Thru zero= easier to anticipate the result?
I think yes
FM is difficult for me
I will try this synth
Synths:
KV331 - Synthmaster 2.9.9 (really flexible, really CPU efficient)
U-He - Diva (can be fairly efficient when not on “Great” or “Divine” real time rendering)
Softube - Modular (super CPU intensive)
FX:
D16 - Decimort (bit-crusher)
Waves - Renaissance Maxx (good collection of utility plugins)
Waves - L1 Maximizer (standard)
I really try to keep buying VSTs to stuff that I need or where I want a better UI than stock Renoise. Arguably the Waves stuff was unnecessary but it was cheap and the visual 6 band EQ has a nice sound to it. I do use a few free things, or stuff that was bundled with other things (i.e. some of the freebie NI things I got with my soundcard) but it’s mostly stock. These are the only things I’ve paid for - I like the look of Raum by NI as next purchase but for the most part I’m pretty happy with these plus stock Renoise stuff.
I have arturia pigments 2 which is cool, tons of sound design possibilities, very intuitive UI. The unison and the analog style filters are great (and you feel the cpu usage…). I think they used the filters from other arturia products. My go-to synth for pads.
For bass sounds there is the lack of osc retrigger when you use unison which is a known problem, so I mostly use the free vital for that.
Now I’m looking at u-he hive, seems a great “all in one” synth and the cpu usage is not as big (pigments Is crazy, I can max out my cpu with ONE patch)
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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.