Looking for a hybrid synth

[Pier]

Well, it isn't as simple as in Bitwig, but of course it (with M4L) can do almost ) anything you want and more as in most synths (only really modular environments like Reaktor are comparable) .
But nowadays almost any not-VA has some sort of a sampler. As you can see in the list of recommendations

I've been thinking about getting Bitwig for years now. I've actually been lusting on their modular environment since it was announced years before v1 was released.

It's on sale now for $300 but I'd get so much stuff...

 

[Pier]

I don't understand why this is a big limit, and you miss a lot of nice things...

You don't understand that I don't want to keep investing into a company that has let me down again and again for years?

Also, nothing they do is exceptional any more. The vast majority of their products have been improved by other companies, generally much smaller companies.

 

[Jkist]

You don't understand that I don't want to keep investing into a company that has let me down again and again for years?

Also, nothing they do is exceptional any more. The vast majority of their products have been improved by other companies, generally much smaller companies.

Kinda hate that I agree with you. I will say though, their synths hang with the top dogs still sound-wise, I just hate the Massive X UI.

 

[jcrosby]

Thanks, but like I've mentioned I don't want to get more invested into NI's ecosystem. I already regret having invested money into Spitfire and other libraries (eg: Nucleus) that use Kontakt. I wish I would have invested into companies/products with their own software (eg: Orchestral Tools, VSL, BBC, etc).

Been using NI products for 20 years and the company has been going downhill for many years already IMO. Massive X seems to be one step in the right direction, but they have plenty of products they either have let die or are in life support mode (Battery, Kontakt, Absynth, etc).

NI isn't going to kill Battery, Absynth or Kontakt. NI are just very slow at updating products. Kontakt v5 was released in 2011, and Battery's so deeply tied to Maschine/Komplete hardware it isn't going anywhere. Absynth is v5 and has been around for 20 years, almost 21. Hardly a dying product. Does it need an update? Desperately, but it will happen at some point, my guess is in the next next couple years.

 

[ReleaseCandidate]

Absynth is v5 and has been around for 20 years, almost 21. hardly a dying product. Does it need an update? Desperately, but it will happen at some point, my guess is in the next next couple years.

The Absynth update is Plasmonic. I don't think that NI will update it. Reaktor is the most active synth from NI. Active means new features (and synths) from NI, contributions from users and 3rd party blocks/racks.

 

[jcrosby]

The Absynth update is Plasmonic. I don't think that NI will update it. Reaktor is the most active synth from NI. Active means new features (and synths) from NI, contributions from users and 3rd party blocks/racks.

Time will tell the tale.

 

[ReleaseCandidate]

Time will tell the tale.

Oh, I really hope I'm wrong! Absynth is still something special, but with the interface I'm not that inclined to use it as often as it deserves

 

[shponglefan]

I don't understand why, this is a big limit Imho, and you miss a lot of nice things.

Kontakt is getting long in the tooth with its outdated interface and lack of high DPI support.

I can understand why some people might not be as keen to keep investing in Kontakt libraries.

 

[Pier]

NI isn't going to kill Battery, Absynth or Kontakt. NI are just very slow at updating products. Kontakt v5 was released in 2011, and Battery's so deeply tied to Maschine/Komplete hardware it isn't going anywhere. Absynth is v5 and has been around for 20 years, almost 21. Hardly a dying product. Does it need an update? Desperately, but it will happen at some point, my guess is in the next next couple years.

Slow is an understatement.

Battery 4 was released almost 8 years ago, and it was by far the worst version of Battery.

The UI of Kontakt has barely changed in the last 10+ years. This is a screenshot of Kontakt 4 released in 2009:



Absynth 5, same thing. Last version was released in 2009.

Etc.

There have been a number of new Reaktor synths released but nothing really transcendental. Razor was great but that was 10? years ago. Also the idea of moving everything into Reaktor was terrible IMO in terms of UX. I guess NI agrees seeing that Massive X works Reaktor.

