What price range are you looking in? Used or new?

I would suggest starting off with a good rompler if you just need a good all around synth and decent controller keyboard.

I dunno - I always stick to trusty swiss army knife of synths: Access Virus. there's hardly any sound it can't make and the amount of popularity and support you get is tremendous. there are people pumping out classic patches for all kinds of music.

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Buy Reaktor 5! It's perfect for both ambient and trance, and also other genres... Check it out.

Edit: Or do you mean hardware synths?

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For ambient I recommend the Roland JD-800, an oldie but goodie! It has some pads to die for.

Thanks alot fellas'!

I'll check it all out

quote:

Originally posted by Degradation For ambient I recommend the Roland JD-800, an oldie but goodie! It has some pads to die for.

just sold mine few weeks ago. Can't say I miss it tooooo much. Pads were rather... cold, IMHO. Not a bad synth tho, I might be buying it again at later time if I find it at a good price.

___________________

quote:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

--Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

What's a rompler?

Old term.. Sampler that doesn't sample int RAM, but has it's waveforms burned into ROM (Read Only Memory)..

Roland Digital Arithemtic, Korg AI & AI2 synthesis, Yamaha AWM are all basically variations on the same theme. Essentially a subtractive synth with smaples as the oscillator waveforms.

This is essentially the same as most samplers, but with a ROMpler you don't record the waveforms, they're preselected for you.

Back in the day (when I were a Lad, pulling out pipe & Slippers) ROMplers were big news, as they offered much more "Realism" than analog and FM synths, and were much cheaper than the very expensive samplers of the time.

Some additional info here are the basic Synth "Families" (Non exhaustive list of examples and sub types!)

Analog Modular - Wall of modules.. Moog, Buchala started mainstream synthesis with these

Analog Subtractive - Mini Moog was the first big one, but 99.99% of Analog synths that are not Modulars fall ino this category. Basically a couple of Modules slung together in a preset or semi-preset way

FM (Frequency Modulation) - Kicked off in a big way with the Yamaha DX family, and subsiquentially developed into AFM and AFM2. These were the first mass produced digital synths.

Additive Synths - Usually digital, but can be anlog (very weird). Use Rise and fall of harmonics over time to generate sound. Examples are Failight ;-), K5, & K5000.

Samplers - See above, but don't forget that some of the higher end samplers are basically full blooded digital synths that happen to play back samples as their oscillators

ROMplers - See above..

VA (Virtual Analog) - Nord Lead started this trend, and is now probabbly the most common type of synth, as it's what most plugins are trying to do.

Wave Table & Vector Synths - Wave Table Oscillators are to be found in the likes of the Waldorf Microwave and Korg Wavestation (Which is loosely based on the Prophet VS), The vecotr part comes from automating the crossfades between multiple osccilators. Great for massive textures, or od Rhythmic stuff.

Digital Modular - Nord Modular, Vaz and Reaktor are examples of the digital incarnations of the original concept. String together modules how you like to make sounds.. Question though. Artura's Moog Modular VSTi is I suppose a Virtual Analog Modular, as opposed to falling into this category

Granular Synths - Only reacently has this got out of the lab due to the wicked cpu overhead, produces some ery cool sounds if treated right. Absynth is a good place to start poking at this

Thanks Dijinerd. Killer Post

You can't go wrong with the Virus synths and the Alesis A6 Andromeda. They are also Tiesto's favorites. But also loooooot of $$$

For soft synths I suggest Pro53, Reaktor5 and z3ta. For incredible ambient sounds check out Atmosphere, it will blow your mind.

That pile of software is more expensive ($1179) than a brand new Virus classic, or twice the price of one on ebay...

For that amount of money you can get some pretty funky hardware. Also has resale value too...