Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Synths That Get No Love.

tressie5

tressie5

The Quest for Balance
Growing up, I was THAT KID that got ignored, the outsider always looking in. By default, I reached out to other kids who were also outcasts, fringe dwellers as it were. It's probably why, to this day, I happily embrace synths that time has cruelly made impotent. Which synths? Seaweed Audio's Fathom, Ozcan's Genesis Pro, SPC's ArcSyn, 2nd Sense's Wiggle, Audjoo's Helix, Dmitry Sches's Diversion, LinPlug's CRx4, Ocean Swift's OSS Enterprise, SoloStuff SoloRack, Audiaire's Zone, OT Genesyn, and a few others.

Demoing them, I scratched my head wondering, "Hey, this doesn't sound half bad. How come this failed while Sylenth1, Serum, Zebra, Spire, Pigments, Diva, etc prospered?" As an ambient artist, I find their various plucks, pads, basses, arpeggiators and tweakability immensely useful. Then again, maybe it's just me.
Click to read more...
 
Another developer of synth plugin's I have never hear mentioned on vi-control is Tone2.
I have ElectraX 2 and Icarus 2 from them. Electra X has a lot of different synth engines and is therefore most flexible. Icarus is based on FM synthesis.

Now I am a preset guy (rather then building sounds myself). Happily both come with lots of great and varied sounds.

You can download demos of all synths on the Tone2 website with all presets included, so you can hear for yourself if they are what you are searching for. Load and play them in your DAW, but not in the standalone app. Because strangly enough the sustain pedal works as you expect when playing in your DAW, while sounds abort abruptly when you play the same in the standalone app.

https://www.tone2.com/electra2.html


At the bottom of these webpages you see review conclusions of (e-)magazines like Computer Music, Keys and Sound Bytes.
 
All of Tone 2 stuff is amazing. Forgotten in the digital dust bin.

Imposcar by GForce. Totally forgotten at this point.

I think some of these may become revived like classic synths that time forgot like The Cat synth or something. I've often thought about just dedicating a whole machine to old synths like Devine Machine's Krishna which was the first or second real softsynth I bought. Before that there was Reason's Thor. Scored so many movies with Thor until I finally got Krishna and MPowersynth, which is another overlooked gem. But, Thor is so deep that I never even learned to use all the modules before moving on and I used the synth since its release in 2004 I believe.
Here's demo of this old forgotten classic.
 
tressie5 said:
Growing up, I was THAT KID that got ignored, the outsider always looking in. By default, I reached out to other kids who were also outcasts, fringe dwellers as it were. It's probably why, to this day, I happily embrace synths that time has cruelly made impotent. Which synths? Seaweed Audio's Fathom, Ozcan's Genesis Pro, SPC's ArcSyn, 2nd Sense's Wiggle, Audjoo's Helix, Dmitry Sches's Diversion, LinPlug's CRx4, Ocean Swift's OSS Enterprise, SoloStuff SoloRack, Audiaire's Zone, OT Genesyn, and a few others.

Demoing them, I scratched my head wondering, "Hey, this doesn't sound half bad. How come this failed while Sylenth1, Serum, Zebra, Spire, Pigments, Diva, etc prospered?" As an ambient artist, I find their various plucks, pads, basses, arpeggiators and tweakability immensely useful. Then again, maybe it's just me.
Click to expand...
I do like Wiggle and other synths.

I guess I've decided to learn Falcon in-depth before I learn other synths in depth, due to time constraints. Other musicians probably choose Serum or Diva for the same reason, and because there are so many patches and tutorials available.
 
Also (and I'm guessing here), the three Waves synths (Flow Motion, Element and Codex) have been abolished to Synth Leper Island, never to be heard from again, in favour of their more handsome and popular brethren. Sigh. Breaks my heart.
 
tressie5 said:
Also (and I'm guessing here), the three Waves synths (Flow Motion, Element and Codex) have been abolished to Synth Leper Island, never to be heard from again, in favour of their more handsome and popular brethren. Sigh. Breaks my heart.
Click to expand...
Hold on - as a huge Flow Motion fan I can proudly claim at least I mention it regularly in the FM Synths thread ;)

But I have grown cautious to even mention Waves because it is root cause #1 for uninvited tribalism haha, so I get your point.

Not a synth: but the Waves EP and clavinet instruments and their bass guitars are equally great.
 
It has a distinctive sound that I have been able to succesfully deploy on a number of electronic tracks over the years. It is maybe a bit mid-rang-y, that seems a fair assessment. But it has a weird appeal. It’s a noisy gritty little bugger.
 
I have always wondered why synths from AIR don't receive more love in general. Maybe due to their historic ties with the PT ecosystem. Sound and feature-wise they might not be "cutting edge", but they are certainly polished and well-rounded products that shouldn't be ignored. Also, they have a certain simplicity and compactness which is sometimes lacking in other more hailed VI's.

On the other hand, I must say that I have also forgotten about my AIR products collection in favor of Komplete these days, but mostly because I prefer not to have so many options to choose from.
 
MLaudio said:
It may not be considered "that" underrated, but i don't see much talk about DS Thorn. I love Rapid, Dune 3 and Europa, but something about Thorn just yields such good results so quick. The Harmonic filter is unique and a lot of fun.

Id say its my favorite synth to build patches for.
Click to expand...
Still waiting for an M1 native version though.
 
I was going to say AIR Vacuum Pro as well. But I see it has been mentioned.

The other must-have is AIR Hybrid 3. FWIW, years ago, my big holdup converting from Protools over to any other DAW was that Avid had exclusivity on Air plugins. When they released those as VST, it was adios to Pro Tools.

If you dig through the entire AIR package, you can create some really great sounds with Xpand. Also AIR Filter Gate is crazy good for turning pads into pulses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom