Top 20 Most Popular VSTs for Dance Music Production

electrogrimey

The other night, partly in the interest of research, partly in the interest of procrastinating from doing an essay, I went through a load of threads of different forums, including this one, and found the most popular VSTs people were using. It was mainly from threads like the 'your top 3 VSTs' on this forum, as there are very similar threads on other forums.

I've done the overall top 20, the top 10 soft synths, and the top 10 effects.

If anyone's interested, the results are here.

Anima

Good idea, fair play.

No surprises really from the lists I think. They are the VSTs you hear about the most but I don't think each one is the best in its category. For instance NI Massive is often talked about with DnB and Dubstep people, especially beginners.

Not sayings its a bad VST but I'm just saying your results might be skewed by people just passing on what they're told.

Here is a site for audio plugin info and news. They have a ranking system (what I linked) for plugins by popularity and sound quality etc. It's not perfect either but it's decent. The forums there are quite good as well.

electrogrimey

Yeah, for that reason I didn't call it the 'Top 20 Best VSTs', simply the ones it seems most people are using. It's normally fair enough to say that something everyone who knows what they're talking about is using is a safe bet to get.

It'd be near impossible to do a Best 20 VSTs poll, that'd probably take having thousands of people test hundreds of VSTs and rate them or something.

I was surprised with how well the Komplete synths did though, cleaned up.

jtsuited

probably should point out here that that list consists pretty much entirely of the ones that were posted most regularly on magesy when it existed.

the most easily pirated plugins tend to have the most internet forum kudos in my experience. And the ones with the 'best' presets.

splitrmx

jtsuited wrote: »

the most easily pirated plugins tend to have the most internet forum kudos in my experience. And the ones with the 'best' presets.

I can understand Native Instruments being high up as they do make quality products. I've been using Reaktor legally since version 2 (1999, before Reaktor it used to be called Generator) and have kept upgrading to 5.5, for insane digital audio manipulation Reaktor is still one of the go-to tools. NI definitely deserve to be name checked in this list due to quality of their products, and not just because lots of people download their stuff for free.

(I own Traktor Scratch Pro too and it's great. PS I don't work for NI. )

Anima

Yeah, for that reason I didn't call it the 'Top 20 Best VSTs', simply the ones it seems most people are using.

Yeah sorry just spotted that.

on magesy when it existed.

Its still around Different domain ending though.

decko69

what about the spectrasonics synths , no mention of these monsters , i think they are great , best soft synths out there

johnnyjo

have to agree with decko69 on spectrasonics stuff.. omnisphere is so much more than a spacey pad thing.. the sampled raw waveforms are amazing along with the synthesis engine! awesome.. and of the groovelock feature is really cool...

decko69

and trilian , better not forget that , all the spectrasonics vsti's are excelent Stulus RMX isthe best drum synth out there , the chaos section is great for mangeling up sounds and then just export it as a midi file , cool or what , does anyone know of anyother drum synth that has this function ? , i love this makesthe hair stand on the back of my neck lol

johnnyjo

my bad.. although i havent used it.. but if its as flexible as omnisphere its a winner. i seen some vids of it though very nice bass sounds out of trillian..

Stab*City

Anima wrote: »

Yeah sorry just spotted that.



Its still around Different domain ending though.

Whats the domain now?

hubiedubie

+1 on the 2 Spectrasonics synths Omnisphere and Trilian. They are beasts, but more importantly incredibly useful. Use them all the time, for bread and butter and for a little more esoteric stuff. I don't get on as well with Stylus RMX but the chaos designer is pretty cool.

hubiedubie

If we're talking synths I've found the following all to be top notch excellent (in no particular order):
1. Spectrasonics Omnisphere - the daddy -bog standard and esoteric weirdness all rolled into one.
2. Spectrasonics Trilian (the library is fantastic lot's of boutique synths from the likes of Cwejman, Metasonix, DSI etc). Very easy to get a good sound. STEAM engine makes it much more than just a rompler. Not just for basses.
3. FXPansion SynthSquad: Three different synths, fantastic analog modelling - sounds very alive.
4. Waldorf Largo: Very flexible - VA, Wavetables etc pure digital filth.
5. U-He ACE: Great alternative if you dont want to shell out for Synth Squad - very analog like sound.

hubiedubie

Add Lennardigital Sylenth to the list above also

hubiedubie

The Xils lab synths are meant to be excellent too but I haven't heard them.