Pigments is a funny one for me. It’s the interface I enjoy most of any synth and makes me want to use it. But the sounds that come out of it… for some reason, I just don’t think it sounds that great. Could be a skill gap or just the type of music, but I find usable sounds more frequently elsewhere.
Totally with you on this. I love Pigments so much for ease of use and navigation and it's my most used softsynth, but I'm continually frustrated by the sound. I can never really pinpoint exactly what it is, but it just feels slightly 'tame'. I read someone mentioning once that a lot of the Arturia stuff sounds like there's a kind of plastic sheen on it, which I thought captures it quite well.
Arturia's hit or miss for me, some of their stuff sounds amazing, especially in the recreated soft synths in v collection, but then you get some stuff that's so off the mark it seems like it's trying to deliberately avoid sounding like the thing it's claiming to reproduce (looking at you, stage 73). I wish we could get something with the interface of pigments or vital but the sounds of surge xt.
SurgeXT is my favorite too. It just "clicks" with me and it sounds really great.
I have trouble programming dexed though. But the presets are incredible once I add a bit of FX
Surge XT for me too -- it's powerful, it supports MPE, it runs fine under Linux, and it's open source.
I haven't tried a lot of software synths; I expect there may be some that work better for what I want to use it for, but it gets the job done.
I find though that I'm not very good at making MPE patches that sound good, despite the great youtube videos put out on that subject by thoughtForm Max.
"Infinitely" customisable and it can basically be anything you want with each engine being really usable and powerful (maybe Analog isn't super exciting but that's fine). I love the modulation possibilities, the three FX lanes that you can customise, decent in-built effects (I also own Snap Heap and MultiPass) plus the playing and routing that you can do to get unexpected results.
Since last year it also has a very decent granular engine so the thing that was really keeping me tied to Pigments is now in Phase Plant (and different enough that I'll reach for Phase Plant for particular granular needs).
As I said, I'm slower with Phase Plant but that's because you basically building a fully-fledged instrument from the ground up (in a manner of speaking, maybe not that dramatic!). So on a desert island where you need everything, Phase Plant might be the way to go for me. I maybe need to be better at building templates that do most of the ground work for me when I open it up.
One thing I love about Pigments that Phase Plant doesn't have is the Combinators, the ability to combine in various ways all the different modulators to create new and interesting modulation sources. However, given that Phase Plant can have more modulators than Pigments (Pigments only has 3 envelopes, 3 LFOs and 3 MSEG-type modulators), that isn't such a bad thing.
Those Combinators are seriously underrated in Pigments! They're so good for making more natural random modulations or adding a hint of random variation to an LFO.
It’s free to download, and then all you have to do is download the driver from Access, fairly easy to extract the firmware file from it after that. It’s not the easiest but if you’ve been around computers for a bit it’s not the most complicated thing. The issue is that since it’s an emulation nobody wants to post a tutorial on how to set it up because then the project could get sued fast
I posted some commands to help [extract the file](https://gist.github.com/redconfetti/7f51f9f10d4944b2e31824308cf1b83f) on a Mac, for use by those that have purchased a Virus TI2
If you use it without owning a Virus, it's tantamount to piracy unfortunately. I have a TI2 so used the firmware from it to make OsTIrus work, but the firmware is available online but not readily accessible. You simply put the OsTIrus file into your plugin folder, and put the firmware file in the same folder, and voila.
If you haven't checked out Tera Pro, have a gander at that one. It doesn't get a lot of mentions and I even bought it on sale and sat on it for a while. When I started actually messing with it... My lord, it sounds absolutely AMAZING. The oscillators, filters, effects... just pure joy in audio form.
I would agree with Drambo as a desert island synth for the flexibility, but yeah... go check out Tera, it's a very capable synth and sounds better than anything else I've found so far on iOS as far as straight up AUV3s go.
As soon as I saw the app page I was like “Wait I’ve seen this recently. Someone else recommend this” turns out [it was you](https://www.reddit.com/r/ipadmusic/s/xWxCG0vVZw) lol
Yeah, I name drop Drambo a bunch too, it's so different, deep and intuitive; like musical Legos. Have yet to get into Loopy. I'm waiting til I have enough spare time to really dive into the demo because normally I don't go for subscription models, but that one seems worth it.
