Help me choose a VST synth

[Upright]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to add a new synth to my arsenal as it's tax season and I usually try to add something significant around this time each year.

I was thinking of grabbing Sugar Bytes Cyclop but I'm still undecided on that... Any suggestions would be great. Here is a list the soft synths I currently own..

Live 8 Suite

Komplete 8

Korg Legacy Collection

Razor

[yur2die4]

Zebra?

[Machinesworking]

Second the Zebra recommendation.
Great bread and butter wavetable synth!

Other choices would be:

Iris - can surgically independently subtract time and pitch from an audio file, so you can carve out parts of a sound and layer three parts etc.

Macfive 3 - has IRCAMs granular engine so super smooth granular synthesis, Oberheim filters, a synth section, plus all the sampler features of Kontakt.

Granite - is a cheap but very good sounding granular synthesis synth, quick and dirty LFO's that are not unlike clip automation.

Symptohm - is Ohm Force's granular synth, with amazing filters and LFOs everywhere. <-- The big difference here is Symptohm is dialed in enough to use the samples as wavetables, so it's like a wavetable granular sampler.

[Upright]

THanks for the responses. I completely forgot about Zebra. I'm going to look over all of these. Thanks for the suggestions.

[login]

DIVA, your collections need an analog emulation. NI synths are superb but no one of them is dedicated to analog sounds.

[jestermgee]

DIVA, your collections need an analog emulation. NI synths are superb but no one of them is dedicated to analog sounds.

Korg Legacy Collection

Isn't that ALL KLC is all about?

[login]

DIVA, your collections need an analog emulation. NI synths are superb but no one of them is dedicated to analog sounds.

Korg Legacy Collection

Isn't that ALL KLC is all about?

They are old technology at this point. Also only the ms-20 wpuld overlap, minimoog, jupiter and juno's would be something new in his arsenal.

[tintala]

DIVERSION is KILLER and half off right now!!

http://dmitrysches.com/diversion

[pencilrocket]

It says Cyclops is monophonic....

[agent314]

Hard to go wrong with Zebra2 or DIVA

[oblique strategies]

http://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS-3.html

Reviwed in Sound On Sound:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug10/a ... -xils3.htm

"The XILS 3 is a virtual instrument based on the of the architecture of a classic matrix based modular synthesizer."

It's a virtual EMS VCS3 synth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMS_VCS_3

[J0n35y]

Ive kind of been in the same boat (though deciding whether I should upgrade the laptop, get Komplete, some soft synths or a new controller!!!). Have been demoing Diva and Imposcar2. I found Diva to be stunning and I have used a number of vst's over the years - the sounds it was creating wiped the floor with NI's equivalent offerings.

Synthmaster is another good shout and I think might be discounted right now.

And if budget can stretch, who cannot at least consider Omnisphere!

[d.reamonn]

Predator -> with the 1.6 update, Papen introduced a set of new filters that sound so totally different, it could be another synth. Right up there with Sylenth and Minimonsta in terms of sound, but far more powerful in terms of sound design possibilities. The only synth I'd ever need.

[stoersignal]

Forget cyclops! In my opinion its One of the worst sounding softsynths i've ever tried! (sorry sugarbytes, i love your effects, but i have to say that)I would recommend Zebra, Diva or omnisphere

[Machinesworking]

To be fair NI don't offer any analog circuit modeled synths like Diva.
Absynth is more or less a wavetable synth with some spectral and sampling capabilities. FM8 is an FM synth and Massive is a wavetable synth.

Diva sounds better to ears used to soft synths because mostly you have software versions of Virtual Analog synhs, wavetable synths and sample/granular based synths out there. Better in this case means completely different sounding.