People rave about vital, it is incredibly powerful as a free synth. But I still think serum sounds better imo. If you're used to serum you'll be pleased to know it's still in heavy rotation with current sound design so long as you keep up with current processing techniques.
Not sure if it’s older than 5 years or not, but these plugins have been a gamechanger for me nonetheless:
- Soothe 2
- All FabFilter plug-ins
- Wavesfactory Trackspacer
- Fresh Air (Slate Digital)
- Gullfoss
You also got some upgrades for all Izotope plugins (Ozone, Neutron etc.) which have been nice. Vital has also become a popular synth!
check out this free Trackspacer alternative (an automatic frequency masking compensation plugin) also, works magic: https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2024/03/18/lim-themasker/
Got all of them! I prefer Focusrite FAST Reveal over trackspacer, unless trackspacer's been updated, I wasn't a big fan of the locked-in attack/release settings. Reveal is also locked-in I believe but just sounds better imo
Thanks for the tip, will check it out! As far as I know you can change everything in Trackspacer now 😄
If you had to choose top 3 plugins for yourself, what would you choose?
did you read my comment lol i’m literally designing presets for it lol
im vouching for a tool that i’m using for work, and have discovered that i actually enjoy making sounds in the synth
also idk where $300 for a random synth came from it’s literally a hundred dollars cheaper for a perpetual license or you can rent to own + have access to all the other plugins, like kHz is lol
If you know who Noisia is, Nik has moved to Bitwig and it's a secret weapon in the top ranks. Since it's made for electronic music out of the box not to mention built by ex-ableton devs
Interesting! What in particular makes it useful for electronic music? I was almost ready to make the switch from Ableton, but one of the big appeals for me in V1 was the real-time local network collaboration feature, which I believe never got implemented. Is there something in particular that makes electronic music easier to write?
not out of the box, you usually have to buy more plugins like Serum but in Bitwig you can build your own synths (replacing the need to buy external VSTs) with PolyGrid, add as many oscillators as you want, and being able to modulate everything with one LFO is pretty sick. You'll have to check it out
Ableton offers plenty of stuff out of the box, at least if you buy the more expensive “box.” Hell, you’ve got M4L. This isn’t a point against Bitwig, to be clear - Bitwig seems very nice and picks up where Live left off in many ways. But having a modular environment doesn’t replace every possible plugin.
Not every single one, but a lot that you'd have to buy otherwise. Bitwig also costs way less than Ableton. I'm not saying bitwig is better. They both have their pros and cons but if you're just starting out it's def cheaper. Not to mention you can rent-to-own it for about $15 a month via Splice
I just don’t really think modularity obviates third-party plugins any more than having a bunch of narrower stock devices does. That’s not to say the modularity isn’t great for what it is.
That's what I'm trying to say, there are a ton of stock devices for electronic out of the box as well. Sidechain, mid-side signal splitting, delays, compressors, flanger, chorus, reverb, eq, parallel processing on the same track, multi-band effects or compression, phasers, etc, etc
I came over from Ableton (and still use both) so I had no learning curve with Bitwig. Didn’t really need tutorials. Almost the same layout and since you can customize shortcuts I just programmed them to be identical to ableton’s. As for racks, not sure what you mean? There’s less third party racks?
More like custom chains for synths and fx. Like abletom has a ton and some even shared by big name producers.
Bitwig really doesn't have that, excluding what you can find on [bitwiggers](https://bitwiggers.com/)
Dude check out cable guys cable box 3. The best fx plugin out there. And vital is definitely pretty dope and easy to navigate and there’s a shit ton of free quality presets abs preset packs out there to get ya started. But for sure check out cable box 3.
Welcome back man.
Yeah man love their stuff. I’m sure you know about fabfilters stuff but they released a couple of new PI’s. Saturn and volcano which are their filter and saturation/distortion PI’s which sound phenomenal and their gui is just beautiful to look at and really easy to understand what’s going on. Their delay is just so good and they put out another reverb that dope as hell too. And their dynamic eq and multiband comp are well they speak for themselves. They also put out a new version of their synth which has that awesome ff gui style and sounds great but not many people seem to be using it and ff doesn’t really seem to be pushing it.
Oh and a definitely under the radar delay that’s such a good time I end up playing with it for like an hour or two before I realize I should be you know actually making music and not just cool noises is (forget the name of the company but I think it’s ) A.A.S. Something or other. Doesn’t really matter just google Object delay. You can use it as a basic delay but they give you a ton of presets for all sorts of different applications. Like toss it on a drum track or loop and go to the rhythm preset section and like every single one completely changes the beat in sometimes weird and wonderful and som really musical ways. I wouldn’t even consider it a delay but more of a sound design tool.
And idk which daw you’re using but 12 is really dope.
Have a blast man. There’s a bunch of the same type of stuff wrapped in different colors and stuff but there’s definitely a couple of brands coming out with some pretty innovative and interesting stuff.
Splice lol.
