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Favorite Physical Modeling VSTi in 2021... and Beyond!

Imagine is neat, the fx sound good, and the "msegs" are a nice touch, but over all the engine isn't too particularly special, there's some cool sequencer stuff you can do, but I wasn't thrilled with how each combination of exciter + resonators was its own preset, rather than just being able to build your own combos. it sounded good, but also another pet peeve, modulations didn't go too far into audio rate, probably a really fun synth for some, as an instrument layer/song writing. But as far as sound design, I could only get so experimental

though, what I did get, sounded fairly unique, glad Expressive E allowed me to use it

also I plan on picking up a touche at some point, a bit torn between SE and traditional
seems like it'd be a really fun controller
 
begs the question: upgrade my chromaphone 2 for 40 or get imagine for 85... or stay pat. more research, I guess.

It's not strictly modeling (or is it?) but I love Prism for Reaktor. I have a set of very organic signature sounds for it, and I use them all the time. At this point I'd say that for a certain ilk of 'modelly' sounds, it hits my ear just a little better than AAS stuff. Maybe I should just go in and modify it some more. It could use a granulation option for the impulses, and I'm sure reaktor could provide that just fine.

One thing I like about reaktor. Missing features? Dive in and add them!

And since I'm getting a new computer, I can probably use Silverwood live for the first time, that would be nice.
 
I bought Imagine after watching DataBroth's stream even though I have Chromophone 3. Although there's a lot of overlap they feel very different in use. Chromophone with its finer controls invites dialing in very nuanced sounds while Imagine is more streamlined and good for interesting rhythmic stuff and in general is more fun to experiment with.

I agree the exciter - resonator presets seems like an odd decision, but I guess they didn't want to completely cannibalize Chromaphone. No MPE is also disappointing especially since they push its "expressiveness".
 
After analyzing several videos, I could see the big differences between Chroma and Imagine.
As said above, Chromaphone is more advanced in basic sound editing, while Imagine has a simplified interface but more sound modulation possibilities, notably thanks to its "msegs".
The bottom line is that I don't have to invest in Imagine, because its strengths don't interest me, compared to the style of music I like to compose.

I don't know Databroth if you would be ready to test Chromaphone 3 right after doing the Imagine one, but maybe what you couldn't do in Imagine is possible in Chroma.
 
It deserves to be mentioned. In “tonewheel organ threads” it typically does get the praise it deserves but apparently modelled vintage keyboard VIs are viewed a bit as a separate category? I feel AAS Lounge Lizard is in that same corner.
 
Lounge Lizard has been around for a really long time now, nearly 20 years. I remember thinking it was good back in the day, but felt sample libraries were better, particularly after SonicCouture came along. It's been of my radar since then, I didn't realise it was still going.
 
I bought Imagine after watching DataBroth's stream even though I have Chromophone 3. Although there's a lot of overlap they feel very different in use. Chromophone with its finer controls invites dialing in very nuanced sounds while Imagine is more streamlined and good for interesting rhythmic stuff and in general is more fun to experiment with.

I don't know... super deep synths are cool, but a simplified ultra controllable interface has its place as well. I think I'll spring for imagine sometime (if not necessarily right now... it is on sale... but I have to save something for black friday...) because it's so controllable.

I've tried setting up controls on prism, and there's just not many options for moving a single control and getting a variety of useful sounds. Every sound really needs to be dialed in, which isn't so helpful in performance. Yeah sure, I can wreak some fun havoc with this control, but then I need to return it very precisely to .452 for it to be playable again!

There should be a metric for the likelyhood that randomizing the controls of a synth will yield a playable sound. Obviously that's subjective, but it is something to consider... and it does look like it's almost hard to create a bad sound with imagine.

I may have to try out Chromaphone 3 first though, and see if I like it better than v2.
 
It is a modelled organ.
Thanks, 700 mb only, so it really wont be samples, I really missed that :).

Makes it much more interesting and I am sure this way you could get some real strange sounds out of it going much deeper then "only" getting the original sounds (even if you CAN go strange enough with an original B3 ;)).
 
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