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Your recommendations for a synth that is inspiring to beginners

musicalweather said:
Clearly, synth programming skills don’t come over night. I just wish I could be a bit more inspired along the way.

Your thoughts / suggestions?
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Don't be too precious with your work. Follow along with this guy and play around with these ideas:



You are in good standing with Pigments and some fx, with Pigments' included granular/additive/fx and comb filter (LPF comb with the included allpass filter freq parameter being my favorite).

Don't be too precious with what you do, let it go and turn knobs and assign automations. If you start liking what you're hearing, make it a habit of saving the preset (even if it's basic). Keep tweaking and save version .1 with a brief patch description, tweak a little more and when it sounds interesting again, save .2 listing whatever changes you made. I just use the patch title for these notes. Iterate and listen back over your work later, and you'll start figuring stuff out. If you're too precious you'll be going like a mile per hour and do/learn very little compared to if you don't care as much. It doesn't mean you shouldn't take your time listening to parameter ranges, but don't be afraid of the parameters or automations, they're all free game.
 
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Try following along with this guy in Pigments by watching the parameter names and matching his modulations (to your taste). By around 6:50 he's in a completely new and gorgeous space, thanks to the help of some filters, reverb and resonators ("Corpus" in Live; you can use the LPF Comb and its allpass filter parameter in Pigments as a resonator, or you can use MComb or Zebrify instead, or stick it in Vital, etc.).

To me, these are inspiring sounds to work on and play. Sometimes what you need out of a synth is support, rhythmically or in the bass or what have you; these pad sounds you can use to create atmospheres and fluff up sparse music. Part of the joy and the inspiration (and the benefit from exploring and learning the different kinds of processing) is in the making.
 
vitocorleone123 said:
Always best to start stock, but if there's no inspiration delivered from the stock instruments.... move on.
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Personally I'm a bit hesitant to invest time and depend on stock plugins.

Back in 2011ish I used Logic and was very dependant on Space Designer for post audio work. Also Logic was a hard dependance on macOS. Back then I left for Live then moved to Windows, then to Bitwig and now I'm back on macOS with Cubase.

Plugins from U-He, FabFilter, etc have accompanied me through all those changes.

If someone is starting out, definitely use stock plugins to learn and have fun. But once this music/audio thing becomes more serious I would consider moving to tools where the time investment will not blow away by moving to another DAW or OS.
 
Given that you get on well with Chromaphone, you should definitely take a look at String Studio VS-3.
The workflow will be immediately familiar, but with a different set of potential soundscapes, and it sounds superb. Ultra Analog VA-3 is also fantastic.
I'd also recommend persevering with Pigments, it's a great sounding, hugely versatile synth playground that will allow you to develop a solid set of transferrable techniques and knowledge.
 
Pier said:
Personally I'm a bit hesitant to invest time and depend on stock plugins.

Back in 2011ish I used Logic and was very dependant on Space Designer for post audio work. Also Logic was also a hard dependance on macOS. Back then I left for Live then moved to Windows, then to Bitwig and now I'm back on macOS with Cubase.

Plugins from U-He, FabFilter, etc have accompanied me through all those changes.

If someone is starting out, definitely use stock plugins to learn and have fun. But once this music/audio thing becomes more serious I would consider moving to tools where the time investment will not blow away by moving to another DAW or OS.
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Definitely!

And if you use the stock synths and they aren't exciting someone for whatever reason, if there's the financial means available, they should definitely spend the time elsewhere rather than continuing to try and convince themselves the stock are what they should use.

My "starter DAW" was Tracktion 3 through Waveform 10 or so. It didn't use to have hardly any stock plugins initially, and few were worth using (even FX) until around the time I moved on. I saved a lot of money on the DAW but turned around and spent that savings on select plugins, starting with, I think: Valhalla Vintage Verb, Klanghelm MJUC, and a synth (can't remember which off the top of my head). Being forced out of the DAW early for inspiration was both a blessing and a curse.
 
The OP asked about Abyss, and I would not recommend that as a starter synth. I have it, and like it a lot but it is not one which I feel is a good start to understanding synthesis.

Pigments allows synthesis of various different types with a decent visual feedback of what is going on. I would suggest just starting with simple analogue style stuff and getting fully acquainted with what the envelopes, filters and modulators can do to those simple waveforms. Pigments allows one to then move into other synthesis areas such as samples, granular, wavetable and harmonic. It is a pretty complete package.

All that said, in the absence of Pigments, I would tentatively suggest Tone2's Icarus (now Icarus 3). Though not as wide-ranging as Pigments, I find it a pretty simple synth to use but capable of producing a wide range of sounds (though many of the pre-sets tend towards the techno end).

The OP is probably beyond this now, but Benedict Roff-Marsh (https://www.youtube.com/@BenedictRoffMarsh) has just begun a two part series on the basics of synthesis. I accept that he seems to be a "Marmite" (should that be Vegemite?) personality but he has also done some decent stuff on various synthesis subjects which can be found on the Higher HZ channel on YT.
 
pocvecem said:
There are so many stock synths in Ableton, Logic, Cubase. They mostly get overlooked and many of them are far better than their reputation.
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I was going to say: the things that got me started with synthesis were ES1 and ES2 in Logic, and I still use them sometimes! Venerable gems. Far from perfect, but so is the Moog Model D, and that's why people love it. The subtractive modeling synth that comes in your DAW will probably be a great place to start for most beginners freshly excited about designing synth sounds. (Or any of the free ones from U-HE, they're great!)