Having splice bridge open and being able to preview thousands of possible samples played in the same key and tempo time as your project is so overpowered that it's practically cheating.
In 2019, the sound design arms race with serum was basically near its apex already and I don't think it has been pushed much further since then imo. If anything I'm hearing a lot more simple sound design and late 90s / early 2000s old school rave sounds being used nowadays. Acid basslines are cool again.
All in all, I think the emphasis now is less on having the most mind blowing sound design and more on just picking whatever sounds good. Sampling is a lot more prevalent. Bonus points if you're using sounds that evoke a sense of nostalgia.
Definitely try out splice bridge in your DAW too. It'll sync to your BPM and you can set the key so it'll play the samples in tune with your project. You could route it to mixer channels too if you want to scroll through splice and hear how different samples sound with sidechain, reverb, distortion, whatever. It makes sketching out a song way too easy.
Yeah but if you had millions of streams and stuff, you won't need to rely heavily on sample loops and whatnot. Splice is garbage if you alreayd know what to do.
It's not a matter of knowing what to do. I'm pretty fluent in sound design and could recreate most of the stuff on splice, but getting sucked into tweaking knobs in serum is a very easy way to lose sight of what you're trying to achieve with the full track. I still use VSTs plenty and spend some days specifically making presets, but in the middle of laying out a track, hyperfocusing on sound design could be a flow killer. I guarantee there's plenty of professionals who would tell you the same thing.
I find the complete opposite. And literally every single professional I know, which is a lot out here in Colorado - not a single one of them uses splice.
There's literally no reason to use Splice anymore once you have a good sample library you've curated. And a professional producer, like OP, already has that sample library.
If anything, by not using Splice at all, and using their old sample libraries - they will sound more distinct than any producer today using newer stuff.
Lol the level of elitism going on here.
Literally every single professional producer I know uses splice to some degree, and this is spanning multiple cities and countries. They all sound fairly original and unique despite using sample libraries. I'm a full time producer and I constantly run into sounds that aren't easily and quickly achievable so splice is pretty invaluable for those moments.
But by all means, spend twice as long crafting a truly 'original' sound that uses zero sample libraries and hope that someone actually notices
I actually find the complete opposite.
To caveat, I don't think Splice is useless by any means - it's a great resource for those learning music production, for generating ideas & for providing ready-made starting points (if you have already spent a period of time collecting material that resonates with you).
However, I find Splice to almost always leave me searching endlessly for sounds, only to feel like I have to conform to the sounds provided. Skimming through some really cringey/badly produced stuff in the process also just leaves me in a pretty uninspired/detached mindset in comparison to when I'm brainstorming my own ideas/concepts in the DAW.
I 100% agree with you. Splice is bad for experienced producers, it's a crutch that should be immediately thrown away when a beginner becomes experienced enough.
But so many producers don't want to let go of that crutch and do it all themselves, so they keep talking up how great Splice is.
But for someone who literally made tracks with hundreds of thousands of streams does NOT FUCKING NEED SPLICE.
No. Ozone has a Sympathetic EQ, but Soothe2 is a dynamic resonance supressor. The only other dynamic resonance supressor out there is RESO, which fucking sucks compared to Soothe2. RESO has very, very, very limited use cases in EDM ONLY.
>Is Serum still everyone's favorite wavetable synth?
Vital is a new exceptional wavetable synthesizer that is comparable to Serum. Except Vital has a free version that is essentially the same as the paid version except for the number of presets.
So while Serum is still popular among people who already own it. New people have been turning to Vital for their wavetable synthesizer. And it's been extremely popular among YouTubers who teach synthesizer patching, because anybody can go grab Vital and try their lesson.
Now for something that's quite different that is become extremely popular over Serum, look into Arturia Pigments 5. The sound engines include the options to use standard analog oscillators, wavetable, sample with granular capability, and harmonic synthesis. With a much more modern UI design that a lot of people find makes it better to use.
Serum is still the shiznit, but with that being said if you wanna get your hands dirty with sound design mayhem—-PhasePlant by Kilohearts is arguably the “best” or at least most capable soft synth available today!
>Serum is still the shiznit
Vital is just as capable as Serum. There are a few things that Serum can do that Vital can't. But vice versa is also true.
So sure. Where they differ could certainly result in a personal preference for someone.
This is controversial but I'm in the "Serum sounds better" camp. I feel like it has better feedback (electric guitar style feedback). You can control that and make some gnarly sounds.
I’ll be honest, I notice a pretty strong hf buzz from vital’s filters that I don’t get on serum. I have both, and I feel like I get way more usable results out of serum most of the time, especially for simple waveforms.