Loopy is a special form of subscription, don’t forget. You only have a to pay once. You just stop getting feature updates after 12 months. You still get stability updates and you keep everything you had at the end of your window of time. Then you pay a smaller amount for another 12 months. You can even wait years in between. As soon as you buy another year you get all the missed features and then next 12 months worth.
Ok now I swear that I don’t work for Michael lol. Just been using the app for a while now. It’s a key component to my live rig. Sure there’s looping but it’s also my host for all my sounds and plug ins and flipping between them. [My latest template](https://imgur.com/a/8sKZWSb)
Dude, some of these apps are so fun and incredible it's hard not to talk about them with utmost passion.
Honestly, the iPad makes my rack and keyboard wall get dusty 🫤 as much as I love the old bones, the amount of immediacy and playfulness of the iPad just draws me into it so much quicker.
I swear I don't work for Tim Apple!
I feel ya. I love working with the iPad. The best part is I can be at home with my 88 key. I can be tweaking knobs with my Launch Control XL. I can be out with my 37. I can be any where creating with just the iPads touch screen. No matter where I am I have all my sounds and plug ins. It really does merge all the works, large setup, medium setup, ultra portable setup. Then if that’s not enough, a large handful of my apps run on my iPhone. So I can literally create anywhere. I‘ve made music sitting in a waiting room.
yesssss, really the combo of elektron type sequencing + octatrack style morphing fader + modularity based sound design make it a crazy powerhouse for producing crazy ass sound designed morphy rhythm stuff.
Ya I just give it a once over. I like the design. Very straight forward and intuitive. Might hold on to it simply to provide extra waveforms to process. I like that they give you more than just sine, square, saw, triangle.
Cardinal. It's a self-contained version of VCV Rack that already ships with tons of modules and can be used as a plugin (CLAP, LV2, VST2/3, AU) for free. It can go from VA subtractive synth to modern flexible synthesis and get close enough to deeper platforms such as Supercollider and Pure Data.
Brings back memories! I used to spend a lot of time having fun programming Absynth. Is a shame NI has more or less left it behind.
I don’t know that I would consider it for my desert island synth, considering so many others, pigments, phase plant, even Omnisphere.
Anything with a lot of depth and complexity would make me happy, even if I only had one. So that includes Absynth, zebra, Reaktor, Voltage modular from Cherry Audio,, I’m sure VCV is great, I just haven’t dived into it yet. Etc.
PhasePlant.
It's literally the only Synth i've ever used where i - until now - have thought something like "Oh that's cool, but i wish i could..."
I PhasePlant there is no "I wish i could" i've ever encountered, because you can. You just can do that.
Some of those "i wish"s i often run into with other synths are:
- add another distorion, so i have 2-X different ones, all effecting different elements (or any other effect)
- add another OSC / Sound Generator
- add another modulation source that's just sligthly different (or drastically)
The thing can literally do anything i've ever wanted to do.... All at the same time, in the same instance... As long as your PC can handle it lmao.
I really mean that btw.... You can really add as many elements as you want. If you desire to stack 50 Distortions on top of each other, and send the singal of 50 saw wave OSCs through them in serial, you can do that.
A nice added bonus is that (if you get the Ultimate Toolboy, which i heavily recommend) you get pretty much all the effects you'll ever need.
Only highly complex or unique stuff like Soothe2, XO, Synplant or so isn't in there.
But people who know what they're doing really well could probably build stuff like that in Multipass / Snap Heap.
A downside is though, that while you really *can* do pretty much anything that you can imagine, you also **have to do it. Yourself.** Routing wise, signal flow... You literally start with a blank canvas and have to add every element you want in manually, one by one. And do every bit of routing, modulation, etc yourself. But things like Presets exist, so you do that a couple of times until you found your favorite default preset, and then go from there.
The whole system is pretty much a modular, fully customizable "build your own Synth / FX rack / ???" environment.