Compare that to the trajectory of a company like U-He. In the last 10 years, and with a fraction of NI's resources, they have released Repro, Diva, Bazille, Hive, Satin, and other products, which are all groundbreaking in their own category.

 

[jcrosby]

Slow is an understatement.

Battery 4 was released almost 8 years ago, and it was by far the worst version of Battery.

The UI of Kontakt has barely changed in the last 10+ years. This is a screenshot of Kontakt 4 released in 2009:



Absynth 5, same thing. Last version was released in 2009.

Etc.

There have been a number of new Reaktor synths released but nothing really transcendental. Razor was great but that was 10? years ago. Also the idea of moving everything into Reaktor was terrible IMO in terms of UX. I guess NI agrees seeing that Massive X works Reaktor.

Compare that to the trajectory of a company like U-He. In the last 10 years, and with a fraction of NI's resources, they have released Repro, Diva, Bazille, Hive, Satin, and other products, which are all groundbreaking in their own category.

But applying the same logic about updates Zebra has been version 2 since 2006, and has been plublicly saying Zebra 3 will be coming since 2012. Potato potato.

Is u-he's modeling good? Absolutely, but I wouldn't call any of their synths ground breaking. (Same with Satin. Yeah it's good, but I don't see anything it does being groundbreaking outside of giving you more parameters to adjust). You could say the same thing about Serum when it was first released, now it's just another wavetable synth.

Is NI slow to update? Hell yeah. But they're hardly the only company with a history of orphaning products. Izotope (even though I love their shit) have been pretty eager to 86 products that don't do well. Spectrasonics abandoned Atmosphere for Omnisphere. Not to mention countless standalone programs and non-music applications. Sadly it's just the nature of software development.

u-he Zebra3 virtual modular synthesizer pricing announced

Urs Heckmann of u-he has announced some pricing details on the upcoming Zebra3 software synthesizer for Windows and Mac. Actually, we’ve started to work on...

rekkerd.org

 

[shponglefan]

Spectrasonics abandoned Atmosphere for Omnisphere.

I wouldn't say they abandoned it. Omnisphere was the next evolution of Atmosphere and included all of the former's soundsets.

 

[muadgil]

I'm looking for a hybrid synth that can load my own samples.

Ideally I'd want something with the flexibility of Zebra that can also load samples. I imagine Zebra 3 won't be able to load samples though so I'm considering other options.

The ideal choice in terms of features would be Falcon, but as a hobbyist I can't justify spending $350 on it. Also, while I would love to have all those IRCAM goodies, I just don't need anything as deep as Falcon. Omnisphere is also very powerful, but again, as a hobbysit I can't justify spending that much.

My options right now are either Equator 2 by Roli (about $150) or Phaseplant by Kilohearts (about $100). Both are super strong in terms of sound design with pros and cons. Phaseplant is more flexible and has audio rate modulation, but it seems more geared towards Serum refugees. Also, from the demos, Equator seems to sound a lot better in general (maybe the DSP of filters and effects is better?). Equator can load multisamples in SFZ format.

Kontakt is just out of the question for me. I only use it to load libraries. The UI is just awful and I don't want to invest any time or money into the NI ecosystem.

Ableton Live has a sampler but the modulation possibilities are not as great as having a dedicated hybrid synth.

Any thoughts?

I don't know if you found your synth. Just to give you my recent experiences : I got into synthesis recently, I started to experiment with Alchemy, with a detailed tutorial. Then went into Vital to explore wavetables. A bit of Iris too. I was starting to understand how all of this works. Then I took a shot at Falcon (as a protools user, I have an AAX license)
I didn't want to start with it because it's intimidating. But...
WOW!!!
The deepness of this soft is incredible. And the workflow is in fact quite simple once you got the logic of it. As you add elements after elements, you know exactly what you are doing, and why. And you can do everything. Samples, granular, fm, classic... The effects are to notch. Well I'm in love
I'll probably get Zebra for a bit of preset lurking and for the sake of diversity.. But I feel one can achieve everything with good skills and Falcon.
Regarding the price its indeed something. But there's one on the classified at a good price.