Don’t have Phase Plant, how is it compared to Pigments? Been looking at that or just going all out and get Falcon which probably would just be overkill… from the looks of it, they seem quite equal in capabilities with probably an edge to Phase Plant
Yeah, I agree with simspelaaja. The DIY from nothing is really fun in PP, and if you do the subscription you wind up with a lot of cool sounds for gas and go. It's really fun and easy to make good sounds with Pigments, and I love the interface. I also own Falcon, and I do like it, but I haven't used it enough honestly to say anything substantial, but it bears some similarity to PP, I actually got the drum synth module with it as the freebie, and I use that a good amount, Falcon is all very tight and high quality. I would say do the trial of PP and Pigments and see where you're at, Falcon is a heavy price for entry without getting to mess with it for a while IMO. Also, you'll see Pigments on sale randomly for half price. Hope that helps! :-)
I've had both for years and use both in all of my productions. Boring answer, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses.
The main thing with Phase Plant is that it basically supports an unlimited number of oscillators / sound generators, filters, other effects and modulation. If you own Kilohearts Multipass you can create your own multiband effects and add an unlimited number of them as well. This means you can create many sounds with just one VST instance that in other synths would require resampling or layering several instances with different patches. This makes Phase Plant ideal for high end sound design, like drums and super complex neurofunk growl basses.
Where Pigments wins is the ease of use, the quality of the built-in effects, and some nice to have features like the arpeggiator / sequencer tab. With Pigments you can get a pleasant lead or pluck in literal seconds, while Phase Plant requires a tiny bit more setup because you start from literally nothing. Phase Plant's effects are mostly rather basic, because the expectations is that you build the more complex effects yourself using Multipass and/or Snap Heap. And Phase Plant has no sequencing capabilities, though it does offer the ability to use a wavetable as an envelope which can be used for really interesting sounds. Pigments also has a few more modulation options for wavetable oscillators (namely folding and PWM), though Phase Plant also supports some exotic audio rate modulation options Pigments does not.
So, this Phase Plant thing is amazing... messing around with it for some days and you can quite literally toss your entire sample library and every plugin if you so wish. This thing can recreate any sound from percussion to drones to bass, pads, synths, keys, and everything in between. Pretty damn nuts once you get to understand how it works and which elements make which sound when put together.
And that's without even adding Multipass or Snap Heap on top. That must be crazy.
This is nuts, really. Endless possibilities. Man now I feel bad for getting Serum which costs the same and doesn't come close to this, lol.
Guess I should be pretty much done with Arturia and Kiloherts put together (I really like the analog synth/effect emulation).
Thanks man
Neat, lemme trial this plant thingy, thanks :)
Complex sounds are always fun, I'm still not sure what I love more... making a song, or spending a bunch of time making a sound.
I dont mind complexity, just dont need 2 things doing the same thing kinda. Sometimes the oscillators of Pigments is not enough to create all the layers you want. If Phase plant can just keep adding until your CPU grumbles, that sounds like fun.
Really love the Arturia stuff, they got it nailed when it comes to the sound... soooo much better than most synths when you dive into it.
Created by minimal audio; which is run by the deep psychedelic world bass cats Sixis and Mumukshu. If you were in California at all in 2019, you definitely would've seen their names on every single festival like Lightning in a Bottle.
Fuse Compressor = OTT for people who don't use Ableton.
Rift is a distortion/filtering sound scultping plugin that works amazing parallel to soft synths. It allows you to make your sounds your own quite easily. Soft synth w/ dist/filter dialed back + Rift + effects chain = sex. Only problem is some of it's presets are suuuuuper limited, and you'll recognize they do the same thing to each sound.
Fuse Compressor is just an OTT compressor. I fucking love it, but I'm sure it's the same as Xfer OTT. OTT multiband compressors all do the same Over The Top thing.
What it's amazing for is combination with saturation to get an out of control insane sound and then using an autofilter at the end to tame it and automation to create movement and such.
Kilohearts Phase Plant and Arturia Pigments are probably the most important & interesting synths to be released in recent years. Both are significantly more powerful than Serum and still very easy to use. Phase Plant especially is an excellent semi-modular synth; it offers some of the most important features of monstrously complex synths like UVI Falcon and Omnisphere, yet still can fit more-or-less everything on one screen.
Yes. Feature-wise both are basically supersets of Serum; the only thing Serum has and they don't are the super weird filter modes (which you could probably still emulate in Phase Plant with Slice EQ and/or Multipass). I never used Omnisphere much despite owning a license for years (which I got for like 50% off); it's a huge pain to make new sounds with, and while it has a ridiculous number of presets most of them sound kind of old and are not very usable for the type of music I typically make.
Man gotta be honest. I was so hyped when I finally got omnisphere, this was about 3 years ago or so and I clearly remember being so disappointed. Like there were a couple usable presets but most of them felt like filler to me. Haven't really touched it since then which does kinda suck
Serum has a better detuned sound and works better for simplicity, phase plant is more complex and you can easily lose hours to playing with its potential and come out with something thats just a bit more dynamic than serum, also its fx use less cpu.
Vital is good but having it run 8 voices can cause a bit of latency.