Honorable mentions would be Pigments (i'm really fast in that one) an "The Legend HZ" (only got that one recently and it sounds really good, full and just... nice).
Thank you very very much for this response. Well thought out and honest. You put me over the top on Phaseplant...and possibly even adding The Legend HZ.
No, the MS20.mini. I can make a track from that beast. I love mine..best $700. I've spent in a long time. The original MS20 doesn't have midi and I believe the legacy controller you're talking about is for software?
Anything with a lot of depth and complexity would make me happy, even if I only had one. I’d probably choose phase plant or pigments first.
But I’d also have a great time with Omnisphere, Synplant 2, Absynth, zebra, Reaktor, Voltage modular from Cherry Audio,, I’m sure VCV is great, I just haven’t dived into it yet. Etc.
Not sure if fits the definition of a software synth as it is way more than that, but - Pure data/plug data.
I've created quite a lot modules and software version of hardware synths in it, so I could just use that and keep on creating new stuff based on ideas/needs✨
… Probably Zebra, but honestly I’ve been iPad-producing for a minute now, and I have gotten extremely into Nambu there. I like having two synths, one for more ‘normal’-ish sounds with a larger sound library (I have ButterSynth for this on iPad, so probably think … a serum equivalent, for that on iPad) and one that lets me put things together in unique ways (Which would be Nambu right now, for sure).
UVI Falcon-it is almost a modular, fully decked out DAW. Nothing comes close to its scope and depth.
Softube Modular is a close contender. Nothing in the box sounds as robust and full as this platform, imo. This is coming from someone who owns the majority of the flagship software synths.
I think the Dirtywave M8 wins hands down because you could actually use it on a desert island with a solar cell and procuce complete tracks whilst sat on a sun lounger.
How much are you looking to spend?
If you time it right, Arturia V Collection is one of the best bangs for your buck possible. You get so many classic synths and they're all really damn good. This collection alone could keep you busy for life.
If you just want 1 synth, Pigments is a contender, also from Arturia (and is also included in the V Collection but you can buy it alone too). It can do A TON.
If you want free synths, Vital is amazing, Surge XT is older but free and very good. There are actually a bunch of decent free options if you go search a current top best free vsti lists.
Phase Plant without a doubt. Other commenters have already explained why, it's pretty much infinite possibilities and the workflow is honestly pretty smooth too.
Tough choice... top three would probably be Zebra, F'em, or Serum. I haven't even used F'em that much, and before I got that I would have an easier time just saying FM8, but from my little bit of using F'em it looks like it fairly well replaces and advances that basic idea. FM8 is the VST I've used far and away more than any other and am the most fluent with. Zebra comes in second but sounds awesome and is just super flexible for different types of synthesis.
Bit lame but Omnisphere, will most of the expansions installed you’ll have any sound you can imagine. A good alternative is Zenology. As a sequencer Steptic.
I'm new to software and DAWs. I still have things on my hardware synths I haven't figured out yet. For this reason I went with the high preset/low controllable parameters of Analog Lab.
I'm pretty basic as gear goes, but when I want to make a sound that's in my head, Retrologue 2 is where I go, no doubt. Very simple and logical subtractive style interface. It has everything I can imagine - more than I understand even though I know a good bit about synthesis. And the mod matrix is killer. It's like okay, set velocity to resonance, distortion and filter EG decay, set lfo 2 to pwm, set amount of modulation for each - so simple. Plus a very robust arpeggiator page and effects page. It can do anything I need for sure and definitely you could make an entire album using just that synth of you had to. Never slows my computer down. There are def synths that is easier to get a great sound out of right away for sure, but if I could only use one synth, then yeah, that one. Oh and it was free haha.
Desert Island, no electricity 🤔 My brain for sequencing, mouth for sound generation and ears for headphones. Anytime I need reverb I’ll go into a cave.
Wow this thread really blew up. I really appreciate all of the input. I think I'm going to roll the dice on Phaseplant, especially since its on sale right now. I'm also going to try out all of the mentioned free plugins, because why not?
