Computer Music's Top 10 Softsynths - Final Five!

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:37 pm

^ I don't think you have to defend yourself to anyone here, as Zebra is universally recognized as the king of the heap.

Besides, I think Beats Me was referring more to the fact that Native Instruments gets a free ride far too often while indy developers need to work much harder, and NI suffers from poor poor tech support.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:40 pm

Urs wrote:
beats me wrote:
Urs wrote: Yes, I sent them half a year of my earnings! Which would equal 1/2 page of advertisement in their magazine
What a sad statement to be made by the developer of the #1 softsynth.

If you sell the license (and your soul) to NI you can get free advertising for life and you don't have to be concerned with customer service. NI will not take care of your customers for you and you can just take your phone off the hook and program all day.
Hey, I'm doing fine, living a happy life working for happy customers that fortunately don't need much support!

I have of course *not* sent any funds to CM magazine... I just wanted to point out that the vote was in no way influenced by any sort of sponsorship - as the the quoted poster suggests.

Urs

And why I would have to say anything in your defense is silly.

You kids wish you had as manly of a voice as Urs, and rest assured in person, the man is down to earth as they get.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:42 pm

Machinesworking wrote: You kids wish you had as manly of a voice as Urs, and rest assured in person, the man is down to earth as they get.

So Urs is the man for you, eh? Good to know your type.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:45 pm

nebulae wrote:^ I don't think you have to defend yourself to anyone here, as Zebra is pretty universally recognized as the king of the heap.

Besides, I think Beats Me was referring more to the fact that Native Instruments gets a free ride far too often while indy developers need to work much harder, and NI suffers from poor poor tech support.

Absynth, FM8, and Massive all deserve to be in the top ten. Whether a synth comes from a corporate entity like Apple, Cakewalk, or NI, or from a developer like Urs, if it doesn't sound good then I'm not buying it. I have had no problems with tech support. The simple rule is to call them if you can, the question will be answered quicker.

The NI bashing around these parts is just retarded.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:09 pm

nebulae wrote:Native Instruments gets a free ride far too often

I don't think so. I know enough people at NI to say that they're highly committed and well deserving some respect. Their business model is different from those of most independents, but that doesn't make their products worse. There are other companies that I better won't mention who simply don 't stand up to their marketing burps, but NI isn't one of them.

Urs

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:38 pm

Ok ok ok, geez, I'll stop slamming NI.

Homebelly · Post by **Homebelly** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:40 pm

Urs wrote:
nebulae wrote:Native Instruments gets a free ride far too often
I don't think so. I know enough people at NI to say that they're highly committed and well deserving some respect. Their business model is different from those of most independents, but that doesn't make their products worse. There are other companies that I better won't mention who simply don 't stand up to their marketing burps, but NI isn't one of them.

Urs

+!,, Right on!!!

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:56 pm

Homebelly wrote:
Urs wrote:
nebulae wrote:Native Instruments gets a free ride far too often
I don't think so. I know enough people at NI to say that they're highly committed and well deserving some respect. Their business model is different from those of most independents, but that doesn't make their products worse. There are other companies that I better won't mention who simply don 't stand up to their marketing burps, but NI isn't one of them.

Urs
+!,, Right on!!!

NI occasionally have made some bad calls, but as the recent K2 to K5 upgrade announcement shows, they can learn.
I do think their marketing department is a little too rabid, but Reactor and Absynth are my favorite besides Zebra. FM8 is getting up there too!

djgroovy · Post by **djgroovy** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:09 pm

I dont own any NI product, although i would love to have Reaktor at least.
From what i hear, it's not so much the quality of the products that's so bad (altough some of the latest seem to be full of bugs at .0 versions), but the almost non-existing support.
And its no good splashing out your dough and then not being able to use it because of lack of support to solve your problems - imho, this should be n.1 priority for developers like NI.
Otherwise it's 1-0 for the pirates.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:20 pm

Whatever happened to subjective taste?

A lot of the synths are pc only. Which means they basicaly polled pc users. If they polled at all. And almost all of the developers have given free stuff (or made a deal for free distribution) of stripped down versions of their products.

Where's Automat? Where's ABL Pro?

And as far as NI goes... I owned 3 of their products and all of them crapped out with virtually no support. Sticking notes in Absynth anybody? Or how about Final Scratch 1.5?

Your milage may vary and I wasn't even talking about zebra.
Never bothered much with Zebra because of Automat, so I cant really comment on quality/support there.

1 list doesn't make up the opinion of a community. Especially if it excludes a whole OS platform.

Whatever happened to subjective taste?

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:25 pm

I was also thinking they should have had a PC list and a Mac list. The main freebie with CM over the last 4 or 5 issues has been PC only. In fact I think the last freebie they had that was for Mac was ZebraCM.

So I agree this isn't exactly level representation when you take OS into consideration.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:35 pm

As far as I can see, only Z3ta+ is Windows only?

Regarding platform, all audio software companies I spoke to about this sell between 40:60 to 60:40 Mac vs. Win, including those I know in that list. Naturally those that are crossplatform are more likely to get more votes.

The major surprises to me are that only one analogue emulation made it into that list (Oddity, and that's a good one IMHO), and that none of the dedicated SuperSaw synths made it into the top.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:35 pm

Machinesworking wrote:
Homebelly wrote:
Urs wrote: I don't think so. I know enough people at NI to say that they're highly committed and well deserving some respect. Their business model is different from those of most independents, but that doesn't make their products worse. There are other companies that I better won't mention who simply don 't stand up to their marketing burps, but NI isn't one of them.

Urs
+!,, Right on!!!
NI occasionally have made some bad calls, but as the recent K2 to K5 upgrade announcement shows, they can learn.
I do think their marketing department is a little too rabid, but Reactor and Absynth are my favorite besides Zebra. FM8 is getting up there too!

I'm thinking you like Waves products and support as well, right?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:38 pm

Urs wrote:As far as I can see, only Z3ta+ is Windows only?

.

And Surge and Sylent1

aburgener · Post by **aburgener** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:39 pm

hoffman2k wrote: And as far as NI goes... I owned 3 of their products and all of them crapped out with virtually no support. Sticking notes in Absynth anybody? Or how about Final Scratch 1.5?

oh man, i ALWAYS got stuck notes with Absynth when i tried it