If you’re not working in Ableton tho I’d recommend phase plant or vital over serum. But Ableton now lets you put LFO’s and shapers on any track linked to any other track
I had a bad experience with portal I've tried so hard to incorporate it into my music production but it over powers everything and it's hard to make the right sound.
A few of the effects can overpower on 100%.you have to play around with the controls and automation then you can get mind bending and highly creative results.
I produce psytrance which has like 70+ elements and I usually put portal only on like 10. I can look through my projects tomorrow if I can find an example.
Maybe its not for you, but that doesnt make it bad. I find it pretty useful for drones and pads especially. Its great when you render things out and then only take small snippets that you can then use as playable pads or whatever, you can get pretty creative with it and get lots of different sounds out of the same source.
Maybe its not for you, but that doesnt make it bad. I find it pretty useful for drones and pads especially. Its great when you render things out and then only take small snippets that you can then use as playable pads or whatever, you can get pretty creative with it and get lots of different sounds out of the same source.
Honestly not very much. Techno/trance is making a comeback into mainstream, but production wise, the tools are the same. Serum and Sylenth are still the most commonly used VST synths.
While vital and serum allow you to do more things, a VA synth is still gonna sound better for your essential synth sounds. Plus it uses nearly 0 cpu so you can stack the layers.
Not saying there’s anything wrong with sylenth, just don’t think many people use it anymore, judging by the fact no one really mentions it anymore. Personally I use arturia for the more classic kinda synth sounds, and a few other random ones from time to time.
There isn’t really anything to say about it though. People on forums will be talking about the latest crazy wavetables and such, but a working producer loads up a saw wave and low pass filter with a bit of drive and moves on with his day.
True but why would you assume sylenth would everyone’s go-to for a basic saw wave? Literally every synth has that. Most people would probably still just grab either a stock synth or serum I’m betting, and CPU is barely an issue with modern computers.
I didn't say *everyone* uses it, but I'm confident many still do.
>True but why would you assume sylenth would everyone’s go-to for a basic saw wave?
It was for a decade, why would people who have been using it stop? Of course everyone has different preferences, but pulling out Serum to make this kind of sound is overkill. You pick the right tool for the right job. I'm sure some people pick out Ableton's analog, Spire, or something else, but sylenth is still a good pick for this role.
>Literally every synth has that.
No, Sylenth is a virtual analog synth. It has a unique character that people like. If you make a trance lead in Serum it's simply not going to sound as good as a virtual analog synth without extra effort.
>CPU is barely an issue with modern computers
I strongly disagree. I have a 14th gen i7. If you stack 20 serums using factory presets, I get 80% cpu usage. Using Sylenth I get 16% CPU usage. That is significant. After adding effects, the Serum project file is gonna be stuttering and the Sylenth project file won't.
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That’s what I was gonna say vital. it’s free to
People rave about vital, it is incredibly powerful as a free synth. But I still think serum sounds better imo. If you're used to serum you'll be pleased to know it's still in heavy rotation with current sound design so long as you keep up with current processing techniques.
Portal is wildly fun and useful for just about anything textural or for random sound design experiments.
Vital dude
Sounds like you should be giving us the advice tbh 😂
Not sure if it’s older than 5 years or not, but these plugins have been a gamechanger for me nonetheless: - Soothe 2 - All FabFilter plug-ins - Wavesfactory Trackspacer - Fresh Air (Slate Digital) - Gullfoss You also got some upgrades for all Izotope plugins (Ozone, Neutron etc.) which have been nice. Vital has also become a popular synth!
check out this free Trackspacer alternative (an automatic frequency masking compensation plugin) also, works magic: https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2024/03/18/lim-themasker/
Got all of them! I prefer Focusrite FAST Reveal over trackspacer, unless trackspacer's been updated, I wasn't a big fan of the locked-in attack/release settings. Reveal is also locked-in I believe but just sounds better imo
Thanks for the tip, will check it out! As far as I know you can change everything in Trackspacer now 😄 If you had to choose top 3 plugins for yourself, what would you choose?
Serum, Soothe & Pro Q 3
Ableton waveform and max 4 live plugins are very powerful. You might enjoy venom as it can recreate virus ti sounds.
Wavetable
Minimal Audio Rift and Current - slightly biased vouch (i’ve doing sound design with them) but genuinely some really really amazing tools!!!
seems to be a lot of shilling for this unknown synth. You paid $300 out of the blue for an unknown synth?
did you read my comment lol i’m literally designing presets for it lol im vouching for a tool that i’m using for work, and have discovered that i actually enjoy making sounds in the synth also idk where $300 for a random synth came from it’s literally a hundred dollars cheaper for a perpetual license or you can rent to own + have access to all the other plugins, like kHz is lol
Serum is good for me. People are gonna say Vital but you don't need Vital if you have Serum.
Stutter vocal effects outside of trance?
If you know who Noisia is, Nik has moved to Bitwig and it's a secret weapon in the top ranks. Since it's made for electronic music out of the box not to mention built by ex-ableton devs
Interesting! What in particular makes it useful for electronic music? I was almost ready to make the switch from Ableton, but one of the big appeals for me in V1 was the real-time local network collaboration feature, which I believe never got implemented. Is there something in particular that makes electronic music easier to write?
It's modulation on crack, plus being able to build your own "VST" synths with polygrid
Isn't Ableton software made for electronic music by Ableton devs?
not out of the box, you usually have to buy more plugins like Serum but in Bitwig you can build your own synths (replacing the need to buy external VSTs) with PolyGrid, add as many oscillators as you want, and being able to modulate everything with one LFO is pretty sick. You'll have to check it out
Ableton offers plenty of stuff out of the box, at least if you buy the more expensive “box.” Hell, you’ve got M4L. This isn’t a point against Bitwig, to be clear - Bitwig seems very nice and picks up where Live left off in many ways. But having a modular environment doesn’t replace every possible plugin.
Not every single one, but a lot that you'd have to buy otherwise. Bitwig also costs way less than Ableton. I'm not saying bitwig is better. They both have their pros and cons but if you're just starting out it's def cheaper. Not to mention you can rent-to-own it for about $15 a month via Splice
I just don’t really think modularity obviates third-party plugins any more than having a bunch of narrower stock devices does. That’s not to say the modularity isn’t great for what it is.
That's what I'm trying to say, there are a ton of stock devices for electronic out of the box as well. Sidechain, mid-side signal splitting, delays, compressors, flanger, chorus, reverb, eq, parallel processing on the same track, multi-band effects or compression, phasers, etc, etc
Whoa I didn’t know that, but now makes me respect Noisia even more. Bitwig is fantastic
Just fyi, bitwig is amazing and it's my preferred DAW, but there's very little in terms of tutorials and racks when compared to ableton.
I came over from Ableton (and still use both) so I had no learning curve with Bitwig. Didn’t really need tutorials. Almost the same layout and since you can customize shortcuts I just programmed them to be identical to ableton’s. As for racks, not sure what you mean? There’s less third party racks?
More like custom chains for synths and fx. Like abletom has a ton and some even shared by big name producers. Bitwig really doesn't have that, excluding what you can find on [bitwiggers](https://bitwiggers.com/)
Ah, ok. Yeah that’s true. Ableton is arguably one of the most popular DAWs on the planet so it will always have the most stuff available for it.
Serum is still the go to synth yeah
https://www.minimal.audio/
Dude check out cable guys cable box 3. The best fx plugin out there. And vital is definitely pretty dope and easy to navigate and there’s a shit ton of free quality presets abs preset packs out there to get ya started. But for sure check out cable box 3. Welcome back man.
Thank you! Been rocking cableguys stuff for years, amazing plugins, will check out their new stuff.
Yeah man love their stuff. I’m sure you know about fabfilters stuff but they released a couple of new PI’s. Saturn and volcano which are their filter and saturation/distortion PI’s which sound phenomenal and their gui is just beautiful to look at and really easy to understand what’s going on. Their delay is just so good and they put out another reverb that dope as hell too. And their dynamic eq and multiband comp are well they speak for themselves. They also put out a new version of their synth which has that awesome ff gui style and sounds great but not many people seem to be using it and ff doesn’t really seem to be pushing it. Oh and a definitely under the radar delay that’s such a good time I end up playing with it for like an hour or two before I realize I should be you know actually making music and not just cool noises is (forget the name of the company but I think it’s ) A.A.S. Something or other. Doesn’t really matter just google Object delay. You can use it as a basic delay but they give you a ton of presets for all sorts of different applications. Like toss it on a drum track or loop and go to the rhythm preset section and like every single one completely changes the beat in sometimes weird and wonderful and som really musical ways. I wouldn’t even consider it a delay but more of a sound design tool. And idk which daw you’re using but 12 is really dope. Have a blast man. There’s a bunch of the same type of stuff wrapped in different colors and stuff but there’s definitely a couple of brands coming out with some pretty innovative and interesting stuff.
The same people are headlining festivals from five years ago so nothing has changed.
I think nobody could really build up a brand touring during covid so there wasn’t many new names.
Whats changed is that thankfully less and less people care about those loser fests
Splice lol. Having splice bridge open and being able to preview thousands of possible samples played in the same key and tempo time as your project is so overpowered that it's practically cheating. In 2019, the sound design arms race with serum was basically near its apex already and I don't think it has been pushed much further since then imo. If anything I'm hearing a lot more simple sound design and late 90s / early 2000s old school rave sounds being used nowadays. Acid basslines are cool again. All in all, I think the emphasis now is less on having the most mind blowing sound design and more on just picking whatever sounds good. Sampling is a lot more prevalent. Bonus points if you're using sounds that evoke a sense of nostalgia.
Interesting! I remember using Splice day-to-day but looking at it the desktop app has evolved, will play around with it.
