VSTi recommendations for well rounded synthesis types

[optofonik]

I'm trying to round out my VST synth assortment. I've currently got the synths and instruments that are included in Cubase 6, & Komplete 6, Harmor, Hollow Sun MLM Bundle, Bizune, and the free one's from TAL. These were somewhat random choices but I would like to hone in on some specifics.

I'd like to replace (supplement) a few hardware bits with VSTi alternatives: Moog Liberation (Arturia Minimoog V?) microQ (?), Novation Nova (Massive?), Yamaha AN200 (Massive?), Yamaha DX200 (FM with resonant filter???), Ensoniq SQ80 (?), Casio CZ5000 (???), Kurzweil K2000VP (z3ta?), Sequential Circuits MultiTrak (Massive?), Crumar Bit01 (Massive?), Korg Poly 800 (Massive?) & X5DR (?).

The hardware synths I own are from days gone by and at the moment I'm not really working to emulate any particularly popular style as I was when I used them extensively. If I had to site examples of what I'm listening to for inspiration these days on my Pandora stations, in a nutshell, I'd say Stockhausen, Partch, Eno, Budd.

I want to able to switch at any given moment from one synthesis type to another and stay ITB.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Mick

[Xasov]

Check out minimonsta by gforce.

[Rimwolf]

U-He Zebra 2. A modular synth that covers a lot of different synthesis types. Very flexible, great UI, great developer & community.

U-He DIVA. "Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analog".

[Homunculus]

Originally Posted by Rimwolf

U-He Zebra 2. A modular synth that covers a lot of different synthesis types. Very flexible, great UI, great developer & community.

U-He DIVA. "Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analog".

definitely u-he Zebra, there is not much you cannot do with it

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by optofonik

Moog Liberation (Arturia Minimoog V?)

Keep, unless you plan to replace it with a better Moog.

microQ (?)

Waldorf Largo.

Novation Nova (Massive?)

For a VA the Nova has a very Roland-ish sound character on the filter.

Yamaha AN200 (Massive?), Yamaha DX200 (FM with resonant filter???)

I've emulated several AN sounds with U-He ACE. A DX200 - eh, FM8?

Ensoniq SQ80 (?)

SQ8L - [www.buchty.net] Section Ensoniq

Casio CZ5000 (???)

Phase distortion is not that common. There's ReFX PlastiCZ but it's probably very limited.

Kurzweil K2000VP (z3ta?)

Haha, no. Not by a long shot. You want a sample-based plugin for your regular bread & butter sounds, but for VAST processing you need something else.

X5DR (?).

M1 and Wavestation VSTs, though you'd be off better with a Triton rack if you wanted the best of the Korg sound of that era.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Is that everything you have and why do you want to replace it? Setup reduction? Too much stuff cluttering the studio?

It won't make choice during composition easier. You could also uptrade - turn a few of the budget machines in for a higher class analog or digital.

[W-W-Int]

Originally Posted by optofonik

Moog Liberation
Crumar Bit01
Sequential Circuits MultiTrak

these aren't gonna be covered by a vsti other than in a general sense of features and similar in sound. they each have some character to the sound that will not be emulated by a vsti. you can cover the bases pretty well with the native instruments stuff you already have.

Originally Posted by optofonik

X5DR

korg legacy digital edition or original legacy collection that has the m1 plus all expansions.

Originally Posted by optofonik

Korg Poly 800

again legacy collection original, use the poly six turn off one osc bang nearly there

Originally Posted by optofonik

microQ

waldorf largo. the successor to komplexor which was a patch accurate micro-q to the point of being able to indeed load micro-q patches directly

Originally Posted by optofonik

Novation Nova

the whole greatness/distinctiveness of the nova series is the filter's smoothness and the character of the effects so i'd suggest the novation fx bundle. pair that with some patches using the amp and oscs and mods to those only from out of massive with no filtering and you could get there fairly closely

Originally Posted by optofonik

Yamaha AN200

to me massive sounds pretty close at times

Originally Posted by optofonik

Yamaha DX200
Casio CZ5000

fm-8

Originally Posted by optofonik

Kurzweil K2000VP

omnisphere

Originally Posted by optofonik

Ensoniq SQ80

sq-8l

[Karloff70]

Unless you need the money I wouldn't sell the hardware until you have FOUND replacements that whether sounding close or not (not likely in many of those to my mind), subjectively replace them in your workflow. Chances are you might miss some of them badly. I mean, if you actually appreciate their sound/feel to me it would be tricky to imagine how you WOULDN'T end up disappointed. But good luck. If you HAVE to go ITB......

