As an inexperienced producer i was wondering if anyone could recommend me some good synth and bass plugins. I already have a few, but was interested in looking to acquire more. At the moment, im interested in ReFx Nexus 2, Vanguard, and Rob Papens Predator, but im sure theres more out there that would be beneficial to me. Any advice?
J.L.
The ones you mentioned are good for beginners to get started with. However, as you accumulate more experience, you will grow out of their plasticky sounds and go with synths that are more in-depth.
Nexus 2 and Vanguard are pretty easy to pick up and those are the ones you want to be learning your synthesis on... not something like absynth
evo8
Hard to beat Trilian from Spectrasonics
tehlord
quote:
Originally posted by J.L.
The ones you mentioned are good for beginners to get started with. However, as you accumulate more experience, you will grow out of their plasticky sounds and go with synths that are more in-depth.
Nexus 2 and Vanguard are pretty easy to pick up and those are the ones you want to be learning your synthesis on... not something like absynth
Nonsense
Neither Nexus or Predator sound plasticky, and even Vanguard is really just a little harsh.
And you won't learn much about synthesis using Nexus
Richard Butler
I'd wait for the release of Imposcar 2 as one option as I personally find GFORCE the company with the best overall sound if you want to sound a little different from the norm,.
DCAM synth squad is useflu and has nice filters and analogue sounding distortion, but needs a lot of time to get into.
Gladiator - managed to get my best pluck yet from it last night - about 3 hours on the one sound just teasing it out. A lot of interesting sounds but most presets are very cheesey which is a downside. When I say cheesey I mean they would drop straight into a hip hop pop type number.
Probably the synth I use most.
You ask about bass - rob papens subboombass if cheap (£70) but I've never found the tone useful - it has a nasal amp sim quality to every sound and the subs all click unless you really have a long attack which is often not ideal.
Sylenth - ok, everyone kept rejoicing in this one a while back, and I have had some awesome sounds out of it, but it is very familiar and a bit plasticky for my tastes. Personaly I think you might be better getting something less known.
All in all I do not have a fave soft synth, they all to me have good and bad points in about equal measure.
SYNTHS WILL NOT BE THE TOTAL ANSWER > I strongly advice you get a synth plus a decent reverb and decent distortion unit. I say this as a cubase5 user.
It wasn't until I recently got a dedicated quality distortion unit that I managed to get the synths sounding as polished and fullsome as I'd wanted.
Toraverb is only about £30 and I can well recommend for you reverb duties.
Having said all this I suspect some other DAWS may have verb and distortion good enough without the need for separates?
Zombie0729
quote:
Originally posted by evo8
Hard to beat Trilian from Spectrasonics
have to agree though i don't think it's for all genres... @Cyrus Reed do you have an idea of the sound you're after? Nexus is one of the staples in trance production, it's widely used (prog house too) in the genre. i do more housey stuff and trilian is everything i'll probably ever need for bass, it's fantastic
J.L.
Well, I think any good synths (sampled or synthesized) needs to start with a good raw unprocessed sound. I personally don't enjoy the saw from vanguard because for some reason the harmonics of it just don't do it for me. Nexus is neat, but overpriced IMO.
Really though, the choice of synths depend on the style and the sound you, as a producer are looking for.
I can't say I know anything about predator, but anything designed by Rob Papen you can most likely put your buck on it and not be disappointed.
My recommendations for synths in terms of relative ease of use:
Synth 1
- free, but included presets are kinda lame
- even as a non-free, I think this one's a winner... The filter can sound pretty good with some saturation http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/
zebra is still a good synth ideal for making some fresh sounds due to is cool modulation matrix.
their is some cool freeware out there to try your hand at using this synth
Cyrus Reed
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think i have a few that were recommended to me, but i will definitely check out the ones i don't have.
@DJ: At this time no i don't have a particular sound im trying to make. I focus on multiple genres the primary being Electro House, Trance, Hardstyle and Happy Hardcore so right now im trying to learn to make the sounds associated with those genres. After i'v got that down and improve my Synthesis skills a bit, i will start trying to come up with a particular sound i want to use.
DJ Robby Rox
Any synth works for bass really and like some have said it can depend on the type of bass you're doing.
For subby, longer sustain sounds I might go to trilian, but its very rare now and days that I use 1 single synth for any sound really, especially bass where its not always easy to get the character you need from just 1 synth.
The majority of my bass are rolling, so in all honesty I don't really give a what my initial bass layer will be. Sometimes I'll almost throw any basic saw with a sharp attack and lp env over it. And then I cut out most of the lows and his, using mainly the mids.
If I'm not using a sub I usually will put a fast attack sub bass under the rolling bass itself, which I usually do with v-station cause its filters/resonance really push out the low end with the resonance set right.
What I usually spend the most time on is the 400kz and above region, or the "hi end" of the bass. This is what most people really notice and I'm not sure if its smart to neglect lower frequencies but I usually do.
Anyway, the hardest part for me really is getting a snappy, bright, but original sounding top end. I mean you can go right ahead and layer another saw with some distortion/equalizer work but lately I notice myself taking really weird sounds you wouldn't expect to be in a bass.
And I've been doing this with synth1. But the goal for me isn't really even to get a specific sound, I just up sounds with a short attack as badly as I can (usually between fm and unison adjustments or other random tweaks), twisting knobs endlessly till I get "teeth" in the bass which is what really gives the perception of drive. In rolling basses if you spend a lot of time polishing the hi end so its sharp/hits fast, thats really when the groove of the bassline comes out.
Sometimes I even will use fx with short attack because lately I've noticed some of these pros (Andy Blueman) just have the most polished hi end I've ever heard before. So at times I'll get desperate and try almost anything.
I mean if you listen to his "Sea Tides" track at first it sounds like a typical bassline but it is really not. I've studied that bass at one point for a week straight and can't even comes close to w/e the he's doing. I mean they're not just using fast attacks saws/square/noise they are doing something to their bass that makes them literally glow in the mix. Guess thats where the years of experience come into play.
DJ RANN
For me, I always seem to reach for predator and the minimoog.
Predator for more electro or proggy basslines, and the minmoog when I want those really deep or classic moog style basses.
evo8
quote:
Originally posted by Zombie0729
have to agree though i don't think it's for all genres... @Cyrus Reed do you have an idea of the sound you're after? Nexus is one of the staples in trance production, it's widely used (prog house too) in the genre. i do more housey stuff and trilian is everything i'll probably ever need for bass, it's fantastic
The beauty of Trilian is you can have as many bass sounds as you want, all coming from the one synth instance due to its multi-timbrality, its so flexible as well in terms of modulation, really outstanding piece of kit.