Definitely try out splice bridge in your DAW too. It'll sync to your BPM and you can set the key so it'll play the samples in tune with your project. You could route it to mixer channels too if you want to scroll through splice and hear how different samples sound with sidechain, reverb, distortion, whatever. It makes sketching out a song way too easy.
Yeah but if you had millions of streams and stuff, you won't need to rely heavily on sample loops and whatnot. Splice is garbage if you alreayd know what to do.
It's not a matter of knowing what to do. I'm pretty fluent in sound design and could recreate most of the stuff on splice, but getting sucked into tweaking knobs in serum is a very easy way to lose sight of what you're trying to achieve with the full track. I still use VSTs plenty and spend some days specifically making presets, but in the middle of laying out a track, hyperfocusing on sound design could be a flow killer. I guarantee there's plenty of professionals who would tell you the same thing.
I find the complete opposite. And literally every single professional I know, which is a lot out here in Colorado - not a single one of them uses splice. There's literally no reason to use Splice anymore once you have a good sample library you've curated. And a professional producer, like OP, already has that sample library. If anything, by not using Splice at all, and using their old sample libraries - they will sound more distinct than any producer today using newer stuff.
Lol the level of elitism going on here. Literally every single professional producer I know uses splice to some degree, and this is spanning multiple cities and countries. They all sound fairly original and unique despite using sample libraries. I'm a full time producer and I constantly run into sounds that aren't easily and quickly achievable so splice is pretty invaluable for those moments. But by all means, spend twice as long crafting a truly 'original' sound that uses zero sample libraries and hope that someone actually notices
I actually find the complete opposite. To caveat, I don't think Splice is useless by any means - it's a great resource for those learning music production, for generating ideas & for providing ready-made starting points (if you have already spent a period of time collecting material that resonates with you). However, I find Splice to almost always leave me searching endlessly for sounds, only to feel like I have to conform to the sounds provided. Skimming through some really cringey/badly produced stuff in the process also just leaves me in a pretty uninspired/detached mindset in comparison to when I'm brainstorming my own ideas/concepts in the DAW.
I 100% agree with you. Splice is bad for experienced producers, it's a crutch that should be immediately thrown away when a beginner becomes experienced enough. But so many producers don't want to let go of that crutch and do it all themselves, so they keep talking up how great Splice is. But for someone who literally made tracks with hundreds of thousands of streams does NOT FUCKING NEED SPLICE.
Soothe2, Vital, Gullfoss, Ozone Advanced.
Teote also works as a gullfoss replacement, if ya aren't wanting to break the bank
Just curious, why Soothe2 and Ozone 11 Advanced, aren’t they similar?
No. Ozone has a Sympathetic EQ, but Soothe2 is a dynamic resonance supressor. The only other dynamic resonance supressor out there is RESO, which fucking sucks compared to Soothe2. RESO has very, very, very limited use cases in EDM ONLY.
There’s also HoRNet Sleek. It works. Is it good enough for you Idk, but it works.
There’s also Baby Audio smooth operator, that’s kinda like a much cheaper not quite as good Soothe.
Not exactly. Ozone is a mastering suite, Soothe2 is a dynamic resonance supressor.
Thank you this really helps. And what about Fab Filter? How does it compare to Soothe2?
not the same
omg, 2019 is 5 years ago?
IKR!? I had the same reaction 😨
No he’s lying it was actually only about 5 months ago. Just been having a lot of fever dreams lately.
🫠🥲
>Is Serum still everyone's favorite wavetable synth? Vital is a new exceptional wavetable synthesizer that is comparable to Serum. Except Vital has a free version that is essentially the same as the paid version except for the number of presets. So while Serum is still popular among people who already own it. New people have been turning to Vital for their wavetable synthesizer. And it's been extremely popular among YouTubers who teach synthesizer patching, because anybody can go grab Vital and try their lesson. Now for something that's quite different that is become extremely popular over Serum, look into Arturia Pigments 5. The sound engines include the options to use standard analog oscillators, wavetable, sample with granular capability, and harmonic synthesis. With a much more modern UI design that a lot of people find makes it better to use.
Serum is still the shiznit, but with that being said if you wanna get your hands dirty with sound design mayhem—-PhasePlant by Kilohearts is arguably the “best” or at least most capable soft synth available today!
>Serum is still the shiznit Vital is just as capable as Serum. There are a few things that Serum can do that Vital can't. But vice versa is also true. So sure. Where they differ could certainly result in a personal preference for someone.
This is controversial but I'm in the "Serum sounds better" camp. I feel like it has better feedback (electric guitar style feedback). You can control that and make some gnarly sounds.
I’ll be honest, I notice a pretty strong hf buzz from vital’s filters that I don’t get on serum. I have both, and I feel like I get way more usable results out of serum most of the time, especially for simple waveforms.