[jarlywarly]

As above, Korg Legacy Collection is a must.

The U-He synths are excellent quality and cover a lot of ground.

Rob Papen Blue is a very capable FM hybrid synth with two filters. Also look at Big Tick Rhino for Flexible FM.

Also for something a little different but also extremely versatile - Vember Audio Surge.

[optofonik]

Wow. Just woke up to these replies. Thanks so much to everyone.

I'm not planning on getting rid of the hardware, just want to try working without it for awhile. I'm really learning to appreciate the convenience of being able to sit down and start working right away due to having all my settings remembered when I load a project

My two M-Audio MIDIsport 8x8 interfaces have turned dodgy under Win7 x64 and are no longer supported which has added to my frustration with using my hardware over the past few months. Space is also at a premium at the moment and 18 synths take up a lot of space.

Again, thanks so much for the recommendations. Looks like I've got a lot of demos to check out next month.

Mick

[gruvsyco]

I'd start with U-he Zebra first. You can do quite a bit with it... Wavetables, VA, FM, Filter FM the list goes on and on. It's bit modular in design. You can pretty much use any component with any other component.. like building an FM patch and adding any of the filters to it including VA and comb. You can move things around in the chain as well... Osc>Filter>Ring Modulator>FM Osc if you like. I think it would cover most of what's on your list, honestly.

If you download the demo you get the free Zebralette which is a single Zebra oscillator.

You can get also pick up his TyrellN6 for free. It is probably one of the best free VA synths out there... but doesn't get discussed much anymore as it's been very much overshadowed by DIVA (which is most excellent).

About the only things I don't think could be covered by Zebra are some of the nastier bits from the Q which could probably be handled by Waldorf Largo (although at this point I would not recommend it) and the Kurzweil which I think would best be substituted with something like Camel Audio Alchemy... (at least when I think Kurzweil, I think sampler with mad synthesis engine).

U-he and Camel Audio both have exceptional support as well and one purchase will generally see you through several .x releases often with feature upgrades (as well as bug fixes)

[Spectral Climax]

SQ-8l: That plugin doesn't have the distinctive dirtiness of an SQ-80 and its filter simulation sucks... It can get close enough generally, but I would at least prefer an esq-m.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by gruvsyco

.... and the Kurzweil which I think would best be substituted with something like Camel Audio Alchemy... (at least when I think Kurzweil, I think sampler with mad synthesis engine).

That's a bit like let's replace the BMW with a Smart car. They both have 4 wheels and all.......must be a similar thing then. I take it you haven't driven a K2000 in anger (or at all....)...

[Spectral Climax]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

That's a bit like let's replace the BMW with a Smart car. They both have 4 wheels and all.......must be a similar thing then. I take it you haven't driven a K2000 in anger (or at all....)...

Alchemy is a very powerful and good sounding synth...it's certainly not a BMW vs Smart thing.

[gruvsyco]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

That's a bit like let's replace the BMW with a Smart car. They both have 4 wheels and all.......must be a similar thing then. I take it you haven't driven a K2000 in anger (or at all....)...

Sorry to have offended your sensibilities oh master of non-contribution.

You're right, I don't know jack about the Kurzweil other than 15 minutes in a music store in the 80s and a google search 10-20 minutes before I posted. What I do know about it is (as I posted) it's a powerful sample engine with powerful synthesis. I only know of one VST that does both of those... Alchemy. So, I gave that as an option to the OP who IS looking for something IN THE BOX so, that he can go download the demo and see if it does what he would like.

I didn't realize the correct response to his query was to tell him to stick to his hardware. My humble apologies.