For hardware knob-twiddling, I do agree that the Korg Minilogue is a wee beast of a machine, really cool little dude and crazy good for the price.
 
Onemandown said:
Vital works like a charm. There's actually a decent bit of functionality in it but the UI is not at all daunting. And it doesn't take long to find good presets too if you're looking for that approach.
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Vital is super easy to use.

I used it to teach a bit of syntesis to someone who had never touched a synth before and they were making sounds after like 15 mins.
 

This person's got some great educational videos going for iterative sound design, which can be inspiring to learn about and use when it comes to delays and granular and other useful ideas. They are mostly using Phase Plant, but it's all doable within other software as well.

Phase Plant is more for sound design than music, as it's not "already tuned" to have pleasant modelled filters or internal feedback in the same way Zebra/Repro are. Pigments is... sort of in-between. It makes a great companion to something like a U-he synth, which provides no modules for sample manipulation.

musicalweather said:
I’m looking for something that makes exploration fun and where I can get useable sounds fairly fast, even if I’m not sure what direction I’m going in.
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I guess the important question is what exactly you're trying to do with synthesis. Just learn it? Learn what the parameters do and find interesting behaviors? No matter what you're doing, chances are modulation is going to be the difference between having a good time and making some good sounds, versus not. MComb is free, but super cool when you're modulating it and passing it through a reverb or delay. You can also clean up sounds as part of the signal chain; compressing frequencies that get way out of control and sound bad can be the difference between garbage and something great.

If you're after interesting parameters, try the Zebra demo. You can use it forever without it expiring, and there's plenty in there to blow your mind which doesn't really exist anywhere else outside of modular synthesis (and is waaaaay easier to approach than something like VCV). Just learn how to hook up an LFO/envelope to stuff and start loading up oscillator effects and FX modules like the comb filter and seeing what they do.
 
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Not much to add other than +1 for Pigments. I love the versatility, clear and logical UI, and all the different synth engines. I think it's a great choice to learn on, especially if you get it on sale (for $100). Oh, and Arturia quite often updates their stuff.

For a complete beginner that wants to learn the basics, I'd get a simple and free synth. Helm is great, Zebralette too (but a bit more complicated IMO). If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, there's VCV Rack or Cardinal.
 
SupremeFist said:
Don't forget TyrellN6!
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I found it to be somewhat lacking, which is weird because it's generally highly-praised. But it might be a good first synth because of its simplicity. Definitely worth a try in any case.

For any true beginners out there, the synth engine that comes with Halion Sonic is decent. I think it's called Trip?...There are some arps and whatnot that might appeal to someone with not a lot of experience making custom synth sounds.
 
Great discussion - lots of good advice here, and it’s been so interesting to hear each person’s perspective. Thank you all for responding.

I will definitely give the emulation synths mentioned here a look.

It’s true - the Syntorial synth is not exactly inspiring, but it has helped me get a grasp of synth basics. I think that’s coming along pretty well.

I’m also going to keep truckin’ with Pigments; glad to see all the recommendations for it here.

Definitely going to check out Vital and Zebralette. Zebra also looks like something I would want to get into eventually.

Thorn looks good. Hive in particular sounds interesting, as I’m interested in more of a modern sound. I’m not that keen on an 80s sound, though I love me some Howard Jones and Thompson Twins. (Unlike some of you young whippersnappers, I was around in the 80s… not a decade I look back on with much fondness. 🙂 )

@vitocorleone123 Would a Kurzweil K2000 count as a hardware synth? I still have a unit that I bought a couple of decades ago. I only ever used the presets. Programming it looks… painful. I also have a Yamaha S90 but unfortunately it’s not working anymore.

@Elliot A - I think your advice is spot on. I’m going to try throwing caution to the wind and just start messing around with stuff. Otherwise, you’re right - it is like going one mile an hour, and that ends up being frustrating.

You ask what I’m trying to do with synthesis. A few things: I want to better understand the synths I have (all the ones in NI’s KUCE, plus Omnisphere and Pigments) - at least enough to do some substantial tweaking. I don’t want to be intimidated by all the knobs anymore! Also, I’ve realized that I can spend hours looking for the right preset (particularly in the where’s-Waldo world of Omnisphere) and still not find the right sound. I’m thinking that if I had decent programming skills, I could create a sound from scratch in the time it now takes me to go through a kerjillion presets. Finally, making sounds can be a lot of fun. The most fun I’ve had so far is with Chromaphone. It’s easy and quick to some up with something really quite interesting. At the moment I’m looking for edgier sounds - something like you find in Razor. I’m always interested in more unusual sounds.

I haven’t covered each suggestion in my answer here, but please know I will check out each and every one. Thank you all so much.
 
Pier said:
Zebra is life but in case you're not aware the new version is finally on the horizon.

Saying this in case you'd rather start fresh with Zebra 3 probably coming in 2025.
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2025 ..... <<<< 🔭 🔭🔭 ..... luv that Zebra !!! 🦓 ❣️

OP not so much 'beginner' ...... Zebra Legacy @ ~ $99. is heckuva deal ! .... imho
 
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musicalweather said:
At the moment I’m looking for edgier sounds - something like you find in Razor. I’m always interested in more unusual sounds.
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If edgy sounds are what you seek, you should definitely take a look at Newfangled Audios free Pendulate, it's paid big brother Generate and Dawesomes Kult. Knifonium also specialises in bringing the grit and gnar to a patch, and can currently be had for $29.99 using code ANY-2999.
 
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