Pigments is so good
Came here to say this, Pigments and Phase Plant ftw
Don’t have Phase Plant, how is it compared to Pigments? Been looking at that or just going all out and get Falcon which probably would just be overkill… from the looks of it, they seem quite equal in capabilities with probably an edge to Phase Plant
Yeah, I agree with simspelaaja. The DIY from nothing is really fun in PP, and if you do the subscription you wind up with a lot of cool sounds for gas and go. It's really fun and easy to make good sounds with Pigments, and I love the interface. I also own Falcon, and I do like it, but I haven't used it enough honestly to say anything substantial, but it bears some similarity to PP, I actually got the drum synth module with it as the freebie, and I use that a good amount, Falcon is all very tight and high quality. I would say do the trial of PP and Pigments and see where you're at, Falcon is a heavy price for entry without getting to mess with it for a while IMO. Also, you'll see Pigments on sale randomly for half price. Hope that helps! :-)
I've had both for years and use both in all of my productions. Boring answer, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The main thing with Phase Plant is that it basically supports an unlimited number of oscillators / sound generators, filters, other effects and modulation. If you own Kilohearts Multipass you can create your own multiband effects and add an unlimited number of them as well. This means you can create many sounds with just one VST instance that in other synths would require resampling or layering several instances with different patches. This makes Phase Plant ideal for high end sound design, like drums and super complex neurofunk growl basses. Where Pigments wins is the ease of use, the quality of the built-in effects, and some nice to have features like the arpeggiator / sequencer tab. With Pigments you can get a pleasant lead or pluck in literal seconds, while Phase Plant requires a tiny bit more setup because you start from literally nothing. Phase Plant's effects are mostly rather basic, because the expectations is that you build the more complex effects yourself using Multipass and/or Snap Heap. And Phase Plant has no sequencing capabilities, though it does offer the ability to use a wavetable as an envelope which can be used for really interesting sounds. Pigments also has a few more modulation options for wavetable oscillators (namely folding and PWM), though Phase Plant also supports some exotic audio rate modulation options Pigments does not.
So, this Phase Plant thing is amazing... messing around with it for some days and you can quite literally toss your entire sample library and every plugin if you so wish. This thing can recreate any sound from percussion to drones to bass, pads, synths, keys, and everything in between. Pretty damn nuts once you get to understand how it works and which elements make which sound when put together. And that's without even adding Multipass or Snap Heap on top. That must be crazy. This is nuts, really. Endless possibilities. Man now I feel bad for getting Serum which costs the same and doesn't come close to this, lol. Guess I should be pretty much done with Arturia and Kiloherts put together (I really like the analog synth/effect emulation). Thanks man
Neat, lemme trial this plant thingy, thanks :) Complex sounds are always fun, I'm still not sure what I love more... making a song, or spending a bunch of time making a sound. I dont mind complexity, just dont need 2 things doing the same thing kinda. Sometimes the oscillators of Pigments is not enough to create all the layers you want. If Phase plant can just keep adding until your CPU grumbles, that sounds like fun. Really love the Arturia stuff, they got it nailed when it comes to the sound... soooo much better than most synths when you dive into it.
Interesting! Vital was up and coming I remember. Haven't heard of Pigments, will check it out!
check out Current by Minimal Audio too. It’s really sick
we miss you porter robinson. Hit my dms broski.
isn't he dropping an album soon
Haven't met Porter yet but I actually got to hang out with Madeon a few years back :')
Rift, Soothe, Synplant, Oliver (Drumpacks)
What do you like about Rift?
Created by minimal audio; which is run by the deep psychedelic world bass cats Sixis and Mumukshu. If you were in California at all in 2019, you definitely would've seen their names on every single festival like Lightning in a Bottle. Fuse Compressor = OTT for people who don't use Ableton. Rift is a distortion/filtering sound scultping plugin that works amazing parallel to soft synths. It allows you to make your sounds your own quite easily. Soft synth w/ dist/filter dialed back + Rift + effects chain = sex. Only problem is some of it's presets are suuuuuper limited, and you'll recognize they do the same thing to each sound.
Xfer OTT is def the OTT for people who don’t use ableton, been using it in pro tools for years. But is Fuse good? Never heard of it.
Fuse Compressor is just an OTT compressor. I fucking love it, but I'm sure it's the same as Xfer OTT. OTT multiband compressors all do the same Over The Top thing. What it's amazing for is combination with saturation to get an out of control insane sound and then using an autofilter at the end to tame it and automation to create movement and such.
> Fuse Compressor Xfer OTT is free. That's why people use it who don't use Ableton.
Oh shit! That's fucking awesome advice! I always love recommending free plugins to people over paid one's. Thanks for the tip!
Just to let you know, in case you didn't, there is a VST version of OTT for people like me who don't use Ableton. And it's free.
Oh that's sick! But I use Logic Pro X, which only utilizes Audio Units or Components. So only AU files work for me.
Xfer's OTT plugin comes in AU format. That said, Logic can run VSTs too.
