I’m looking for a VST to invest some time in improving my sound design and ideally something that’s quite flexible and powerful, but relatively easy to use.
I’ve got VCollection, but most of the synths are not that nice to use as they mimic the warts and all limitations of the synths they are modelling.
I also have Pigments, but though it’s pretty good I don’t love it and it is too much for my relatively low spec laptop so it starts stuttering pretty easily.
I recently picked up the demos of Twin 3 which I was a bit indifferent about and Dune 3 which seems fantastic (and apparently efficient on CPU) so I’ll probably be picking up a copy of that unless anyone else has a good recommendation.
Other recommendations I’ve had have been Diva which is VA only and CPU hungry, Sylenth1 which is pretty old now and Serum which potentially seems like a good option.
Yeah, any powerful synth will probably be CPU hungry - My first suggestion would have been Pigments.
Probably not what you were thinking of but Reaktor comes with loads of different synth ensembles with varying CPU requirements, you can download plenty more and even build your own depending on how far you want to go. Version 6.5 should be out soon with Apple Silicon compatibility and other improvements. It has been my main soft synth for about 20 years
Despite Serum’s age, in my opinion it is still one of the most powerful VST synths around. I agree with everything said about Pigments, amazing sound design capabilities but brutal on the CPU.
Plus Serum has a lot of support and lots of preset packs. It is still very relavant today.
Serum is also fairly easy on the CPU, but like anything soft synth, depending on how you are patching you can max out your system pretty quick
Check out PhasePlant by Kiloheats. It’s even more flexible than Pidgements. It can be heavy on the CPU if many modules are active, but it’s so much freedom to experiment and create new sound …
Vital is sort of free, sounds pretty great and I find it very quick to get mental sounds. Bit heavy on the processor tho.
For something free in every sense of the word, and quite a bit more CPU friendly, try Surge Synth. It’s a bit idiosyncratic UI wise and maybe not as shiny sounding as some of the newer flagship synths. But it’s flexible as hell. There’s a boatload of presets that come with it and sone of those really show it off (Databroth ones are fun).
I’m currently using vital to make drum sounds that I then sample into renoise. It’s so fast to get sounds going and the multiband limiter is great for getting heavy, punchy sounds right out of the synth.
Also, don’t forget to explore any built-in options your DAW might have. If you’re using Logic, it comes with Alchemy, for example. And on Bitwig, it’s going to be hard for any supersynth to beat the Grid.
Also, a lot of these super-sounds come from layering individual engines on top of each other and adding modulation — two things DAWs can accomplish with any plugin. And some even let you then save as a template or preset. And most built-in plugins are pretty easy on the CPU.
if you’re not after text-to-synth, presets or loads of wavetables it’s free, but even $25 for the plus or $80 for the pro version it’s pretty cheap for this synth imo, although never needed more then the free version…
yeah if you go heavy on modulation, otherwise it’s pretty good, I LOVE the osc morph features, they are mental!
btw you can reduce cpu by turning off oversampling in the ADVANCED menu, or turn it higher during render for full quality!
yeah that’s where surge and I never glued, it’s very powerful but too much time to get somewhere… but still great synth.
I always forget about the quality settings in vital.
The surge UI is a little clunky but considering when the original was released, that modulation system is amazing.
It’s also takes a bit more work to get good sounds it if it
As happy as I am it’s being developed open source, it feels like things are being added that really require a full rethink UI wise. The little pop up window type things that have appeared in more recent releases are pretty janky. Saying that, I’m not working too work on improving the UI so shouldn’t complain too much
I’ve really been enjoying Massive X. It doesn’t have the animations that some other big synths have, but maybe that would help in terms of cpu usage. The sound is brilliant, especially the noise sources. Great synth.
I’d say PhasePlant, Pigments, Diva and - not sure if it is still being sold/supported - but Equator 2 is also very good, especially its MPE implementation.
Either of those will give you something to do for years.
Also a bit of a curve ball, Bitwig with its Grid is an incredible sound design environment that is more flexible and powerful than any of those aforementioned dedicated synths.
I’m a bit confused by this OP. I was about to recommend either Pigments or Omnisphere as “super synths” but then see that you are severely limited by CPU power. If that’s your limitation, then a super synth doesn’t make much sense, I think. Anyway, when you get a newer computer (a used 2020 M1 MacBook Air with even basic specs could run Pigments just fine), I’d recommend Omnisphere, Pigments as two of the best. Then there’s UVI Falcon, which I haven’t touched. Also, don’t forget that most DAWs these days come pre-packaged with great VST synths (Logic has Alchemy and a bunch of other stuff, Bitwig has the Grid, Polymer, Phase 4, etc.). You might get by just fine with these.
but if ur in for a supersynth, i can only recommend bitwig…which is an all supersynth sounddesign full fledged superstudio in one mainframe to go, does not need the latest cpu benchmarking to do it’s thing, no matter which platform u prefer…
THE state of the art daw studio/instrument sonic mastertool…if u know this beast inside out, there’s nothing u can’t do and all xtra third party plugins are nothing but little sideroad luxury wishes u might wanna enjoy, but never have to for real…
The thing about Serum is, the ability to modulate the LFO curves - so funky. Using this with key on random creates a lot of movement. It yields so many great and dynamic sounds.
There’s got to be 100 different filter types… insane. The comb -, a classics IMO.
As others have mentioned, it‘s wide spread acceptance has led to a lot of great tutorials and sound packs.
I also use Hive2 and although I think it sounds better than Serum, it’s just not quite as funky and I thinks it’s because the LFO shaping isn’t as flexible.
