Which soft synths?

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 4:28 pm

Hi friends

Which soft synths do you recommend to work with Ableton that dont destabilize it with too much CPU use, open quickly, plays well with Ableton, and has all kinds of sounds including drum kits etc?
What do you think of the Native stuff?

Thank you

Mister36 · Post by **Mister36** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 4:38 pm

I personally really like the native ones; especially Operator, which I wish was available in a VST version. Collision and Tension are amazing too and sort of are available as VSTs (AAS Chromsphone and String Studio respectively, and their Ultra Analog is pretty much Analog).

However, your question is so broad, there can be so many suggestions and so many answers - none of which necessarily right for you.

My advice would be to try out a load of the free soft synths available (use KVR and Google to search for the kinds of things you want) and then you can find out what you like and perhaps find the most suitable paid-for ones and "upgrade" to that. There really is so much choice though. Even if you don't want to spend a penny.

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 5:03 pm

There's a million soft synths out there. Too many for my small mind. Stick with the Ableton Suite and maybe upgrade to NI Komplete. But some of the Komplete synths and samplers will tax your CPU.

Not that you asked but hardware synths like the Moog Minitaur and Slim Phatty are affordable and sound amazing. To get over the monophonic thing, sample your wave forms into Sampler. Now it's polyphonic.

Warrior Bob · Post by **Warrior Bob** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 5:16 pm

Best advice I've found for this:

Don't get anything else until you know what problem you're trying to solve. Do you need a certain feature, are you chasing a specific sound? Maybe you just want a particular tool. It sounds like you don't, you just want something ood.

I mean, yeah, you can hunt through plugins and buy a ton of extras but honestly most people don't know what they want yet when they ask broadly for what is good, and so lots of time and money is wasted and everything gets cluttered and actually learning a tool is foregone in favor of trying lots of tools and never learning one well.

Work with what you've got and built out as you need.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 5:41 pm

I-Mac, 10.4.7, 2Ghz Intel Core Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

If you're going to get anything new I'd first recommend upgrading the OS and slapping more RAM in your machine.

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:06 pm

Yes I am soon gonna buy a brand new Mac Book.

-Overall, I am not interested in deep sound design from scratch, just being able to tweak great presets.
-I need all kinds of sounds: instruments, synths, drum kits, bass, world instruments a bonus
-Intuitive, almost manual free in easiness
-The least CPU problematic
-Find sounds by categories
-Whatever I end up getting, it must effortlessly remember and open what synths were selected for each track on Ableton in previous session.
-I will use such sounds to quickly sketch and compose linearly and loop recording. The most important part for me is compositional flow, not being paralyzed by too many options, screens, submenus.

I admit I am confused between benefits of getting a synth vs a software sampler. Not sure of pros and cons of each.

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 9:46 pm

Sebastian wrote:Yes I am soon gonna buy a brand new Mac Book.

-Overall, I am not interested in deep sound design from scratch, just being able to tweak great presets.
-I need all kinds of sounds: instruments, synths, drum kits, bass, world instruments a bonus
-Intuitive, almost manual free in easiness
-The least CPU problematic
-Find sounds by categories
-Whatever I end up getting, it must effortlessly remember and open what synths were selected for each track on Ableton in previous session.
-I will use such sounds to quickly sketch and compose linearly and loop recording. The most important part for me is compositional flow, not being paralyzed by too many options, screens, submenus.

I admit I am confused between benefits of getting a synth vs a software sampler. Not sure of pros and cons of each.

Get the Live suite

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:10 am

Thanks mates.

The Ableton Live Suite with all the instruments looks cool but Im wondering in comparison to Komplete which one has more and better sounding?

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:34 am

Komplete might sound better out of the box but it's going to tax your system. But you can easily get some super clean and big sounds out of the Live Suite.

Really its a matter of how much you're willing to come off of for some plug-ins. There's really good free ones and some awesome expensive ones. It's on you to make that kind of call.

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 3:11 am

Thanks. Tough choice. I need variety of solid real instruments, basses, drum kits, orchestral, world/Latin percussion, pianos, and also lots of synths and electric basses. I write all kinds of genres......

hmmmmmm?

chrissobo13 · Post by **chrissobo13** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 3:38 am

Though I'm sure there are better options, I found Korg's Wavestation VST to have a great variety, and pretty useful all around.

dazzer · Post by **dazzer** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:11 am

I'd say Komplete is a better option than Suite...

Basic Live + Kontact, Massive, FM8, etc = win!

mozzatron · Post by **mozzatron** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:21 am

Definitely get Komplete. It has everything you said you are looking for

Also check out Sylenth for some great sounds, very easy to tweak presets and make them your own, and also extremely intuitive interface

dazzer · Post by **dazzer** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:36 am

mozzatron wrote:Definitely get Komplete. It has everything you said you are looking for

Also check out Sylenth for some great sounds, very easy to tweak presets and make them your own, and also extremely intuitive interface

I own and love Sylenth but with no current 64bit Mac version and nothing on the horizon concerning future development, I wouldn't recommend buying it now.

ze2be · Post by **ze2be** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 7:21 am

Its a little bit of a cpu hog depending on the presets, but Omnisphere is a jack of all trades kind of synth and sampler hybrid, with exelent, quick but very deep signal routings. Tons of lfos and envelopes and step arpeggiators that can easilly be patched to anything. Need to go through some gui tabs though. All kinds of samples and synths. Its the master of hybrid synths. Massive, broad range high quallity sounds. Its medium dificult to program.

If you want a pure synth that is a bit cheaper and also can be lighter on the cpu, there is Zebra. But its a bit more nerdy to wrap your head arround. (Its the easiest modular) Broad range of high class presets. But you need to search the web and also purchase preset sets to get it at the Omnisphere out-of-the-box level. Its hard/complex to program.

I think they both are priced right.

Personally I dont use any of those. My all arround pure synth of choice is Surge because it sounds great, its flexible, easy to program like quick, light on the cpu, and I use Suite synths and samplers to fill the gaps. But I prefer to program every sound myself. And this "package" has a lot less "pro" presets then the first two synths I recomended.

Another good hybrid is Alchemy. Realy nice presets, but there are very few drum sounds. Medium dificult to work and program with.

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