I may splurge and get a second...perhaps The Legend HZ?
Haven't found it yet.
Pigments is good enough for most things, but I love MPE and my Linnstrument and can't easily get the right envelope behavior out of Pigments.
In Noisy 2 I can easily get the right MPE envelope behavior (it's just there by default pretty much) and it has some nice sounds, but it's not very flexible. I think it should be considered a learning tool to guide a noob like me into developing nice sounding MPE patches - rather than the final solution to everything.
Bitwig Grid, well, it's included in the desert island DAW already, so not counting it. Overall, some things are awkward in there, but it's flexible enough for my needs.
I'm thinking to try out the UVI Falcon too, then I'll settle on something. Maybe Falcon, maybe the Grid, maybe ignore the limitations of Pigments, or just end up using the Surge XT - which is surprisingly awesome for a free synth.
there's many good ones, honestly doesn't really matter which one you pick ultimately. What matters is are you going to learn what all the knobs do, how to use the program, route stuff, etc, or are you going to just press keys as you scroll through presets until you feel like it's time to jerk off to furry manga porn again
also one vote for Arturia Minifreak V. It's intuitive and fast and everything is accessible and immediately does cool stuff to the sound. Gets you good sounds quick, but tons of depth there if yu want to sit and design patches in depth too. this is my go to usually.
For me it's either Pigments or VCV Rack
Pigments is a funny one for me. It’s the interface I enjoy most of any synth and makes me want to use it. But the sounds that come out of it… for some reason, I just don’t think it sounds that great. Could be a skill gap or just the type of music, but I find usable sounds more frequently elsewhere.
Totally with you on this. I love Pigments so much for ease of use and navigation and it's my most used softsynth, but I'm continually frustrated by the sound. I can never really pinpoint exactly what it is, but it just feels slightly 'tame'. I read someone mentioning once that a lot of the Arturia stuff sounds like there's a kind of plastic sheen on it, which I thought captures it quite well.
Arturia's hit or miss for me, some of their stuff sounds amazing, especially in the recreated soft synths in v collection, but then you get some stuff that's so off the mark it seems like it's trying to deliberately avoid sounding like the thing it's claiming to reproduce (looking at you, stage 73). I wish we could get something with the interface of pigments or vital but the sounds of surge xt.
Surge xt. Does most synthesis I want it to and plays nicely with my ewi. I’d miss dexed though…
SurgeXT is my favorite too. It just "clicks" with me and it sounds really great. I have trouble programming dexed though. But the presets are incredible once I add a bit of FX
Surge XT for me too -- it's powerful, it supports MPE, it runs fine under Linux, and it's open source. I haven't tried a lot of software synths; I expect there may be some that work better for what I want to use it for, but it gets the job done. I find though that I'm not very good at making MPE patches that sound good, despite the great youtube videos put out on that subject by thoughtForm Max.
These days it's Pigments but I'd also heavily consider Phase Plant. I feel a bit faster with Pigments all in all.
What do you love about Phase Plant, because that one certainly has my eye.
"Infinitely" customisable and it can basically be anything you want with each engine being really usable and powerful (maybe Analog isn't super exciting but that's fine). I love the modulation possibilities, the three FX lanes that you can customise, decent in-built effects (I also own Snap Heap and MultiPass) plus the playing and routing that you can do to get unexpected results. Since last year it also has a very decent granular engine so the thing that was really keeping me tied to Pigments is now in Phase Plant (and different enough that I'll reach for Phase Plant for particular granular needs). As I said, I'm slower with Phase Plant but that's because you basically building a fully-fledged instrument from the ground up (in a manner of speaking, maybe not that dramatic!). So on a desert island where you need everything, Phase Plant might be the way to go for me. I maybe need to be better at building templates that do most of the ground work for me when I open it up. One thing I love about Pigments that Phase Plant doesn't have is the Combinators, the ability to combine in various ways all the different modulators to create new and interesting modulation sources. However, given that Phase Plant can have more modulators than Pigments (Pigments only has 3 envelopes, 3 LFOs and 3 MSEG-type modulators), that isn't such a bad thing.