[bug2342]

I can only provide little help:

For the Casio CZ series: Kassiopeia!
I don´t have a CZ myself, so I´m not sure it really gets close. I think the envelopes are different. But it sounds about right from what I have heard in terms of CZ demos and it is free.

The Kurzweil stuff is tricky...
I agree that Alchemy probably will not do the job.
The big modular systems, like Reaktor could in principle do the job. The big drawback is that (at least in Reaktor) handling multisamples is a bit (read VERY) painful. The DSP blocks on the other hand should not be too hard to build since their beauty/low CPU cost lies in their simplicity.

DX200: FM8 should do.

AN200: Tricky question, because the VA part of the VST market is a bit crowded. Since the AN tries to sound a bit like a prophet and the Pro 53(NI) tries to do the same this might be an OK choice (with some external sequencing). Sadly NI killed this product...(Maybe Arturia Prophet? Never tried it.)
Massive won´t do at all (I think).
Maybe one of the bandlimited vsts that don´t try too hard to be "super moogy analog" and do FM: Zebra and Tera come to mind.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by gruvsyco

Sorry to have offended your sensibilities oh master of non-contribution.

You're right, I don't know jack about the Kurzweil other than 15 minutes in a music store in the 80s and a google search 10-20 minutes before I posted. What I do know about it is (as I posted) it's a powerful sample engine with powerful synthesis. I only know of one VST that does both of those... Alchemy. So, I gave that as an option to the OP who IS looking for something IN THE BOX so, that he can go download the demo and see if it does what he would like.

I didn't realize the correct response to his query was to tell him to stick to his hardware. My humble apologies.

No need to drop your toys on the pavement. Have your opinion. Mine was based on owning a K2000 (and being of the opinion that some of the others can't 'live in the box' either....)for quite a few years, selling it, and badly regretting it, so something I wanted to communicate to the OP. My apologies if that has offended you. This isn't about 'what's the in favour thing to express on gearslutz'.

[tonemaker]

Honestly you've got some fabulous VSTi's already and you have some hardware worth keeping. It's good to have the best of both worlds. So I think you shouldn't try to replace your hardware until it gets really lame compared to software. I doubt that time has come yet.

[optofonik]

Seriously, I'm really not looking to get rid of my hardware! But, I would like to find some vst synths that offer the same type of synthesis; filtered FM, phase distortion, VAST, wavetable, etc, and from what it sounds like I've got some viable options. I guess what Im shooting for is more like having a CZ5000 hardware synth AND a totally different but still phase distortion synth in software.


I also failed to mention the reason behind looking for a vst version of the DX200 is that the editing software doesn't work in Win7 x64; Yamaha basically abandoned it.


I knew this was the right site to post this.

[optofonik]

So, I bought "Inception", watched it yesterday, and will be ordering Zebra later today.

Gruvsyco, why would you not recommend Largo "at this point"?

bug2342, Kassiopeia does look the part so it's worth a shot, thanks. I didn't think phase distortion would be so under-represented in the vst market

Yoozer, W-W-Int, I did some research on the sq-8l and apparently patches can be sent to my SQ80 via sysex which means it works as a librarian. Brilliant for that alone. Thanks.

I'm going to start another thread addressing the availability, or lack of, an editor for the MicroQ,

[gruvsyco]

Originally Posted by optofonik

Gruvsyco, why would you not recommend Largo "at this point"?

Well, because I think Zebra can cover most of what Largo can do and then some. As a Largo user, I feel a bit left out in the cold as far as community goes. They run some medieval style mailing list that seems mostly inactive (except since NAMM when they announced the new Pulse, which everyone is talking about). They don't seem to really be doing anything to update the software (64bit for example)... some guy on KVR that is on beta as I recall said they aren't even working on it in the latest round of betas.

I have Largo and have long been a fan of Waldorf synths. I would totally own their hardware but I'm not likely to buy another softsynth of theirs. I have not been too impressed with them as far as customer service/support goes. Whereas with U-he, Urs, Howard, their new support guy (I forget his name) all interact with the userbase over on KVR. Urs posts almost daily and even posts when he's on vacation. Heck, he's even posted here. The Camel Audio guys are much the same. Andy is a total gear slut... I see him posting all over the place and some of those places doesn't even mention Camel Audio stuff... he just interacts (He's a Tempest user ).

