Best option instead Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

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-- Best option instead Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

Posted by PlasticSoul on Mar-17-2006 15:04:

Best option instead Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

What's an alternative option instead of Spectrasonics Atmospheres for creating that mellow voices and well.. atmospheres, hehe... in the breakdown?

VST names please...
Atmosphere is so expensive and big, I need something less "sized", hehe... I'm using Albino too...

Thanks in advance...

Posted by vccv on Mar-17-2006 15:47:

Hi!

Morhpology http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml...phtml?sku=ZG304
and
Outer Limits http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml...phtml?sku=ZG313
or
USB Xtreme FX http://www.ultimatesoundbank.com/usb/exec/xtremefx

Other than that there is a nice old sampling cd named something like BT twisted textures that does the job, should be cheap by now also.

Viktor

Posted by DJ Shibby on Mar-17-2006 21:54:

Re: Best option instead Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

Posted by Icone on Mar-17-2006 23:55:

If you're looking for choirish sounds or strings, pads and the like, you could also try out the Steinberg Hypersonic.

Don't underestimate the use of some (perhaps free-to-find) wav samples that you can use as string, pad or choir patches. Works very fine for me too.

Posted by zodiac9 on Mar-18-2006 01:36:

Re: Best option instead Spectrasonics Atmosphere?

quote:
Originally posted by PlasticSoul
What's an alternative option instead of Spectrasonics Atmospheres for creating that mellow voices and well.. atmospheres, hehe... in the breakdown?

VST names please...
Atmosphere is so expensive and big, I need something less "sized", hehe... I'm using Albino too...

I was wondering the same thing. I'm all about lush pads. So this helps me too. Z3ta has some pretty good mellow and lush pads with lots of atmosphere. I suppose you already know about that one though.

Posted by tecnolover on Mar-18-2006 01:39:

Thats easy! Absynth 3. Its hard to beat if for creating evolving atmospheres with it's incredible envelope programability. Two instances of Absynth running layered is like a patch in Atmosphere but with Absynth you get control of everything and can program your own too. Atmosphere is only sample playback. But I love Atmosphere also and used it constantly.

Posted by tecnolover on Mar-18-2006 01:48:

Indeed Z3ta+ is decent in this area but doesn't touch Absynth as far as envelope progamability. I have yet to see a softsynth which has as complex envelope editing as Absynth and evolving pads and atmospheres is all about the envelopes. For short and less complex pads Z3ta+ is very good and sounds great. A couple Z3ta+ instances layered could be all ya need. Not to mention it's just an all round awesome synth that every trance producer should have.

Posted by zodiac9 on Mar-19-2006 00:22:

I tried the Absynth demo. First of all, the presets were totally unusable to me, I mean they were all too weird and "out there" for Trance. I'm not very good at creating my own patches, even on simple synths, Absynth seems extremely complex to use if you are into sound creation. I found it about impossible to even tweak the presets, I mean there are so many variables I can't find everything. So how are you supposed to get good Trance pads with Absynth? I suppose you can buy Trance soundsets, right? I'd hate to dismiss a VSTi that might be usefull to me.

Posted by mzvirbulis on Mar-19-2006 11:33:

well i would go Z3TA, ABSYNTH 3 AND REAKTOR 5.

Although not to sure if you can design mellow atmospheres with reaktor but i think you could its pretty versitile.

Posted by tecnolover on Mar-22-2006 07:59:

quote:
Originally posted by zodiac9
I tried the Absynth demo. First of all, the presets were totally unusable to me, I mean they were all too weird and "out there" for Trance. I'm not very good at creating my own patches, even on simple synths, Absynth seems extremely complex to use if you are into sound creation. I found it about impossible to even tweak the presets, I mean there are so many variables I can't find everything. So how are you supposed to get good Trance pads with Absynth? I suppose you can buy Trance soundsets, right? I'd hate to dismiss a VSTi that might be usefull to me.

