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Vanguard vs Nexus?

Ok... I have been trying the Demo versions of Vanguard and Nexus.
They both seem to be very nice synths.

But am I getting something wrong when I think Vanguard has better bossibilities to tweak the sounds than Nexus? I think it should be another way round since the Nexus is much pricier...

Nexus is not a synth, it is a Rompler.

It has better sounds in it than vanguard, sounds recorded from some of the worlds finest equipment and instruments, but the sounds cannot be manipulated as much as Vanguard. You can only really alter the Amp and filter envelopes i think, as well as master fx and TG

you can't compare Oranges with Weed.

Yep NeXuS is a rompler
It plays samples which are inside the synth
With expansion boards you get more sounds in it

Vanguard is a real synthesizer
With it you make sounds with the waveforms that are in the synth
And you can also buy comercial soundsets for Vanguard
There are about 40 addon sets for vanguard

So creatively seen Vanguard is better as it has endless possebillities
Because you make your own sounds with it
Nexus has some extremely usefull sounds in it
And i love it a lot but i dislike the filter
Because that sounds weak imho
So i use VST Filters to tweak some sounds

Another diference
Vanguard is only about 10 mb incl all the addon soundkits
Nexus takes a lot more discspace about 9 GB with the addon sets

But i love Nexus a lot because its perfect to make a track in no time
So many usefull sounds in there
But another downpoint
It does use a lot of CPU when you use powerfull sounds
Vanguard takes some cpu aswell but less then nexus
So i bounce the midi to audio from nexus most times
And have up to 10 Vanguard VSTi open at once

Hope you got some points to use
Cheers, Passie

Thank you both so much for sharing your ideas/info!
This has been great help!

Some how I think I am leaning more to the Vanguard (cheap price is also one plus with Vanguard)

vanguard is waaaay overused if you ask me...
but its pretty cool as long as you don't use its presets.

i've always thought vanguard sounded like utter crap.

i would choose nexus over vanguard, but you can get the native instruments komplete synths pack (academic) for the same price as nexus ($249ish). this pack gives you fm8, massive, pro-53 and absynth. this is way better than nexus lol.

They both sound like utter crap. Vanguard sounds too metallic and glossy, Nexus is a waste of space as you really can't do shit to it.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm i've always thought vanguard sounded like utter crap. i would choose nexus over vanguard, but you can get the native instruments komplete synths pack (academic) for the same price as nexus ($249ish). this pack gives you fm8, massive, pro-53 and absynth. this is way better than nexus lol.

Academic? But that is for schools+students?
I'm not in school...

So, if Vanguard+Nexus are utter crap, then what synth (AU, not VST + works with Macs) is better?

quote:

Originally posted by Lana Academic? But that is for schools+students? I'm not in school... So, if Vanguard+Nexus are utter crap, then what synth (AU, not VST + works with Macs) is better?

Read what he wrote,

Massive, FM8, Absynth, Predator would be my picks. Why don't you just get Logic Studio? The stock synths in their are 100 times better than anything ReFX has/will ever put out. If not just get the ones I mentioned above.

well nexus and vanguard aren't really great instruments. beside that i wouldn't care about refx because they have such a bad public relation and childish behaviour..

quote:

Originally posted by thecYrus they have such a bad public relation and childish behaviour..

do tell?

quote:

Originally posted by Lana Academic? But that is for schools+students? I'm not in school...

find someone who is, get them to buy it... "ta-daaaa".

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm do tell?

you better ask arksun

Vanguard has lots of cool unique waveforms, and has like 2 or 3 types of each waveform if i remember right.. 2 or 3 square waves, 2 or 3 saws.. and some other cool unique ones.

drawbacks: no matrix/modulation.. bad built in reverb.

good: lots of oscs. freely assignable envelopes defaulted to nothing, not hard coded to filter or amp like most. good variety of COOL filters.

I downloaded the demos for Absynth, FM8 + Albino3 also...
Here my quick opinion about these synths (+ Nexus + Vanguard);

-Absynth 4: It is (at least for me) bit difficult to use...
The sounds (that came with the demo) are bit too U.F.O for my taste...

-FM8: I think it's easier to use than Absynth.
And there are more "ready to use" sounds IMO.

-Albino3: Only couple of sounds in the demo version...
The sounds are pretty much same all around here.
I didn't get the sounds to sound very different,
but then again I'm not good at sound designing...
Nice Arp + gate action

-Nexus: Bit too difficult to use for my taste.

-Vanguard: Lots of nice "ready to use sounds", but some of them are bit similar...
But quite easy to alter/customise the sounds.
Pretty cool arp + gate action

So these were my feelings after short use (couple of days) of the demos

quote:

Originally posted by Lana -Nexus: Bit too difficult to use for my taste.

