ive been testing alot of softsynths over the past few months looking for the quality of sound comparable to my virus kc with electronic/trance music in mind. hopefully this might save some other people time. this is mostly based on presets and a fair bit of tweaking for ones without good sounding presets. i realise this will be controversal as i dont sing the praises of expensive software but i am judging on sound quality and whether its as good as modern hardware for trance sounds.
toxic III - some good arp sequences and dual arpeggiator but lacking some controls, a few good full and focused sounds but most are quite plane.
spectrasonics atmosphere - overinflated library and overhyped, only really good for some atmospheric sounds/pads/strings. lack of tweakability.
spectrasonics trilogy - wide range of good bass samples. quality sounds but overhyped for a bass synth. again not much control over sounds.
v-station - some decent full sounds, good for hard distorted sounds but lacks versitility in others. simple and easy to tweak and good distortion and delay.
ravity - quite similar in my mind to the v-station, some good full solid sounding patches almost like hardware but not too many, not really inspiring enough to keep going with it.
superwave p8- hyped for its supersaw sounds, its ok, but still doesnt sounds as good as other synths.
realguitar- much better guitar sounds than in any synth i used
magnus choir - good choirs maybe matched by the best choir sounds in hypersonic but id much rather use this. it doesnt use gigerbytes of hard disk space with samples as competitors do which is as plus in my mind.
edirol orchestral- good string sounds without needing a gigerbyte library. perhaps a little 80's film/tv score sounding now and not massively full sounding but still worth having.
zebra 2 - seems to have quite a few goa/psy trance sounds but you need a phd to operate this thing to get the sounds you want out of it and its pretty much exclusively for electronic or guitar string sounds. i really wanted to like this but after so many hours on it but it just takes too long to learn and tweak to get even close to what you want. good comb filter producing lots of of steel string guitar type sounds. presets are made from independent developers but still lacks the fullness of a hardware synth.
has many unique features and is based on adding modules to build up a synth, parameters can also be set to the arp and a section called mseg is like a built in sequencer. wonderful unique features and a number of good sounds but its too time consuming to program.
pro-53 - some decent sounds approaching what you could get out a hardware synth but didnt really blow me away.
nexus - didnt get too much time on this but some very good sounds equal to hardware, alot of trancey leads mainly. however its too basic being a rompler and lacks control over the sound. i dont like the idea of buying more sounds for it either so i tend to avoid it. the sounds are also maybe too prominant in a mix.
absynth - generally good and intricate soundscapes throughout but thats pretty much all its good for, ambients sounds. i never got round to doing much editing but from the unconventional layout of the menus that was enough to make me not want to.
albino 3 - i spent sometime on this because of the hype surrounding it. to be honest most of the sounds are dry and thin compared to hardware and other software, quite disappointing. quite alot of variety in the presets and its geared towards electronic music but at the end of the day its just mediocre.
dimension pro - didnt spend much time on this, cycled through the presets and they sounded weak.
rapture - didnt spend too much time on this either, nothing stood out, i prefered toxic III to both of the last two mainly for simplicity.
bass station - some ok bass sounds nothing that would draw me back to it though. obviously triliogy is better but doesnt have the tweakability.
hypersonic 1 - thin sounds throughout but good for quick layering of presets.
hypersonic 2 - improved sounds but still too thin. maybe a jack of all trades as it covers every sound from acoustic to electronic. still the best for quick layering, many use this as a sketchpad, layering the same sounds makes them louder but doesnt do much to thicken them up. the drums are good but theyre all real kits no electonic ones.
minimonsta - aimed more at older sounds with the presets so didnt blow me away. ok quality sounds but nothing that made me want to use it more.
vanguard - aimed at electronic and trance music but its had its day. most of the sounds are much alike and have a metallic character, they lack the depth and quality of hardware sounds. lacks a few controls, has a ok built in gate. the best sounds in it sound quite full as if theyre layed but are still quite cold and metallic. perhaps good for the occasional supersaw.
so the best ive tried that come closest to hardware are -
z3ta+ - a great sounding synth with alot of trance and electronic sounds, alot of the patches are full sounding and come close to what i can get with a virus kc. the effects section is good but i would like a gate. alot of the presets have chorus and delay on as does the virus.i have noticed after comparing that the oscillators have a bit of white noise to their character which i dont want sometimes. a good arp with 128 preset patterns and your own patterns can be put in on later versions. the sound quality is good and inspires you to use it more and there are hundreds of presets. its not bogged down with an overly complicated interface.
sylenth1 - excellent fat quality electronic sounds throughout almost as good as the virus and probably better than other hardware. the sounds are fat but dont seem to be overpowering like nexus. filters, oscillators, effects are all good. my only complaint about the sound is that with some sounds you cant dial in enough bass and the eq only has bass and treble. it lacks some controls although has enough to do most of what you want but this is all about sound quality which is the philosophy of the guy who made it.
its all about sound quality and to my mind z3ta and sylenth (possibly nexus) are the only ones to match hardware. i have reaktor but have never really used it due to the overcomplex nature of building up a synth from scratch plus the complaints ive heard of it sounding thin.
kinda weird that it looks cracked even though its from the owners site. maybe it was made freeware to get more people using it