Well the reason it seems so complex is that the layout is very different than most synths out there. You have different screens for programming whereas most synths have everything right on the GUI front panel. Anyhow, yes it does take getting used to the layout but it's layouts is really quite cool and to me it's like programming some kind of alien console on a spacraft or something hahah. But yeh, the factory sounds aren't exactly the most useable for trance stuff like the Z3ta stock sounds. However, don't fool yourself though, Absynth does everything and does it well. I think it's one of the first synths out there able to do full surround 5.1 also. IMO it's the best synth for evolving atmospheres because of it's complex envelope editing. There are many soundsets available for FREE download and if i'm not mistaken there are 2 atmospheric sounds sets that come with it.

I have to clarify one statement I made earlier- 2 instances of Absynth running is NOT exactly the same as a dual patch in Spectrasonics Atmosphere module. why? because a lot of sample sounds in Atmosphere were made of multiple patches from some of the nicest sounding analog synths in existance and layered to create those great pads. In one sound patch you could be hearing 'who knows how many?' classic synths layered which ofcourse each have their own character and sound coloration. With one single VSTi synth you don't get that. But then I don't know of any hardware synth out there that can do what Absynth can do either.

Posted by Storyteller on Mar-22-2006 08:55:

all is inferiour to teh atmospheres!

Posted by Diginerd on Mar-22-2006 19:14:

Surprised no one has mentioned korg legacy digital.. The Wavestation in there is awesome..

Posted by Derivative on Mar-22-2006 21:33:

ummm if you just want choir/stringish sounds you would best be off with a sample cd (like spectrasonics symphony of voices) and a sampler. I dont really think the choirs or acoustic string sounds in atmosphere are all that good and theres not many of them anyway. Its got a fecking awesome number of multisampled classic analogue poly sounds though if thats your cup of tea.

On absynth. I firmly believe that absynth is probably one of the easiest softsynths to program. Once you figure out how its laid out. Theres a reason for the layout and its all to do with workflow and allowing you to go back to any previous point in the design of a sound and re edit it without having to worry about gimping your patch by overtwiddling.

The presets are not a fair reflection of what absynth can do. Alot of the presets are completely off the walls I agree, but I assume that is just to show newcomers the kind of complexity and movement you can put into a sound. I consider most of the presets to be unusable for anything other than ambience or atmospherics.

You can however use absynth just like any virtual analogue and just run with saws and squares (if thats what you want, although you would be wasting a great deal of the synth's power if this is all you use it for). You still have a 3 oscillator synth with the god damn most controllable envelopes of any softsynth, *period* as well as muliple filters and effects processor.

There are 50 bajillion virtual analogue synths (both software and hardware) that can make stock, generic trance sounds zodiac9. Absynth can make those too if you really want them (just dont start from any preset because nearly all of them use sampled waveforms). But man, you can do so much more with absynth than your average 2 oscillator, double saw wave sound + detune + pan spread + unison + low pass resonant filter sweep.

And yea you can synthesize choirs on it. Semi convincing ones if you can pick the right sampled waves and use all the filters. But its a bit time consuming and the filter settings have to be very specific in order to get the vowel sounds right.

Posted by tecnolover on Mar-23-2006 06:01:

...and don't forget Absynth has 'unison' mode on each of it's Oscilators too
which makes each OSC into 8 detunable ones for huge sounds.

Posted by zodiac9 on Mar-23-2006 23:55:

OK, I believe you guys about Absynth. I just suck at creating my own sounds. Some of us just weren't meant to program synths. Besides, even if I could program my own sounds, I'd rather spend that time composing and producing. I just like VSTs that have a lot of good soundsets that I can tweak. I suppose there are some good free, and for purchase soundsets for Absynth. I won't write it off just yet. I wish there was at least one usable preset, they all are so weird. Seems like a marketing mistake to me, or maybe they are trying to sell Absynth to hardcore sound programmers. Most of us just want to drop a VSTi in the sequencer, and start writing.