# Why is Steinberg's Retrologue getting so little love?



## jonvog (Sep 12, 2019)

Every now and then I play around with Retrologue, constantly waiting for something I don't like to pop up. But that never happend so far. Is it, because I don't know the really good ones (as Omnisphere, Serum, Zebra... don't have any of them) or is Retrologue just hugely underrated because it is a stock synth?


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## José Herring (Sep 12, 2019)

It is good, but there are so many great analog modeled synths of its kind that after a while I just moved on. 

I got Lush 101, and MPower synth. I also got Zebra which all can do what Retrologue can do only more and better. 

I am also looking into getting The Legend for RE (Reason). And, Diva is a great synth.

All the above mentioned sound better than Retrologue. I did extensive side by side comparisons and put Retrologue aside.

Omni, Serum are different breed of synths and shouldn't be compared to Retrologue. It would be unfair.

In the end, if all you got is Retrologue it will do plenty fine. Once you start pushing the limits though it will start to not sound as good as the rest.

I had a discussion with a well known synth programmer and asked him how you can tell the difference between whether a softsynth is good or not. He said if it sounds good at extreme settings then it's good. So I put a bunch to the test and it was very revealing. That's when I decided to put Retrologue away.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Sep 12, 2019)

Retrologue and Padshop have some MPE patches, which is nice for people with a ROLI or similar controller.


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## José Herring (Sep 12, 2019)

I do like padshop. I need to get to it more often


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Sep 12, 2019)

Pretty sure it gets overlooked because people think it's a "stock synth". It's very good.


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## GNP (Sep 12, 2019)

All the steinberg synths are alright. They can sound good alone, or even better, if you apply actual EQ and effects on the output of the synth, rather than within the synth, which often times can't really be done.


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## cmillar (Sep 14, 2019)

I agree...the synths that come with Cubase are really pretty awesome all things considered. And the sound quality is there. 

If one explored all the Steinberg synths (and those that come with Halion as well) you'd run out of hours in the day. They can get pretty deep once you start tweaking things.

I have the Cubasis app on my iPad as well, and the little Retrologue synth in there is just as great! 

Glad I switched over to Steinberg products recently. Absolutely no regrets living in the Cubase and Dorico world. Solid stuff.


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## Tim_Wells (Sep 15, 2019)

Because I'm a tightwad, I try to use the stuff I already own rather than buying a lot of new stuff. The other day I was looking for some rhythmic tempo-based pads and was very pleased with the sounds I found in the stock Cubase synths. I've already committed to a preset called "Lovely" in Spector and will likely use Padshop, etc., in the song.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Sep 15, 2019)

I think to be HALion is intended to be used as a layering instrument. It's not so much about the individual sounds IMHO as it is about putting layers together into a multi. 

So you can combine sampled sounds, wavetable, granular, analog, organ sounds, filters into one big patch. You can add in a sophisticated arpeggiator, the FlexPhraser into any of the layers, and there's then all the usual filters and effects. 

So a lot of people just look at the sampled sounds and find them inferior to the ones they have in Kontakt, and give it a pass. But it is extremely powerful and can give some amazing sounds when you put its components together. It's amazing with sound design, but equally good with one-person-band types of patches.

I think it has more in common with Falcon and the Multis in Omnisphere. I'm not saying that it has sounds as good as Omni, but it is easy to set up layers and complicated splits. And Omni just has samples of synths, while HALion contains real synths. 

HALion is a beast if you unleash it.


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## elpedro (Sep 15, 2019)

It makes noise, use it....


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## 2chris (Oct 28, 2019)

I’m one of those people. I recently bought Cubase 10 Pro. I have invested 20 minutes into retrologue. It wasn’t bad at all, but it wasn’t as good as at least 10+ synths I have. The presets were not revolutionary, and the organization of them wasn’t either. Neither were the features available to make patches. I think a reason people don’t comment on it much is because it’s not ground breaking, and doesn’t have great character or unique features from what I can tell. It sounds good though. That’s what’s important, and I’d imagine it’s been in numerous professional released music. It’s perfectly useful if that’s what you’ve got, but I’d guess most people jump on Cubase and come with VST’s because it’s one of the hardest daw’s to learn well. Maybe I’m wrong on my assumption, but once you get more synths it’s highly likely they will be better because they have to be to survive as a stand-alone product when Steinberg throws this in for users who need a synth. That said, use it, there didn’t seem anything offensive about it whatsoever.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Oct 29, 2019)

2chris said:


> I have invested 20 minutes into retrologue. It wasn’t bad at all, but it wasn’t as good as at least 10+ synths I have.



How could you tell without looking into it any deeper at all? Retrologue 2 gets massively undererstimated by all kinds of people who assume it's "just the synth Cubase comes with".


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## 2chris (Oct 29, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> How could you tell without looking into it any deeper at all? Retrologue 2 gets massively undererstimated by all kinds of people who assume it's "just the synth Cubase comes with".