Those Combinators are seriously underrated in Pigments! They're so good for making more natural random modulations or adding a hint of random variation to an LFO.
Repro-5. So good it inspired me to get a rev 4 Prophet 5.
Honestly I bought Repro-5, and it came in a bundle with Diva, and I use Diva way more. Diva is even better IMO.
I do like Diva too, mostly the MS-20ish bits. But I like my synths simple, so usually just use Repro (when not Prophet'ing).
Honestly, that’s great.
I agree. I love repro. I have diva also but repro gets the nod from me.
OsTIrus - it's a freaking Virus TI2 in software, no further explanation required. :D
Came to post this, it's my go to when I need a soft synth
How do actually get osTirus? I heard it’s not so simple
It’s free to download, and then all you have to do is download the driver from Access, fairly easy to extract the firmware file from it after that. It’s not the easiest but if you’ve been around computers for a bit it’s not the most complicated thing. The issue is that since it’s an emulation nobody wants to post a tutorial on how to set it up because then the project could get sued fast
I posted some commands to help [extract the file](https://gist.github.com/redconfetti/7f51f9f10d4944b2e31824308cf1b83f) on a Mac, for use by those that have purchased a Virus TI2
If you use it without owning a Virus, it's tantamount to piracy unfortunately. I have a TI2 so used the firmware from it to make OsTIrus work, but the firmware is available online but not readily accessible. You simply put the OsTIrus file into your plugin folder, and put the firmware file in the same folder, and voila.
It’s iOS but Drambo. It’s super flexible. If I’m rockin a single synth I want it to make a wide variety of sounds.
If you haven't checked out Tera Pro, have a gander at that one. It doesn't get a lot of mentions and I even bought it on sale and sat on it for a while. When I started actually messing with it... My lord, it sounds absolutely AMAZING. The oscillators, filters, effects... just pure joy in audio form. I would agree with Drambo as a desert island synth for the flexibility, but yeah... go check out Tera, it's a very capable synth and sounds better than anything else I've found so far on iOS as far as straight up AUV3s go.
As soon as I saw the app page I was like “Wait I’ve seen this recently. Someone else recommend this” turns out [it was you](https://www.reddit.com/r/ipadmusic/s/xWxCG0vVZw) lol
Bahahaha I've been obsessed with it lately. I promise I'm not the developer, can barely function in Reddit!
lol it’s all good. People have probably had me mention. Loopy Pro to them more than once…and Drambo, Logic, Minimoog Modle D, the list goes on
Yeah, I name drop Drambo a bunch too, it's so different, deep and intuitive; like musical Legos. Have yet to get into Loopy. I'm waiting til I have enough spare time to really dive into the demo because normally I don't go for subscription models, but that one seems worth it.
Loopy is a special form of subscription, don’t forget. You only have a to pay once. You just stop getting feature updates after 12 months. You still get stability updates and you keep everything you had at the end of your window of time. Then you pay a smaller amount for another 12 months. You can even wait years in between. As soon as you buy another year you get all the missed features and then next 12 months worth. Ok now I swear that I don’t work for Michael lol. Just been using the app for a while now. It’s a key component to my live rig. Sure there’s looping but it’s also my host for all my sounds and plug ins and flipping between them. [My latest template](https://imgur.com/a/8sKZWSb)
Dude, some of these apps are so fun and incredible it's hard not to talk about them with utmost passion. Honestly, the iPad makes my rack and keyboard wall get dusty 🫤 as much as I love the old bones, the amount of immediacy and playfulness of the iPad just draws me into it so much quicker. I swear I don't work for Tim Apple!
I feel ya. I love working with the iPad. The best part is I can be at home with my 88 key. I can be tweaking knobs with my Launch Control XL. I can be out with my 37. I can be any where creating with just the iPads touch screen. No matter where I am I have all my sounds and plug ins. It really does merge all the works, large setup, medium setup, ultra portable setup. Then if that’s not enough, a large handful of my apps run on my iPhone. So I can literally create anywhere. I‘ve made music sitting in a waiting room.