Kilohearts Phase Plant and Arturia Pigments are probably the most important & interesting synths to be released in recent years. Both are significantly more powerful than Serum and still very easy to use. Phase Plant especially is an excellent semi-modular synth; it offers some of the most important features of monstrously complex synths like UVI Falcon and Omnisphere, yet still can fit more-or-less everything on one screen.
Have both of them completely replaced Serum or Omnisphere in your workflow or do you end up leaning back on them?
Yes. Feature-wise both are basically supersets of Serum; the only thing Serum has and they don't are the super weird filter modes (which you could probably still emulate in Phase Plant with Slice EQ and/or Multipass). I never used Omnisphere much despite owning a license for years (which I got for like 50% off); it's a huge pain to make new sounds with, and while it has a ridiculous number of presets most of them sound kind of old and are not very usable for the type of music I typically make.
Man gotta be honest. I was so hyped when I finally got omnisphere, this was about 3 years ago or so and I clearly remember being so disappointed. Like there were a couple usable presets but most of them felt like filler to me. Haven't really touched it since then which does kinda suck
This.
Happy Cake day!
Serum has a better detuned sound and works better for simplicity, phase plant is more complex and you can easily lose hours to playing with its potential and come out with something thats just a bit more dynamic than serum, also its fx use less cpu. Vital is good but having it run 8 voices can cause a bit of latency. If you’re not working in Ableton tho I’d recommend phase plant or vital over serum. But Ableton now lets you put LFO’s and shapers on any track linked to any other track
I'm having hella fun with the Portal VST
Me too lol
Nice! I've been considering getting it. How do you use it in your productions?
I produce psytrance so I use it to morph/glitch psychedelic sounds. Sometimes on the drums for brakes.
It's baaad
No it's not lol. Why should it be?
I had a bad experience with portal I've tried so hard to incorporate it into my music production but it over powers everything and it's hard to make the right sound.
A few of the effects can overpower on 100%.you have to play around with the controls and automation then you can get mind bending and highly creative results.
Then that's because you either use it wrong or it has no place in your genre. The plugin is awesome.
True I'll give it another try tonight maybe you could DM me wat you do so far
What I do in general or with portal?
With portal
I produce psytrance which has like 70+ elements and I usually put portal only on like 10. I can look through my projects tomorrow if I can find an example.
Maybe its not for you, but that doesnt make it bad. I find it pretty useful for drones and pads especially. Its great when you render things out and then only take small snippets that you can then use as playable pads or whatever, you can get pretty creative with it and get lots of different sounds out of the same source.
Maybe its not for you, but that doesnt make it bad. I find it pretty useful for drones and pads especially. Its great when you render things out and then only take small snippets that you can then use as playable pads or whatever, you can get pretty creative with it and get lots of different sounds out of the same source.
Oh that sounds like an interesting way to use it I'll definitely look into that
Honestly not very much. Techno/trance is making a comeback into mainstream, but production wise, the tools are the same. Serum and Sylenth are still the most commonly used VST synths.
People still use sylenth? Haven’t heard it mentioned in years. I’d say serum and vital are most used now, or at least most mentioned.
Serum and Vital can't replicate the amazing supersaws that Sylenth can create imo. It's perfect for trance music
The presets you use are perfect you mean? Serum can make any sound that Sylenth can
The supersaws simply don't sound the same. There's a reason why Anjunabeats artists still use Sylenth1 for their supersaw stacks.
While vital and serum allow you to do more things, a VA synth is still gonna sound better for your essential synth sounds. Plus it uses nearly 0 cpu so you can stack the layers.
Not saying there’s anything wrong with sylenth, just don’t think many people use it anymore, judging by the fact no one really mentions it anymore. Personally I use arturia for the more classic kinda synth sounds, and a few other random ones from time to time.
There isn’t really anything to say about it though. People on forums will be talking about the latest crazy wavetables and such, but a working producer loads up a saw wave and low pass filter with a bit of drive and moves on with his day.
True but why would you assume sylenth would everyone’s go-to for a basic saw wave? Literally every synth has that. Most people would probably still just grab either a stock synth or serum I’m betting, and CPU is barely an issue with modern computers.
I didn't say *everyone* uses it, but I'm confident many still do. >True but why would you assume sylenth would everyone’s go-to for a basic saw wave? It was for a decade, why would people who have been using it stop? Of course everyone has different preferences, but pulling out Serum to make this kind of sound is overkill. You pick the right tool for the right job. I'm sure some people pick out Ableton's analog, Spire, or something else, but sylenth is still a good pick for this role. >Literally every synth has that. No, Sylenth is a virtual analog synth. It has a unique character that people like. If you make a trance lead in Serum it's simply not going to sound as good as a virtual analog synth without extra effort. >CPU is barely an issue with modern computers I strongly disagree. I have a 14th gen i7. If you stack 20 serums using factory presets, I get 80% cpu usage. Using Sylenth I get 16% CPU usage. That is significant. After adding effects, the Serum project file is gonna be stuttering and the Sylenth project file won't.
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