflow in reason and tried to take it too far really... get a demo of that before even going near it... i've gone out of reason 100% now and into a different daw.

DamagedTrax

hang on for the new fxpansion d-cam synths. the sound is unreal. ill be buying as soon as they're released.



http://www.synthsquad.com/

Neurojazz

Sounds exactly the same as sylenth... oops, did i forget to mention that sylenth can run 32 voices at the same time with little limit in notes (so stack a few thousand if your'e mad enough)

For 'old analogs' - check the 303 and 101 ripoffs that sylenth does... it really is a handy TOOL.

pads/leads/basses all of it.

The products they are offering there are nothing new, nothing special - bar the fact that they are 'bigging it up' - unless they are 20 quid each, then maybe worth it.

I've got ****lots of vst here, wasted too much money on same - Sylenth is never not used. If you want my jv8, your'e welcome to it

DamagedTrax

Neurojazz wrote: »

Sounds exactly the same as sylenth... oops, did i forget to mention that sylenth can run 32 voices at the same time with little limit in notes (so stack a few thousand if your'e mad enough)

maybe the VA but definitly not the others!! and the option to combine them all into 1 synth is outstanding.

but sylenth is pretty bloody good sounding. shame everytime i open the UI i fell like puking. ugly ugly ugly (not that that matters though but still :pac:)

jiltloop

Cheers for the advice guys, haven't been on the net for a few todays to reply. I think its a toss up between sylenth and the d.cam synths. But I have to say I'm dissappointed to hear that the Thor has that Reason sound, I think I might ended up veering away from Reason altogether soon.

P.s any idea how much the d.cam synths are gonna cost and when they are due to be released?

Burst yeh!

I have to disagree I believe the THOR on Reason 4 has some great qualitys! as far as initialising your own patch its pretty sweet!! I have gotten ****ed up heavy analog sounds 303 style and even Aphex Twin patches worked out with Thor. Check out a few tutorials online first as there is a lot to take in. It has great analog oscillator options as well as a sequencer , 3 filters , 32 voice polyphony, shaper, delay and chorus AND you can patch in a drum loop from dr.Rex and **** around with the automation. Not only but you could even assign the LFO from the subtractor to the filter envelope and get some great sounds!!! As far as it goes with it sounding reason like, I think Thor and the NN-XT advanced sampler have great sounds and dont sound reason like. Also try soundforge since it is better for chopping up samples and then exporting them to reason.

Neurojazz

Having both cubase and reason, and also using reason since it's release both live and in the studio i can safely say that Reason doesn't keep up with the audio engine and quality attainable in cubase. The separation in sounds is great etc... rewire just made porting and working with reason a nightmare.

It's a great 'portable' notepad, but A/B against some decent vinyl live and it walks away whimpering sadly

chronic1

z3ta is unbalievable. brilliant for ambience and atmos and even better for really fat leads. its a beast, its has 8 osc.

BumbleB

chronic1 wrote: »

z3ta is unbalievable. brilliant for ambience and atmos and even better for really fat leads. its a beast, its has 8 osc.

your man is dead right the cakewalk z3ta is stunning ,superior sound.

jiltloop

So many options, just downloading a demo of z3ta now, I notice its only $99 aswell which is a good price. Cheers for all the advice.