VST Synths / Drum Machines & Drum Sample Libraries

[Lane Visitor]

Let's discuss...

 

What is everyone using these days?

 

Outboard gear / hardware synths/drum machine discussion is welcome, but I'm particularly curious of what ya 'll are using these days on the digital side....?

 

Me, ive been rocking fm7 a ton, as well as sylenth, pro52, albino 2. miroslav philharmonic on the softsynth/sampler end and countless drum hit libraries including Wave Alchemy, Black Octopus Sound, Vengeance, Normal 909... Nicky Romero's "Kick" vst and a slew of others. So many good tools out there right now.. Hard to keep track of (:

[Nil]

U-He Diva and Bazille when it comes to synths. Audiospillage DrumSpillage and Elecktroid, as well as Wave Alchemy's Transistor / Digital Revolution for drums.

I have an Analog 4 gathering dust until my to-be-completed mini-LP is done: I'll never finish it if I start incorporating the A4 to that current project...

I'd love to buy a Rytm as well : I'm saving for it, and hopefully will have the money when the LP is finished (by this summer hopefully).

[Ded4m]

Tremor & Battery for beats, Harmor and all sorts of Reaktor custom/weirdos for synths...

 

EDIT : Hardware synths includes Microbrute,Dark energy 2,Syb3.

[Grain Bastard]

Battery 4 for some drums although its shit compared to V3. That along with MD SPS-1 Mk2 & OP-1 for sampling. Kontakt in the box, plus Absynth, FM8 & Reaktor. I have 3 analog synths too, Mopho, Microbrute & TT-303. Also iPad synths like Nave, Animoog & Wave Generator etc.

[perunamuusi]

ts404

wasp

wasp xt

fl3osc

[Guest]

Mainly samples in renoise and use the 3.0 envelope/modulation/dsp possibilities in the instrument editor. You can dl some of my older made instruments here; http://forum.renoise.com/index.php/files/file/17-ravy-padsynth-stuff/

 

These instruments use the padsynth tool as base material ( http://www.renoise.com/tools/padsynth).

 

The CDP tool is also one of my goto dsp tools for mangling sounds, too many possibilities.

[xox]

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

[Lane Visitor]

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

 

+1 ... how do you like zebra compared to massive btw?

[Lane Visitor]

Tremor & Battery for beats, Harmor and all sorts of Reaktor custom/weirdos for synths...

 

EDIT : Hardware synths includes Microbrute,Dark energy 2,Syb3.

 

Nice! I DLed the demo of harmor and fell in love with it.. definitely on my list of things to buy.. some of the tones and transients are just punchy and clean as fuck. I already use FM7 and Sylenth so I have the capability of both subtractive and additive, but I feel like the possibilities for experimentation on Harmor and the deep potential for detailed sound design may make it worth getting, plus even the stock sounds are incredible. Wonder how it compares in terms of sound engine/ envelope quality to FM8 / Razr and other FM staple soft synths.. and how it's subtractive side sounds compared to Massive/Zebra/Sylenth.

 

Edit: Plus i know soft synth graphics/skins means little to nothing, but I LOOOVE Harmor's 1995-97 dystopian/ noir-ish aesthetic. I feel like I'm in the movie Se7ev or 12 Monkeys while working on production for David Bowie's Outside album.

[xox]

 

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

 

+1 ... how do you like zebra compared to massive btw?

 

 

at first zebra looked very complicated and unintuitive to me but once i figured it out it became my "no.1 guy" for non-fm synthesis.

massive is easy to build sounds (and set up modulations) and massively sounding indeed, although zebra sounds much more 'smooth' and 'deep' to my ears. if i'd need to choose between them i'd take zebra. definitely!

[Lane Visitor]

 

 

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

 

+1 ... how do you like zebra compared to massive btw?

 

 

at first zebra looked very complicated and unintuitive to me but once i figured it out it became my "no.1 guy" for non-fm synthesis.

massive is easy to build sounds (and set up modulations) and massively sounding indeed, although zebra sounds much more 'smooth' and 'deep' to my ears. if i'd need to choose between them i'd take zebra. definitely!

 

 

Ah that's cool, good to know.. it's hard to know unless you've been using it for a while, so sometimes demoing doesn't quite tell..

 

I'll have to look more into Zebra.. I know that there's that Massive sound that's used on so much dubstep/complextro type stuff that's a pretty played out sound (like Sylenth as well), so it's cool to try something a little less used.

[Nil]

You can't go wrong with anything by U-He, really. Best softsynths IMHO.

[xox]

 

 

 

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

 

+1 ... how do you like zebra compared to massive btw?

 

 

at first zebra looked very complicated and unintuitive to me but once i figured it out it became my "no.1 guy" for non-fm synthesis.

massive is easy to build sounds (and set up modulations) and massively sounding indeed, although zebra sounds much more 'smooth' and 'deep' to my ears. if i'd need to choose between them i'd take zebra. definitely!