 

[Pier]

I don't know if you found your synth. Just to give you my recent experiences : I got into synthesis recently, I started to experiment with Alchemy, with a detailed tutorial. Then went into Vital to explore wavetables. A bit of Iris too. I was starting to understand how all of this works. Then I took a shot at Falcon (as a protools user, I have an AAX license)
I didn't want to start with it because it's intimidating. But...
WOW!!!
The deepness of this soft is incredible. And the workflow is in fact quite simple once you got the logic of it. As you add elements after elements, you know exactly what you are doing, and why. And you can do everything. Samples, granular, fm, classic... The effects are to notch. Well I'm in love
I'll probably get Zebra for a bit of preset lurking and for the sake of diversity.. But I feel one can achieve everything with good skills and Falcon.
Regarding the price its indeed something. But there's one on the classified at a good price.

I ended up buying Bitwig which is pretty amazing.

It can do almost everything Falcon does in terms of sound design and so much more since it's actually full DAW, has a modular environment, can integrate third party plugins in the audio chain, etc. It's like the whole DAW is one big Zebra.

AFAIK the only feature missing from Falcon are the IRCAM algorithms.

 

[vitocorleone123]

But applying the same logic about updates Zebra has been version 2 since 2006, and has been plublicly saying Zebra 3 will be coming since 2012. Potato potato.

Is u-he's modeling good? Absolutely, but I wouldn't call any of their synths ground breaking. (Same with Satin. Yeah it's good, but I don't see anything it does being groundbreaking outside of giving you more parameters to adjust). You could say the same thing about Serum when it was first released, now it's just another wavetable synth.

Is NI slow to update? Hell yeah. But they're hardly the only company with a history of orphaning products. Izotope (even though I love their shit) have been pretty eager to 86 products that don't do well. Spectrasonics abandoned Atmosphere for Omnisphere. Not to mention countless standalone programs and non-music applications. Sadly it's just the nature of software development.

u-he Zebra3 virtual modular synthesizer pricing announced

Urs Heckmann of u-he has announced some pricing details on the upcoming Zebra3 software synthesizer for Windows and Mac. Actually, we’ve started to work on...

rekkerd.org

Hmm. Repro was groundbreaking and is still the best analog emulation on the market (I think). Diva was groundbreaking because never before had something emulated so many different analog synths so well - and then be able to mix and match them. Zebra was groundbreaking... etc.

I don’t think you understand what that phrase means

 

[jcrosby]

Hmm. Repro was groundbreaking and is still the best analog emulation on the market (I think). Diva was groundbreaking because never before had something emulated so many different analog synths so well - and then be able to mix and match them. Zebra was groundbreaking... etc.

I don’t think you understand what that phrase means

 

[Pier]

I don’t think you understand what that phrase means

You reminded me of The Princess Bride

 

[Bman70]

Slow is an understatement.

Battery 4 was released almost 8 years ago, and it was by far the worst version of Battery.

The UI of Kontakt has barely changed in the last 10+ years. This is a screenshot of Kontakt 4 released in 2009:
....

Absynth 5, same thing. Last version was released in 2009.

Etc.

There have been a number of new Reaktor synths released but nothing really transcendental. Razor was great but that was 10? years ago. Also the idea of moving everything into Reaktor was terrible IMO in terms of UX. I guess NI agrees seeing that Massive X works Reaktor.

Compare that to the trajectory of a company like U-He. In the last 10 years, and with a fraction of NI's resources, they have released Repro, Diva, Bazille, Hive, Satin, and other products, which are all groundbreaking in their own category.

I'm probably in the minority, but I like that Kontakt's UI hasn't changed in, OMG a decade. As a musical tool, I like being able to get familiar with it, so it becomes transparent and doesn't intrude into my workflow. I also love that each instrument's UI can be modernized, without needing to change Kontakt. After all, my guitar and violin have the same "UI" they've had for hundreds of years, and I like them that way.