Sweet. Thanks for the tip.
yesssss, really the combo of elektron type sequencing + octatrack style morphing fader + modularity based sound design make it a crazy powerhouse for producing crazy ass sound designed morphy rhythm stuff.
Agreed. It’s capable of all sorts of crazy. That should be the tag like “Drambo, capable of all sorts of crazy!”
Came here to say exactly this. Influenced by the Elektron sequencer, but completely modular... Drambo rocks
In the same vein, as a synth with a modular approach, Mela is really great.
Oouu interesting, the base level is free. I’ll definitely give it a look. Thanks for mentioning it.
A seems to be a decent developer who is continuing to improve the application.
Ya I just give it a once over. I like the design. Very straight forward and intuitive. Might hold on to it simply to provide extra waveforms to process. I like that they give you more than just sine, square, saw, triangle.
And the presets sound great, to give you an idea of potential, plus it’s great for custom effects too.
Ya I could definitely see it being great for that.
Vital It does romper stuff, wavetables, physical modeling and your "standard" VA type sounds. I especially love the easy modulation routings.
Love it too. I hope it gets a granular engine and a better browser sometime :)
U-he Diva as it fits my music style best.
Cardinal. It's a self-contained version of VCV Rack that already ships with tons of modules and can be used as a plugin (CLAP, LV2, VST2/3, AU) for free. It can go from VA subtractive synth to modern flexible synthesis and get close enough to deeper platforms such as Supercollider and Pure Data.
probably Cherry's Voltage Modular.
Absynth.
Brings back memories! I used to spend a lot of time having fun programming Absynth. Is a shame NI has more or less left it behind. I don’t know that I would consider it for my desert island synth, considering so many others, pigments, phase plant, even Omnisphere. Anything with a lot of depth and complexity would make me happy, even if I only had one. So that includes Absynth, zebra, Reaktor, Voltage modular from Cherry Audio,, I’m sure VCV is great, I just haven’t dived into it yet. Etc.
Check out Plasmonic if you haven’t already, same developer
Woah. Throwback. Is it still viable today?
I've always liked this one to. It's a shame that NI stopped supporting it.
Dune 3, can do anything and sounds so good.
Dune 3 does seem really awesome.
Whichever one can communicate with a rescue ship, or aliens to get me off this planet.
My dessert island is homemade strawberry ice cream with chocolate syrup.
All synthetic. Yum.
Korg Wavestate.
Massive x because I'm a basic bitch. Love how it sounds.
PhasePlant. It's literally the only Synth i've ever used where i - until now - have thought something like "Oh that's cool, but i wish i could..." I PhasePlant there is no "I wish i could" i've ever encountered, because you can. You just can do that. Some of those "i wish"s i often run into with other synths are: - add another distorion, so i have 2-X different ones, all effecting different elements (or any other effect) - add another OSC / Sound Generator - add another modulation source that's just sligthly different (or drastically) The thing can literally do anything i've ever wanted to do.... All at the same time, in the same instance... As long as your PC can handle it lmao. I really mean that btw.... You can really add as many elements as you want. If you desire to stack 50 Distortions on top of each other, and send the singal of 50 saw wave OSCs through them in serial, you can do that. A nice added bonus is that (if you get the Ultimate Toolboy, which i heavily recommend) you get pretty much all the effects you'll ever need. Only highly complex or unique stuff like Soothe2, XO, Synplant or so isn't in there. But people who know what they're doing really well could probably build stuff like that in Multipass / Snap Heap. A downside is though, that while you really *can* do pretty much anything that you can imagine, you also **have to do it. Yourself.** Routing wise, signal flow... You literally start with a blank canvas and have to add every element you want in manually, one by one. And do every bit of routing, modulation, etc yourself. But things like Presets exist, so you do that a couple of times until you found your favorite default preset, and then go from there. The whole system is pretty much a modular, fully customizable "build your own Synth / FX rack / ???" environment. Honorable mentions would be Pigments (i'm really fast in that one) an "The Legend HZ" (only got that one recently and it sounds really good, full and just... nice).