I guess to me, I'd like to know when buying something that the guys behind it are going to be there when you have questions or when that OS upgrade breaks something or whatever. Not to mention that both Camel and U-he have done free point releases that brought new features and... have kickass free plugins too.

whew... need to catch my breath after that long winded run.

[Rimwolf]

I just noticed in the Zebra manual that one of the oscillator effects is phase distortion "as in the ?80s Casio CZ series of synthesizers. The [oscillator] wave acts as a function for the phase of an inverse cosine. The amount knob crossfades between no effect and full effect, so the most dramatic uses of this effect involve modulating the Wave index."

Never had a CZ, so have no idea how close this is.

[W-W-Int]

Originally Posted by gruvsyco

I have Largo and have long been a fan of Waldorf synths. I would totally own their hardware but I'm not likely to buy another softsynth of theirs. I have not been too impressed with them as far as customer service/support goes.

...


I guess to me, I'd like to know when buying something that the guys behind it are going to be there when you have questions or when that OS upgrade breaks something or whatever.

then don't get a blofeld either... or a microwave 1 or 2 or xt etc...

waldorf company policy seems to be; release a great synth architechture... but broken in some way. never fix.

[cuallito]

Image-Line Morphine is flexible and sounds great. Additive synth.

[Disease Factory]

vsts are so over rated and suck at animated fat bass that sounds natural analog. leads up high alias bad or just spund thin, they suck mostly.

[lysander]

Originally Posted by Disease Factory

vsts are so over rated and suck at animated fat bass that sounds natural analog. leads up high alias bad or just spund thin, they suck msotly.

Nooooooooooooo I thought you'd left this board forever why did you have to come back and haunt it with your useless posts and annoying avatar ?

On topic, +1 for Zebra it's amazing and incredibly deep.

[Rimwolf]

Originally Posted by Disease Factory

vsts are so over rated and suck at animated fat bass that sounds natural analog. leads up high alias bad or just spund thin, they suck msotly.

Thank you for expressing your off-topic opinion.

[LotuZia]

FM : NI FM8. Amazing and deep synth
WaveTable : KOrg Digital Edition, Any Waldorf
Analog : Korg Analog Edition, ImpOSCar, Xils-Lab Synthix (especially for the SCI ) and PolyKB II, Novation V-Station ( for the Crumar Bit 99 but in a less ballsy version )
Additive, Granular : Alchemy, IL Morphine

I'd definitely keep the Kurzweil, there's no equivalent of the Vast synthesis even in the digital world.

Nova, SCI and the Bit are great too, even if the edition of the bit 99 is very steppy when preformed in real time.

Note : On "Inception" soundrack the Zebra synthesizer is reported to have been used mainly for some percussive sounds. ( as seen in another forum thread iirc ) A real orchestra have been used for the score also.

[Disease Factory]

VSTS are just like VAs. Good in the middle, suck up high and down low.

Exceptions: Tyrell Nexus 6.

I seriously don't like most VAS for anything low or high, in the middle, i like arturia and sylenth 1, omnisphere and alchemy.

Still though, give me an sh2, jupiter 8, juno 106, or minimoog(old version only new moogs suck, dark and crappy sounding) over anything else for sounds up high and down low.

For the money, these synths just lack up high and down low to be worth the prices they are asking.

[tonemaker]

I think people who say all VSTi's are this or that, haven't actually used all VSTi's. And of course who could? There are millions of VSTi's out now, payware and freeware!!! So people making rampant generalizations about VSTi's are quite foolish in this regard. Don't let them fool you. Try demos for yourself and find out the truth.

If you learn to use Harmor, if you have it (original OP does), then you'll discover that the filter controls are more expansive than is typical for VSTi's and truly allows for deep and full bass synths. And EQ and limiting is built-in as well, so you can go even fuller. And you can control the stereo width of the unison (if you use it), so you don't have to worry about the signal being too wide.

Harmor is a bit wierd to learn at first, but it really outshines a lot of other VSTi's made over the years. And nicely enough, you can get really bright sounds out of it too.

[Resonator]

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