Back on topic: I would encourage you to consider Omnisphere more closely. It might be 3x more expensive than some other options... but over the next two years it could easily save you from buying 5 other, less complete instruments in an attempt to meet the same needs (ending up spending equal or more). I'm not sure if it's US based only, but Zzounds.com has a monthly payment system with no credit check, that's how I got Omnisphere.

 

[Pier]

After all, my guitar and violin have the same "UI" they've had for hundreds of years, and I like them that way.

Yeah but your eyes haven't changed either.

We're now running much higher resolutions than 10 years ago. All Macs have been running retina monitors for the past 6-7 or so years and 4K monitors are becoming common in the Windows world too.

As for Omnisphere it would be a waste of money in my case. Its value is really in the presets which I have no interest in using. Falcon would have been a better choice than Omni for me since I'm more interested in sound design, although I ended up getting Bitwig which is even more powerful.

 

[jcrosby]

As for Omnisphere it would be a waste of money in my case. Its value is really in the presets which I have no interest in using. Falcon would have been a better choice than Omni for me since I'm more interested in sound design, although I ended up getting Bitwig which is even more powerful.

Omnisphere has a huge arsenal of samples that are unique, if not unlike anything available anywhere else.

Bowed bicycle rims, a bunch of Diego Stoccos custom/modified instruments, various instruments played with everything from dental floss to electric toothbrushes, Lightbulbs, & pianos burning of fire.. Not to mention a ton of of completely normal organic instruments, analog and modular synths all sampled immaculately.

While there's plenty of stuff Omnisphere has that you could find a similar replacement for in Kontakt, there's also tons of stuff in there that no Kontakt library comes close to touching, even 12+ years after Omnipshere was released....

Anyone who owns Omnisphere and doesn't fiddle with the included content to make their own patches might as well be getting half the value of the cost of Omnisphere they spent when they bought it. It literally can cover any genre of music imaginable. And there's plenty there to cover SFX design as well...

If you only use presets I could see your point. But if you aren't afraid to design patches yourself, even using basic settings, Omnisphere has so much more to offer than you can wrap your head around until you actually own it. As a rompler? An expensive choice... (Even then it's not like it's pricy compared to what $500 in Kontakt tends to get you...) As a sound design instrument it's still the best spent money I've spent on any virtual instrument by a mile.... 7 out of 10 times it's the 1st thing I reach for.

 

[Pier]

Omnisphere has a huge arsenal of samples that are unique, if not unlike anything available anywhere else.

Bowed bicycle rims, a bunch of Diego Stoccos custom/modified instruments, various instruments played with everything from dental floss to electric toothbrushes, Lightbulbs, & pianos burning of fire.. Not to mention a ton of of completely normal organic instruments, analog and modular synths all sampled immaculately.

While there's plenty of stuff Omnisphere has that you could find a similar replacement for in Kontakt, there's also tons of stuff in there that no Kontakt library comes close to touching, even 12+ years after Omnipshere was released....

Anyone who owns Omnisphere and doesn't fiddle with the included content to make their own patches might as well be getting half the value of the cost of Omnisphere they spent when they bought it. It literally can cover any genre of music imaginable. And there's plenty there to cover SFX design as well...

If you only use presets I could see your point. But if you aren't afraid to design patches yourself, even using basic settings, Omnisphere has so much more to offer than you can wrap your head around until you actually own it. As a rompler? An expensive choice... (Even then it's not like it's pricy compared to what $500 in Kontakt tends to get you...) As a sound design instrument it's still the best spent money I've spent on any virtual instrument by a mile.... 7 out of 10 times it's the 1st thing I reach for.

Thanks @jcrosby, that's an interesting point.

Something that really bothers me about most Kontakt libraries I own, is that I can't use the samples outside of Kontakt. Is this the case too with Omni?