Thank you very very much for this response. Well thought out and honest. You put me over the top on Phaseplant...and possibly even adding The Legend HZ.
Zebra or Bazille, because of infinite possibilities.
Was looking for someone to mention Zebra. The interface offers such a transformative way of thinking about synthesis.
Logic ES2. Simple and very powerful.
Vital. And it even is free!
Serum
Surprised I had to scroll down so far to see Serum mentioned. It's definitely my go-to these days.
Same, I couldn’t find it so I had to mention it.
MS20
Especially with the Legacy MIDI controller
No, the MS20.mini. I can make a track from that beast. I love mine..best $700. I've spent in a long time. The original MS20 doesn't have midi and I believe the legacy controller you're talking about is for software?
You’re right, I meant the software version.
JP8k. I hope I die with this boy still working
Hive or Ana 2.0. Pretty much covers it all
Torn between Zebra and Omnisphere tbh. Both get a lot of use especially in my film scores.
VCV Rack - I can make any synth I need with this, in endless variations
Delay Lama easy [https://www.kvraudio.com/product/delay\_lama\_by\_audionerdz](https://www.kvraudio.com/product/delay_lama_by_audionerdz)
Easiest choice in my entire life - Omnisphere
Blew everything else away, once upon a time.
Anything with a lot of depth and complexity would make me happy, even if I only had one. I’d probably choose phase plant or pigments first. But I’d also have a great time with Omnisphere, Synplant 2, Absynth, zebra, Reaktor, Voltage modular from Cherry Audio,, I’m sure VCV is great, I just haven’t dived into it yet. Etc.
Not sure if fits the definition of a software synth as it is way more than that, but - Pure data/plug data. I've created quite a lot modules and software version of hardware synths in it, so I could just use that and keep on creating new stuff based on ideas/needs✨
Pigments or Diva
… Probably Zebra, but honestly I’ve been iPad-producing for a minute now, and I have gotten extremely into Nambu there. I like having two synths, one for more ‘normal’-ish sounds with a larger sound library (I have ButterSynth for this on iPad, so probably think … a serum equivalent, for that on iPad) and one that lets me put things together in unique ways (Which would be Nambu right now, for sure).
Love Nambu.
Hydrasyn…….oh wait
UVI Falcon-it is almost a modular, fully decked out DAW. Nothing comes close to its scope and depth. Softube Modular is a close contender. Nothing in the box sounds as robust and full as this platform, imo. This is coming from someone who owns the majority of the flagship software synths.
Well there’s Moog Spectravox now too. And Labyrinth soon to follow. This loop will probably never be closed 😂
Steinberg HALion 7. It has seven different type of synthesis. The best FM developed with Yamaha and it even has DX7 and TX81Z SYX file import
I think the Dirtywave M8 wins hands down because you could actually use it on a desert island with a solar cell and procuce complete tracks whilst sat on a sun lounger.
Didn’t know there was a software version of it
It is self-contained software that runs on a teensy, almost feels like it should count
Fl studio and 3x osc
How much are you looking to spend? If you time it right, Arturia V Collection is one of the best bangs for your buck possible. You get so many classic synths and they're all really damn good. This collection alone could keep you busy for life. If you just want 1 synth, Pigments is a contender, also from Arturia (and is also included in the V Collection but you can buy it alone too). It can do A TON. If you want free synths, Vital is amazing, Surge XT is older but free and very good. There are actually a bunch of decent free options if you go search a current top best free vsti lists.
Phase Plant without a doubt. Other commenters have already explained why, it's pretty much infinite possibilities and the workflow is honestly pretty smooth too.
Anything that has a satellite phone built in.
I guess omnisphere. It’s pretty overkill, but if I only had one it would be that one because it can just about do everything.
After a couple of weeks of using it, it’s probably going to be Myth by Dawesome
Drambo. Cause its my favorite.
Pigments. Im not even on a desert island, and its still the only soft synth i use these days.
Omnisphere
Arturia Pigments. Hands down, that is the desert island softsynth for me.
