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the freer the better. Recommendations?

was going to say absynth, but hardly free (unless you torrent it or something).

fliPPo wrote:hardly free (unless you torrent it or something).

...

Pretty much any of the good free ones are capable. Try Crystal 2. It's a wavetable subtractive synth. I've made some pretty nice sounds in it in the past, and you can load your own wavs to use.

Triangle 2 is another great subtractive synth. It's a little bit grimier a la pro-53, but you should also be able to get some nice leads out of her. It's monophonic so pads are out.

i love wavetable synths. Just about any wavetable synth will give you killer ambience if you know how to milk your sounds.

Here are two freeware VST string synths, perfect for soft, soulful ambience:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1041.html
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1331.html

Also look around on that KVR site, it has tons of other free synths, effects etc.

any synth

playing a melody or chord that moves you

using a patch that might have:

- a long release time
- treble filtered out
- the bass filtered out

and possibly sequenced:

- quietly in the mix
- an octave above or below other elements
- swimming in reverb
- loosely with lots of velocity variation

FM7 is pretty cheap these days

atmosphere is amazing, but expensive! also, resampling always works wonders...

for these type of sounds i like to use sampled strings/vocals/stuff and wack them in the sampler... reverb, delay, eq... works a treat
this is also cus i'm too impatient for endless synth programming....

B-LAM wrote:for these type of sounds i like to use sampled strings/vocals/stuff and wack them in the sampler... reverb, delay, eq... works a treat
this is also cus i'm too impatient for endless synth programming....

Straight up. That's been the formula lately here too. I make all the basses straight from scratch, but i've been trying to be creative with sampling for other layers.

TopCatt wrote:ATMOSPHERE if you can be botherd to 'aquire' 2 gigs spread out onto 5 discs...it is big though...the very first preset sound is the one when you turn a playstation 2 on...

my personal fav

hg fortune synths

flippo wrote:was going to say absynth, but hardly free (unless you torrent it or something).

Bounce from the 30 minute demo.

Oatmeal is an excellent free synth as is Zebralette.
Both are great for ambient sounds, fx, etc.
Zebralette is quite interesting and has some unique features and a great sound, smaller version of Zebra 2.

jonahmann wrote:

flippo wrote:was going to say absynth, but hardly free (unless you torrent it or something).

Bounce from the 30 minute demo.

Do you really think op cares 5 years later....c'mon now

I care. I'm gonna check out zebralette now. And your post hasn't helped anyone; it just clutters the thread.
I think picking a good reverb can be more important the synth itself, especially if it's a plain old patch that can be done with any synth.

Artie Fufkin wrote:I care. I'm gonna check out zebralette now. And your post hasn't helped anyone; it just clutters the thread.

Yes, every post on dsf except for mine are competent focused on the questions at hand

arcticsunrise wrote:hg fortune synths

+100

His stuff is amazing.

Maybe try a convolution reverb with a random sound effect as the impulse response.

Oherwise for reverb, I also recommend... Absynth.