Don’t rule out Talmod , one of my favourites …awesome sound
In fact I only use 4 softies on a regular basis , zebra hz, talmod , tranzistow and reaktor ( mostly home brew stuff)
That’s really all you need 
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I’ve got Hive on my watchlist over on PlugIn Boutique - I would suggest checking out Synthmaster if you haven’t already of course - its really flexible and also pretty gentle on CPU. I only have a midrange mobile Ryzen 3500U and it is really gentle on it.
Ozone 9 elements is free (“buy” this bundle and use the coupon code in the checkout).
Elements includes the maximizer, I will try it out and see how it compares to limiter6
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Pigments 2 presets only consume 5% of my Intel 6 cores CPU at max I believe. It’s a wonderful synth with great filters indeed.
Get Ozone Elements and then upgrade it to advanced on a Black Friday or similar for a big saving.
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Spire
Synth by Reveal Sound
Virtual Synthesiser
- Flexible software synthesiser with clear operation
- 4 Polymorphic oscillators with the modes Classic, Noise, FM, AMSync and SawPWM
- 9 Unison voices per oscillator with adjustable intervals for generating e.g. Super- or Hyper-SAW
- 2 Multimode filters with the modes Perfecto, Infecto, Acido, Scorpio and Combo
- Various modualtion possibilities with 4 macros, 4 envelope curves, 4 LFOs with morphable waves
- 15 Modulation slots with 2 sources each and 4 targets
- 2 Stepper and arpeggiator
- Effect section with Shaper / Decimator, Phaser / Vowel, Chorus / Flanger, Delay, Reverb and Multiband Compressor
- Over 700 presets
- Optional sound sets available from the manufacturer
Specifications:
- Supported formats: VST2 / AU / AAXnative
- System requirements: from Win7 (32/64-bit), from Mac OSX 10.8, Multicore CPU, Internet connection.
“Astonishing sound quality and versatility, need a initial bit of training because of the number of functions, but has a huge sound library from to start.”
Spire is not fun with Renoise as it doesn’t render its first note played properly.
I really love the synth but I am not using it anymore. I bet it’s a simple fix for either Renoise or Reveal but I have reported it to Reveal multiple times without it getting resolved.
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I am curious: Does Spire also introduce some samples of PDC, e.g. like Zebra2? Since Zebra2 has similar problems. Another try could be to enable static buffers for Spire…
It’s not the same issue I believe, Spire is playing on beat but it’s like a note-off command is sent immediately after first note therefore making first note very short which is obviously not great. Enabling static buffers doesn’t help.
Xfer Serum is probably a synth i will end up purchasing. I use their free plugin OTT all the time, so i’d like to support them and i have little doubt Serum is a killer synth. They have introduced a new rent to own plan, where you pay $10 for 19 months and after that you own it. You can pause this plan at any time, so this sounds like a pretty good deal. At first i thought it was a down payment credit card loan type of thing, but i really like the fact it is possible to stop the ‘subscription’ at any time and then pick it back up later if you want or need to and after paying 19 times it’s yours to keep.
I just noticed that a version 3 of ZynAddSubFX is available now, even though it’s open source and you could compile it and get it for free, it is also available compiled for $49.
https://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.io/zyn-fusion.html
Has anyone experience with this version? I have been told that version 2 were less stable than version one, but i read on their page that the version 3 is the most stable version, so if that’s the case $49 should be absolutely worth it. I’ll guess i’ll try the demo and see for myself, but i’d like to hear if you have any input.
I have no problems with stability using version 1, wich is completely free and sounds amazing and has tons of features. The big problem with this version though is the ridiculous GUI. It’s not that hard when you know your ways around it, but it can be very frustrating to make great patches from scratch. Fortunately it comes with a lot of presets, so if you find something similar to what you want it’s quite easy to tweak them to your likings. It’s great for pads and leads. You can use it for bass sounds and fx too, but i would not use it for drum/percussive sounds.
If you want a free version of serum, you should try vital, it’s basically the same.
I looked a bit into it and i’ll definately try that, though not sure it will totally kill the idea of buyng Serum. If you want the most features in Vital you need to pay a $5 subscripion anyway.
The free version is the full synth with all features (see vital website)
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Nice comparison.
I think another element to take into account is that vital came out only end of last year and serum exists since 2014, so I see some potential in the future vital versions.
One thing is wrong in this list. Text to wavetable is possible in Serum too. Just enter something in quotes in the formula editor, but it sounds more like the old TTS from atari.
Don’t waste your time, the download is not working! If you click on download after the “purchase” you will get linked to this page. No download happening, nothing. Is it a trick to fool people to get some registrations? Hmm…
Worked for me ! You need to look just up from the download button, there you will find the serial that you can enter in the izotope product portal after installing it. pluginboutique does not allow you to download anything here, it just gives you the serials.
I see. Ok, thanks for the information. Obviously the informations you get on pluginboutique are misleading. There is clearly written click on download and so on. Of course I didn’t install the product portal because it already is installed, I’m already a customer of iZotope for a year or something like that… After the install Elements is distributed in 3 different folders, I had to search for a while until I’ve found the .dll-files. But now it finally works.
Similar, yes, but not the same. If it works, which is not the case for every Renoise user, then it might have got even some more possibilities than Serum. But Serum is established since years, it’s clearly one of the best, and of course it has way more users than Vital, and there are millions of soundbanks available But Vital is pretty new, so for sure it will grow in every aspect.
I have Xfer Serum, Vital and Phase Plant.
When I had only Serum, I though it was great, but Phase Plant gives me more options to create sound (with less effects because only few of thems are free, rest you must buy separately - but then Phase Plant is not worth its price; you can still create great sounds with default effects). PhasePlant have everything what Serum plus possibility to handle samples - and three columns of effects. And better default presets.
Serum have better waves modifications, but Vital have it as well, so if you need that type of sound modification - Vital gives you more.
Phase Plant sounds imo better than Serum (and Vital) - at least with less effort.
Don’t get me wrong, Serum is great, but after I bought Phase Plant and download Vital, I kind of regret that I bought Serum. Still made lot of presets using Serum (because is very easy and effects are good), but I could made whole song using only Phase Plant and I’m not sure if it will be possible with Serum.
If I may recommend something, that will be combo - Phase Plant + Diva.
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I am currently working with MSoundFactory. I think it is the most complete synth available, since you also can use any Melda plugin inside, which is some kind of crazy.
But the UX is very poor, especially the filter sections. There is no visualization in the synth section at all, maybe a waveform display, that’s it. You also can’t do multiple waveform transforms at once, like in Vital. There are workarounds for that, and every LFO also can be an OSC, too.
Somehow a pity that Vojtech isn’t not finishing the UX, and does not seem to care for filter coloration either. He expects you to build your very own filter curve using multiple filters, peak filters, saturators and so on. Which messes up a fast and easy workflow.
You also can make a grid within a grid. But a lot of workflow operations seem to be missing, like “convert selected modules to a new grid” and so on. So you end up with a lot of copy paste operations.
The audio engine is completely alias-free and maybe the fastest available on the planet 
.
Is someone using reason rack plugin in renoise ? I used reason like 10 years ago but didn’t touch it since then…