How's that?
Start vst, load sound, play keyboard. Doesn't seem that hard.

Its not about the synth, its about the time you're willing to invest to discover its true potential.
Vanguard at first sounded like an overlysynthetic piece of crap to me. But after 2 years of using this synth (among many others) I can guarantee you it deserves a position in your line up for softsynths. Remember, the simpler the sound the more flexible its application.

Been using Vanguard for a while now but since i got nexus ive not used it once...

I use both, but for different purposes.

Nexus is cool to get a quick, solid, quality sound going without much frustration.

With Vanguard, though, you never know what youre gonna end up with and thats what makes it nice to me. Its so easy and quick to program your sound, mainly due to its brilliant user interface. On a lot of other synths its hard to even read wtf it says on parameters or knobs but Vanguard is nice and clear. Much easier workflow. Awesome built in gater too!
Also Vanguard is really good if you just want a straight up single waveform, like sine bass for example.

quote:

Originally posted by Elec I use both, but for different purposes. Nexus is cool to get a quick, solid, quality sound going without much frustration. With Vanguard,...Its so easy and quick to program your sound, mainly due to its brilliant user interface...Much easier workflow. Awesome built in gater too! Also Vanguard is really good if you just want a straight up single waveform,...

Yeah, I agree. I have both, but I tend to use Nexus (+ 8 expansions) much more often than Vanguard nowadays. It's just a great sounding synth, period (yes, a rompler is a synth). And, it's much more tweakable than you'd think it is at first glance. Despite the previous remarks regarding their customer support, I think reFX's support is very good overall. Mike, Manuel, and Eva are very active on their forums and usually respond to problems and questions within a few hours.

Nexus does have some cool sounds but for a rompler it seems heavy on the CPU.

Glass Viper is a new synth that's fairly neat, I'm still learning how to tweak it properly but it's fun so far.. presets aren't that bad either, but who uses those? worth a look at the demo atleast.

http://www.quikquak.com/Prod_GlassViper.html

Rob Papen's Predator is one of my fav's as well.

quote:

Originally posted by MERiDiAN5i2 Nexus does have some cool sounds but for a rompler it seems heavy on the CPU. Glass Viper is a new synth that's fairly neat, I'm still learning how to tweak it properly but it's fun so far.. presets aren't that bad either, but who uses those? worth a look at the demo atleast. http://www.quikquak.com/Prod_GlassViper.html Rob Papen's Predator is one of my fav's as well.

It (Glass Viper) looks cool, but do you happend to know if it is AU or only VST?
I think it is for Mac + Pc...?

Have to try that Predator too!

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/
Go here to see if there is a mac version
All available demo and shareware musician tools are there MAC And PC
Great site to get free vsti aswell

I use presets aswell
And tweak Nexus too with Logic Automation
You can tweak it by midi to make it a lil bit more your own sound
But i dont care about who made the sound
I care more about the creativity that comes up
If its use-able then i like it

But dont fear making your own sounds
It realy isnt that hard to make your own sounds
Here you see my tutor with text and snapshots for Vanguard
Go through the steps while you read it, read and do
And after reading it you start trying and the next day you got 128 sounds done, guarentied
http://www.freewebs.com/websoundtut...setcreating.htm

And once you understand how you do it on Vanguard
Than it will become a lot easyer to do it with other synths aswell
They all use synthesis so its all the same
The buttons just look different and some got usefuller waveforms than others

hmmm

I'm actually quite fond of Nexus. But its so damn expensive (300 euros man..) - and i can't seem to find how to buy nexus 1 on the refx site let alone anywhere else on the internet (they only have nexus 2).

Anyone want to sell me their nexus? ha!

Just to clarify; Nexus is not only a rompler. It's a also a fullblown synth, but they chose to hide the tweaking part, because well... they make much more money selling expansions that way

The saw you hear when you open nexus - pure synth waveform. And there are many, many more pure synth sound there; basically if a patch loads extremely quickly it's most likely not a sample.

I like Nexus, I think it's a great synth for dance music, but it's way too expansive; especially once you go down the 'expansions' route and it's limited in functionality; i.e. why on earth down they sample all their gear with filters fully open and then use the Nexus envelopes to shape the sound?
Instead, the cutoff does nothing on most patches and you are basically stuck with the same sample as everyone else (using nex). Well, at least you can turn off the oscillators/samples in nex 2, but it would be really nice if you could stack those with for example the synth's oscillators or library samples. Or even with other patches.... Maybe nex3

I don't like Vanguard. It sounds too metallic for me. But for some sounds, it's great I guess.

The best synths for dance (especially trance) right now are Sylenth, Zebra and Nexus. The first two if you know how to make patches, and the last one if you just want ready to be used great sounds with a single click.

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