That’s exactly how I feel haha, but you do make a good point where I spent more time on it tonight. I’ll accept your challenge and give it more of a chance. I was honest about not spending enough time to make a true assessment. I’ll be very happy to try it more and be super happy with it. I never said it’s bad. I said I think it sounded good, and I did try to list some weaknesses on why I didn’t dig into it. Now you have me thinking of some good synths to put it up against purely on sound. I did compare the filter and simple sounds I could replicate, and it does sound a little better than the included AAS synth “Analog” in Ableton Live IMO. It’s way better than Reason subtractor. I think Logic ES2 gets love, and I’m kinda of wondering if it’s better than that, and I’d wager it is. I haven’t used it in so long it’s unfair to say with any certainty. I don’t have Bitwig or Studio One installed to compare against their stock synths. As a stock synth, I’ll concede you make a good point. It’s just a hard ask to beat NI, Synapse Audio, Uhe, etc with a stock DAW synth.


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## 2chris (Oct 29, 2019)

TigerTheFrog said:


> I think to be HALion is intended to be used as a layering instrument. It's not so much about the individual sounds IMHO as it is about putting layers together into a multi.
> 
> So you can combine sampled sounds, wavetable, granular, analog, organ sounds, filters into one big patch. You can add in a sophisticated arpeggiator, the FlexPhraser into any of the layers, and there's then all the usual filters and effects.
> 
> ...


You make interesting points about HALion. I’m so loyal to Kontakt (Komplete and 3rd party libraries) that I have been blind to alternatives and had no interest in it just for that reason alone. I’ve seen really bad reviews that went in depth on YouTube that scared me away from even day dreaming about it. It reminded me of sample tank or Garritan pocket orchestra, and that might be an unfair perception.

You mention Falcon, and I kind of put that in the same boat with just a passing interest, but reviews on that have been great. With version 2 I’ve been kind of tempted, but I’ve calmed my gear lust demons and I’m done buying soft synths until either a new earth shattering NI synth, or zebra 3 hits the market.

Omnisphere, however, is something I have and use. I dispute the fact it’s not a synth in its own right. You can import samples, it has 500+ Dsp wavetsbles, nice arp, it has four layers per patch,8 lfos, 12 envelopes, mod matrix, fx, and 34 filter types. Plus third party sample library support is top shelf and shows it can handle a very diverse spectrum of sound design.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Oct 30, 2019)

2chris said:


> Omnisphere, however, is something I have and use. I dispute the fact it’s not a synth in its own right. You can import samples, it has 500+ Dsp wavetsbles, nice arp, it has four layers per patch,8 lfos, 12 envelopes, mod matrix, fx, and 34 filter types. Plus third party sample library support is top shelf and shows it can handle a very diverse spectrum of sound design.


Omnisphere has always been my favorite synth. Falcon, which I just got, is now my second most favorite synth.  

I don't know how much time I'm going to be spending on HALion now that I have Falcon, but if anybody is curious about what is great in HALion, I would direct them to the FlexPhraser, which is a pretty unique arpeggiator (it's much more than that.) The technology comes from the Yamaha MOTIF keyboard.


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## 2chris (Oct 30, 2019)

TigerTheFrog said:


> Omnisphere has always been my favorite synth. Falcon, which I just got, is now my second most favorite synth.
> 
> I don't know how much time I'm going to be spending on HALion now that I have Falcon, but if anybody is curious about what is great in HALion, I would direct them to the FlexPhraser, which is a pretty unique arpeggiator (it's much more than that.) The technology comes from the Yamaha MOTIF keyboard.


Huge Yamaha fan! I bought the Yamaha MODx8 and the arp presets are great.

I will keep an eye on Falcon.


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## 2chris (Oct 31, 2019)

Ok, so I played around with Retrologue 2 at length today. I made a bunch of sounds, and then made a quick start to a song on headphones with only those retrologue patches, simple drums, and a canned vocal I had laying around. There is one spacey synth sound in there that was actually a lot of fun to make, and it made me think I will use RetroLogue2 more, especially with external FX. So thanks op for your retrologue love.


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## bill5 (Nov 14, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Pretty sure it gets overlooked because people think it's a "stock synth". It's very good.


Exactly. People have this ridiculous snobbishness towards anything that comes with a DAW, as if because it is "built in" and "free" it must not be very good. Utter foolishness


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## KallumS (Nov 15, 2019)

Not from my side, Retrologue sounds amazing.


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## Monkberry (Nov 15, 2019)

It's definitely the unfair stigma of being a DAW included soft synth but it is one of the top soft synths I own and frequently use for inspiration and I have a disgusting amount of soft synths on tap. If you have Retrologue 2 and you find it "meh", it's not Retrologue, it's you. Just kidding, but you owe it to yourself to really explore. It is something special.


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