softsynth recomendations for Cubase?

[mike vee]

I am new to Cubase 5, but not new to production, and I'd like to get 2-3 of the best softsynths to start with. I mainly do 80s retro/electro pop kind of stuff and some harder electro. I've used reason up to this point, and man...just the stock synths in Cubase and the overall sound have me so excited compared to Reason. I have downloaded a few free ones...but something is telling me they may just be clutter and I should invest in some top end stuff.

I was thinking of going with the arturia vintage collection to start?? What are the current hot/best soft synths?

[aof21]

Arturia stuff is good. So is Native Instruments, particularly maybe FM7/8.

Rob Papen stuff isn't bad, but maybe too modern / techno / rave for the sound you are going for.

Also, one thing with Reason is that a lot of the stock patches are really bad, but you can find some people who make refills that have a lot better patches in them, so don't disqualify Reason on the fact that it might sound bad at first. You can get pretty good sounds out of there if you get some better programming or take the time to program it yourself. Good sounds usually require quite a few modules chained together with fx, etc. Unfortunately, i've never really gotten any softsynth to sound particularly beefy when just playing a raw waveform.

[Mr Arkadin]

Personally i prefer the GForce stuff over Arturia's (although i prefer my Scope stuff over most others).

impOSCar would be a good choice one to demo.

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by mike vee

What are the current hot/best soft synths?

There is no "best", really.

I'd check NI Massive, DCAM Synth Squad (Cypher and Massive both do some great rough basslines), and because it's cheap and powerful - U-He ACE. NI FM8 is good, too, but don't treat it as a subtractive synth.

Also, almost all VSTs have added FX; with Reason, only Thor comes with included effects (delay and chorus), so you have to find out yourself which FX work and which don't.

[filename]

+1 for NI Massive

[Tarkovsky]

Originally Posted by Mr Arkadin

Personally i prefer the GForce stuff over Arturia's (although i prefer my Scope stuff over most others).

impOSCar would be a good choice one to demo.

Gforce's minimonsta is probably one of the best sounding plugins I've ever heard. Really compliments something like FM8. One's fat and ballsy, the other is thin and cuts.

[sneaks]

Originally Posted by aof21

Arturia stuff is good. So is Native Instruments, particularly maybe FM7/8.

Also, one thing with Reason is that a lot of the stock patches are really bad, but you can find some people who make refills that have a lot better patches in them, so don't disqualify Reason on the fact that it might sound bad at first. You can get pretty good sounds out of there if you get some better programming or take the time to program it yourself. Good sounds usually require quite a few modules chained together with fx, etc. Unfortunately, i've never really gotten any softsynth to sound particularly beefy when just playing a raw waveform.

All this is true as far as I'm concerned. Try not to discount Reason COMPLETELY, but experiment using it as a rewire device. Especially because of it's synth capabilities. if you make your synth patches thought out combinator patches, they could come out sounding as beefy or brittle as you want. One of the things I liked about it when I used it was the fact that I could add such a high amount of machines to my Reason instance before my computer would bog down (and my computer is NOT particularly good). I use primarily vst's now and they hog the system much quicker.

As far as vst's go, I like
FM8
synth1 (free)
Impossicar
D16 Phoscyon
Arturia CS-80V
and more I have a brain-lock atm...

[Jovas]

Originally Posted by mike vee

I am new to Cubase 5, but not new to production, and I'd like to get 2-3 of the best softsynths to start with. I mainly do 80s retro/electro pop kind of stuff and some harder electro. I've used reason up to this point, and man...just the stock synths in Cubase and the overall sound have me so excited compared to Reason. I have downloaded a few free ones...but something is telling me they may just be clutter and I should invest in some top end stuff.

I was thinking of going with the arturia vintage collection to start?? What are the current hot/best soft synths?

Check out Fabfilter and Sylenth1

[ysf]

Here are the ones I use most:

Lennar Digital Sylenth 1 (Very fat sounding, cool arp)
Superwave collection (P8, Tarkus, P80, etc....Think Jupiter sounds)
Gforce Imposcar
Vember Audio Surge (many synthesis types)
Rob Papen Albino 3
Novation Vstation
Arturia Collection

There are a ton of great free VSTis at KVRaudio.com as well.

[djanthonyw]

Korg Legacy.

[goz211]

Originally Posted by mike vee

I mainly do 80s retro/electro pop kind of stuff and some harder electro.

+1 for NI FM8 and/or Massive. Maybe dip your toe with one of the Kore soundpacks.

I have the Kore 2 software and hardware controller. The library sounds that come with the Kore 2 software may be all you need for ages.

OP-X is great too - there's a free demo (cut down version with a few sounds) but you can hear the quality.

Post back and let us nosey types know what you go for.

[Tarkovsky]

Massive is pretty useless imo. Makes some really interesting pads, but the rest of the sounds don't mix well at all. You can EQ them tonnes, or you can look elsewhere.

[lowkey]

If you are only getting a limited number of softsynths, then on of them HAS to be NI Reaktor. It's got everything from fx, sequencers, heaps of oldschool emulations like Solina Strings, Juno 106, minimoog, ms20 and more mdern kind of synths. Checkout the support area of reaktor to see all the 'ensembles' that can be downloaded.

[londonvega]

+1 for REAKTOR. It is by far the most versatile and powerful softsynth on the planet. Include the user downloads from the NI community and ..... so mindblowing I am almost speachless.