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I'm looking to buy an all around hybrid soft synth where i can make anything from a grand piano sound to the sound of warping time and space itself. i would like to buy Komplete but i dont have the money to drop $500, even though its a way better deal and i probably want battery and FM8 in the future.

anyways whats a good hybrid synth for around $150 tops? also is there even a hybrid synth that consists of additive, subtractive, fm, and with a waveshaper/table?

i was looking at these synths (for logic btw, so AU's 64 bit)

massive
razor (good price, but is it good enough for using for a single all around synth?)
zebra 2
reaktor 5.6
image line harmor (does this even exist as an AU?)

EDIT: went ahead and bought zebra 2 so i don't need suggestions anymore, but feel free to discuss if you wish.

FM8? Don't know the pricing on that.

jrisreal wrote:FM8? Don't know the pricing on that.

yeah its nice, but isn't fm8 just fm? I'm kinda looking for a hybrid synth.

does anyone know if massive can do fm? i think massive is a subtractive + wavetable synth but I'm not sure if it has fm capabilities, at least to modulate 1 osc with another?

Eat Bass wrote:

jrisreal wrote:FM8? Don't know the pricing on that.

yeah its nice, but isn't fm8 just fm? I'm kinda looking for a hybrid synth.

does anyone know if massive can do fm? i think massive is a subtractive + wavetable synth but I'm not sure if it has fm capabilities, at least to modulate 1 osc with another?

If FM8 is as similar to Sytrus as I think, it is additive, subtractive, FM, RM, and probably more

fm8 is the same price as massive and absynth.
NI products are better for when waiting for the sales as they go down to 50% price each year for a limited time.
IL harmor is very good i bought it on sale. its not as quick and easy as massive and such, its a little hard to use but it capable of way more sounds when loading in custom waveforms, or designing them (also you can create custom filter shapes AND custom Res shapes). on the filter side of things id say its the most powerful synth i know of since i was able to copy the character of massive's scream filter in there just from drawing a bunch of lines.
im no expert with it but a lot of the sounds in my sig tune were made using harmor. iv been told it sounds like i was using fm8 or massive but its mainly harmor & synth1 tbh.
if its not available on mac then id say reaktor is your best bet, it has endless possibilities of sound design, theres tonnes of good synths in there + you can do crazy shit like edit any reaktor synth and change it the way you want.. so you can use the effects/filters of your favourite synths in there and use them on your own samples for example (although some will find creating/editing synths to be a bit too hard)

Out of that list i'd say Zebra's the one for you

imho there some amazing synths that you can get for free, such as the Tal ones, but I think they're all subtractive synths, iirc. Imho though, if you really want an amazing soft synth, that is about as close as you can get to a hardware synth, you can't go past Sylenth1. Amazing sounds. Only subtractive though.

You can also pick up Z3ta+ 2 for about $100, and it is A-MAZING.

3rdeye wrote:Out of that list i'd say Zebra's the one for you

yeah I'm leaning towards zebra 2 or massive. zebra 2 seems like the better synth, but massive seems like the easier synth for me to get down pat. i might try and demo both and make my decision then.

subfect wrote:imho there some amazing synths that you can get for free, such as the Tal ones, but I think they're all subtractive synths, iirc. Imho though, if you really want an amazing soft synth, that is about as close as you can get to a hardware synth, you can't go past Sylenth1. Amazing sounds. Only subtractive though.

You can also pick up Z3ta+ 2 for about $100, and it is A-MAZING.

i have a tal synth, but some of them are 32 bit and not AU. I'm in logic so 64 bit AU's all the way.

also isn't Z3ta only a VST?

Man idk about soft synth or whatever, but Sylenth1 is pretty damn sexy ha

elyhess wrote:Man idk about soft synth or whatever, but Sylenth1 is pretty damn sexy ha

isn't that pretty basic though? i know its good but I'm looking for something that can be my go to synth for any sound.

zebra 2 seems like its my best bet for a very versatile synth I'm just not so sure if i agree with the interface. it sats its supposed to be simple on the website but looks pretty complex to me haha!

i think massive is a bit more simple to operate than zebra

You need Reaktor to run Razor.

You can run it on the free Reaktor player, but I don't think you can save presets?

mks wrote:You need Reaktor to run Razor.

You can run it on the free Reaktor player, but I don't think you can save presets?

yeah fuck that. i think iv decided on zebra 2. it seems FUCKING AMAZING. a bit hard to learn but i think once i learn it it should be the fucking tits.

all synths have a learning curve the first few times

subfect wrote:all synths have a learning curve the first few times

yeah i know, i was just stating the fact that its not as simple as massive to use. but i just ordered it and am now waiting for my email

you're right that Massive will be a lot easier than Zebra2. Zebra2 is amazing, and in some ways is laid out really well, but it's definitely different and not what I'd call intuitive from the beginning (meaning, you'll have to learn it). Anybody who's loaded it up and tried to start with a sine wave will tell you that =P

cloak and dagger wrote:you're right that Massive will be a lot easier than Zebra2. Zebra2 is amazing, and in some ways is laid out really well, but it's definitely different and not what I'd call intuitive from the beginning (meaning, you'll have to learn it). Anybody who's loaded it up and tried to start with a sine wave will tell you that =P

yeah haha i dabbled with the demo and i was like what the??? but after watching some stuff about it its making more sense. it has some amazing features and the possibilities are endless with all of the routing and modulation capabilities. i also like how you can make a synth sound cool with just 1 osc by adding voices and by adding those harmonic fx presets in the drop down menu. each osc has a shit load of possibilities right on them, pretty cool.

check out FAW Circle as well man, I bought it over Massive as I much prefer its sound... the Prophet modeled filters are superb, and the functionality is similar to Massive with drag and drop modulation routing. I think it sounds heaps better though. You can get it for about 65 bucks or something, great value.. and it can do all sorts of sick wave morphing/wave scanning synthesis stuff as well.

3rdeye wrote:check out FAW Circle as well man, I bought it over Massive as I much prefer its sound... the Prophet modeled filters are superb, and the functionality is similar to Massive with drag and drop modulation routing. I think it sounds heaps better though. You can get it for about 65 bucks or something, great value.. and it can do all sorts of sick wave morphing/wave scanning synthesis stuff as well.

Thanks, ill check it out for the future but I already bought zebra and I'm pretty stoked on it

3rdeye wrote:check out FAW Circle as well man, I bought it over Massive as I much prefer its sound... the Prophet modeled filters are superb, and the functionality is similar to Massive with drag and drop modulation routing. I think it sounds heaps better though. You can get it for about 65 bucks or something, great value.. and it can do all sorts of sick wave morphing/wave scanning synthesis stuff as well.

I really dislike Circle, but in terms of it's sound - and it's layout shits me. haha

i'm surprised nobodys mentioned camel audio alchemy. pretty good synth, does all sorts.