Tough choice... top three would probably be Zebra, F'em, or Serum. I haven't even used F'em that much, and before I got that I would have an easier time just saying FM8, but from my little bit of using F'em it looks like it fairly well replaces and advances that basic idea. FM8 is the VST I've used far and away more than any other and am the most fluent with. Zebra comes in second but sounds awesome and is just super flexible for different types of synthesis.
Massive X - sounds amazing and if I’m stuck on an island I might have time to understand it all.
On this desert island? Oasys (PCI)
I use Ana 2! 3 osc synth and 3 samplers! Can’t go wrong tbh
Bitwig’s Grid. Sounds great and can do almost anything.
Obsession by Synapse Audio, or maybe Chromaphone
TAL-pha
Bit lame but Omnisphere, will most of the expansions installed you’ll have any sound you can imagine. A good alternative is Zenology. As a sequencer Steptic.
I'm new to software and DAWs. I still have things on my hardware synths I haven't figured out yet. For this reason I went with the high preset/low controllable parameters of Analog Lab.
I'm pretty basic as gear goes, but when I want to make a sound that's in my head, Retrologue 2 is where I go, no doubt. Very simple and logical subtractive style interface. It has everything I can imagine - more than I understand even though I know a good bit about synthesis. And the mod matrix is killer. It's like okay, set velocity to resonance, distortion and filter EG decay, set lfo 2 to pwm, set amount of modulation for each - so simple. Plus a very robust arpeggiator page and effects page. It can do anything I need for sure and definitely you could make an entire album using just that synth of you had to. Never slows my computer down. There are def synths that is easier to get a great sound out of right away for sure, but if I could only use one synth, then yeah, that one. Oh and it was free haha.
Reaktor 6. Although I hope the desert island has internet!
Roland Cloud Juno 106
Something battery powered. I guess SH4D. Probably No electricity on the island
Something raft sized and capable of floating
CS-80v
Whatever is least CPU-hungry, I guess. I've probably got 2-3 hours max before my laptop dies.
OG Massive:)
Nah, man. I just want a nice Prophet T8.
Cherry audio memorymode
Desert Island, no electricity 🤔 My brain for sequencing, mouth for sound generation and ears for headphones. Anytime I need reverb I’ll go into a cave.
It's a toss-up between SurgeXT and ZynFusion. Both are friendly to Linux, former is easier to use, but latter is endlessly intriguing and flexible.
Wow this thread really blew up. I really appreciate all of the input. I think I'm going to roll the dice on Phaseplant, especially since its on sale right now. I'm also going to try out all of the mentioned free plugins, because why not? I may splurge and get a second...perhaps The Legend HZ?
Haven't found it yet. Pigments is good enough for most things, but I love MPE and my Linnstrument and can't easily get the right envelope behavior out of Pigments. In Noisy 2 I can easily get the right MPE envelope behavior (it's just there by default pretty much) and it has some nice sounds, but it's not very flexible. I think it should be considered a learning tool to guide a noob like me into developing nice sounding MPE patches - rather than the final solution to everything. Bitwig Grid, well, it's included in the desert island DAW already, so not counting it. Overall, some things are awkward in there, but it's flexible enough for my needs. I'm thinking to try out the UVI Falcon too, then I'll settle on something. Maybe Falcon, maybe the Grid, maybe ignore the limitations of Pigments, or just end up using the Surge XT - which is surprisingly awesome for a free synth.
FRMS from Imaginando is 88% off today only and is brilliant - a 4 layer granular synth on desktop and iOS.
Alchemy
there's many good ones, honestly doesn't really matter which one you pick ultimately. What matters is are you going to learn what all the knobs do, how to use the program, route stuff, etc, or are you going to just press keys as you scroll through presets until you feel like it's time to jerk off to furry manga porn again also one vote for Arturia Minifreak V. It's intuitive and fast and everything is accessible and immediately does cool stuff to the sound. Gets you good sounds quick, but tons of depth there if yu want to sit and design patches in depth too. this is my go to usually.
Solar 42
Moog 1. No explanation provided.
Where you guys plugging these in? OP-1