 

 

Ah that's cool, good to know.. it's hard to know unless you've been using it for a while, so sometimes demoing doesn't quite tell..

 

I'll have to look more into Zebra.. I know that there's that Massive sound that's used on so much dubstep/complextro type stuff that's a pretty played out sound (like Sylenth as well), so it's cool to try something a little less used.

 

 

i know what you're saying. it's hard to sound 'fresh' these days. that's why i like to use (or better to say abuse/misuse) reason's malstrom and reason's built-in effects and to use max/msp and supercollider 'cheep' sounds on top of the 'smooth' vst synths' sounds... and so on.

[Lane Visitor]

 

 

 

 

alchemy

massive

fm8

zebra

 

max/msp synthesis

supercollider synthesis

 

microtonic

 

kontakt

 

 

ableton's synths

reason's synths

 

+1 ... how do you like zebra compared to massive btw?

 

 

at first zebra looked very complicated and unintuitive to me but once i figured it out it became my "no.1 guy" for non-fm synthesis.

massive is easy to build sounds (and set up modulations) and massively sounding indeed, although zebra sounds much more 'smooth' and 'deep' to my ears. if i'd need to choose between them i'd take zebra. definitely!

 

 

Ah that's cool, good to know.. it's hard to know unless you've been using it for a while, so sometimes demoing doesn't quite tell..

 

I'll have to look more into Zebra.. I know that there's that Massive sound that's used on so much dubstep/complextro type stuff that's a pretty played out sound (like Sylenth as well), so it's cool to try something a little less used.

 

 

i know what you're saying. it's hard to sound 'fresh' these days. that's why i like to use (or better to say abuse/misuse) reason's malstrom and reason's built-in effects and to use max/msp and supercollider 'cheep' sounds on top of the 'smooth' vst synths' sounds... and so on.

 

 

Yes! good point, i also like combining cheap grainy digital sounding stuff with smooth vsts.. love that combo!

 

Dude, yes, that Malstrom can sometimes sounds incredible for weird spectral polysynth type stuff... Also Scream4's tape setting: yummm

[Guest laco]

battery and max.

 

have been using razor (reaktor synth) a lot recently, trying to get some digital sounding percussion out of it.

[Guest fiznuthian]

Oatmeal

Charlatan

Obxd

SQ8L
Shortcircuit

Synth1

Tyrell N6

Uncle Sam

Dexed

 

(^^ all free except for Uncle Sam. WOK gave it away for free if you emailed him on new years)

 

Then there's Polysynth, Sampler, and FM-4 in Bitwig too.. they're both fantastic and easy to use.

[Guest fiznuthian]

charlatan is a boss hog freebie. looks great, sounds great, slightly different architecture to most softsynths.

 

yeah it's very simple but sounds amazing. doesn't have much internal modulation so i route my own externally to it in the 'wig.

hot damn does it sound delicious.

[Lane Visitor]

My dream setup for vst synths:

 

*Diva

(for lush warm analogue-ish)

*Harmor

(For FM/subtractive hybrid/deep sound design)

*Spire

(for solid trusty bass synths from what ive heard)

*Serum

(For wavetable / cutting edge / in your face/3d/super deep sound design)

 

.. Getting a little bored of my Sylenth and it's sound. It does what it should for the modern vst sound, but i need some new character.

[kcinsu]

Drumspillage 2 for synth drums

 

http://www.audiospillage.com/drumspillage.html

[Braintree]

I basically just use battery 3 and the FM8. Most of my tracks in the last two years have been made like that. Building my own drum kits and patches.

 

Going to start using my Volcas once I get a new audio interface.

[YEK]

i also forgot to mention the TAL plugins as they sound just as great and are also free. everyone should have the whole set, go google them

TAL have some great filters...

[Guest skibby]

MPowerSynth by Meldaproduction really caught my ear while going through the presets.

Incidentally, their freeware suite has become indispensable to me.

[flaptop]

As far as sample libraries go (kontakt and such), Soniccoutures 'The Attic' is my go to for vintage synth emulations. I use a lot of NI's Abbey Roads 60's Drums too. For software synths, mostly Zebra 2. I used the shit out of battery 3 until I started making my own drum racks in ableton, but i recommend using some of 'xoxo's' vsts if your using battery 3. he makes an instrument called 'series' which pretty much sends midi signals to certain channels within a sampler so you could come up with instant random glitchiness. like instant autechre. it's super fun!

[logakght]

samplephonics has great samples

[logakght]

MPowerSynth by Meldaproduction really caught my ear while going through the presets.

Incidentally, their freeware suite has become indispensable to me.

 

 

their paid stuff is ace