I'm learning about synths, currently i'm dealing with zebra and RS Spire but i need a synth with a less complicated gui

Thanks in advance

 

your in the wrong business lol

Try:
Diva
Sonic Academy ANA
Camel Audio Alchemy
Image-Line Harmor

Real EZ Stuff
Spectrasonics Omnisphere
ReFX Nexus2
Native Instruments Massive
LennarDigital Sylenth1

 

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I would recommend Slyenth.
Not to complicated, great sound and lots of resources on the web (especially on Youtube).
And it is a "real" synth compared to Nexus for example.

 

I'd have thought Sonic Charge's - Synplant would be 1 of the easiest to use and certainly completely different from the traditional ADSR etc



Here's a great "display" of it - this guy is so damn enthusiastic I defy anyone not to be inspired, just a little :P

Synplant demo'd.

more info :-SYNPLANT

 

hm, symplant isn't so easy for someone who wants to teach The one with easy learning curve will be khs one per example (pretty clear gui and nice sounding)



it's based on traditional controls and traditional matrix routing...

There is also, mine favourite FxPansion Strobe



without matrix, it used on-knob routings

Sylenth is also great but it has two tabs...

 

It's extremely easy - as there is no traditional, well, anything, it is all about experimentation and adventure rather than following rigid well trodden methods.

You couldn't get a simpler gui, just read the help on the app itself and you are ready to go.

Best things is for the op to try all of them, there's a demo of Symplant so why not

Although I'm very interested in Strobe now you mention it though (is there a demo / free ;P version available?

 

In my opinion the best synthesizer to begin with is Waves Element, because it's GUI layout is pretty simple from top to bottom. e.g. It begins with
the oscillator section, followed by the filter section and so on. So, you can really move from section to section
without worrying about too many sliders and buttons everywhere.

It's layout is especially logical to beginners. It's made for that purpose. The question will only be if you like the sound. But that shouldn't be
your main concern when you are new to synths, anyway. As soon as you understand how to get the results you want with Waves Element,
you can move on to any synth without a problem, even if the GUI is over or under the top.

link: http://www.waves.com/plugins/element

Big Mike

 

I would recommend syntorial.

http://www.syntorial.com/

it's not a synth but you get to learn everything about synths and how to program them within their own synth. Trust me. It will be worth spending time on it.


Once you work on synthorial i would recommend

Novation: v-station or bass station. Probably some of the most basic and friendly to use synths out there.

I would say Massive/ACE/Sylenth at medium level because of the amount of tutorials out there. "How to make xxx with xxx "

 

Syntorial will certainly be perfect for your needs and will teach you about subtractive synthesis. I think it's really not the synth you should be worried about but rather tutorials. I can recommend Dance Music Production Volume 4: Synthesis and Rob Papen's Secrets of Subtractive Synthesis in addition to the aforementioned. Also buy a copy of The Dance Music Manual, it's cheap and we should show Rick support.

Every subtractive synth can be broken down into a few categories: oscillators (what makes the sound), envelopes (that which shapes the amplitude or filter over time), filters (that which filters the sound) and modulators (that which makes the sound change over time). So really the synth is inconsequential. Learn what each componenet does. And by the way one of the easiest synths that is clearly laid out would be the Arturia Minimoog V. Not only are there not many controls but it has a wicked sound.

 

I would recommend you to take a look at the TAL synths if you're looking for a clean looking subtractive synthesis synths. http://kunz.corrupt.ch/Products Noisemaker and U-NO-LX or U-NO-60 in particular. They are not powerful nor complicated, but they can produce rather nice sounds and they're great for teaching or teaching yourself the basics of subtractive synthesis in the same way as a 2-3 oscillator FM synth would be perfect for learning FM synthesis as opposed to 6 or more oscillators with FM matrix FM synths. Toxic 2 uses a blend between FM and subtractive synthesis and that can sound rather interesting. I think Synapse Audio Toxic 2 is one of the easiest to learn FM synths even though it has 6 oscillators. You can just easily turn off last 4 and make sounds with first two oscillators until you figure it out. In general, Synapse Audio has got rather simple and easy to use synths. http://www.synapse-audio.com/orioninstruments.html If you're interested in learning additive synthesis Image-Line Morphine is a really simple synth to start with. http://www.image-line.com/plugins/Synths/Morphine/

I personally started my journey into sound synthesis by trading a Commodore64 computer for Roland Jupiter-4 some time in 1987... it's a really great and easy to use subtractive synth very similar to Roland Juno-60. I think these older Roland synths are really, really great for learning basic subtractive synthesis. One gets bored with it pretty easily, though, at least in my case... I find FM and PD [Phase Distortion, quite similar to FM] synthesis more unpredictable and interesting. The best combination is actually having all three like in Linplug Octopus. It can do FM, additive and subtractive synthesis. http://www.linplug.com/octopus.html You have additive oscillators with FM modulation matrix, going through subtractive filters and envelopes. Really nice synth but quite complicated to master. ;)

Samplers like ShortCircuit are also great for learning subtractive synthesis. You can use whatever sample you want for the oscillator so that makes it quite a bit more interesting than a typical subtractive synth. http://www.vemberaudio.se/shortcircuit.php This one also has so many different filters and FX that you can learn more about that, too. Basically, if you put sinewave, saw or square samples into a sampler you get a common subtractive synth like Juno-60. Samplers like this are love of my life... samplers with capable synthesis engine.

Cheers!

 

sure you could. how about autogun?

 

You won't learn subtractive synthesis with Autogun, if that's the goal.

 

For easy to use but great sounding synths, I would say:

Spire, Sylenth1, DCAM Synth Squad

For romplers:

Omnisphere/Trilian (yeah this only sort of counts as Omnisphere has a powerful synth built in as well), Nexus, Alchemy


Personally, I found khs one to be a bit disappointing. It sounds pretty good, but not as amazing as I was expecting. Spire on the other hand was one of those under-the-radar synths for me. But as soon as I started making some patches I was blown away by the unison density feature--it makes generating unique sounding and FAT waveforms quite easy. *yes*

 

Syntorial is awesome!! *yes* I have used it and loved it. Really all synthesizers are very similar made of the same sections. Xsze is right, it is really just about learning one synth that can be used in the future as your needs for your synth grow. Zebra is not so noob friendly because you have to choose all of your sections and if you don't know what you want than this can be very challenging. I would definitely stick with Spire out of those choices. It has some options that other synths out there these days don't have. I use sylenth a lot and like the gui well enough. You may want to try a rompler such as Omnisphere or Nexus. Omnisphere has an easy to use gui where you can pick not just a category for the samples but also a few sub categories to easily browse through all the roms. It is also a synth so you have as in depth of sound design choices as you want.

 

Have a look at this .. http://www.robpapen.com/dvd-sound-design.html

 

For what it's worth I'm addicted with Lush-101 right now, and it's easy enough to learn being based on the Roland SH-101 (you also get 8 x SH-101 in layers!!!) and it sounds fantastic too

 

Jeeze to much now I think hes really confused with all the advice ! Use what comes to ya that's all

 

It's because people don't consider that he needs a *simple* synth to learn, not what you use yourself. Zebra is complicated even for me, for instance and I love modular synths. Synplant and Autogun are ridiculous because there's nothing to learn from them. They are preset based synths, no real synthesis to explore. I also got carried away a little bit , but I don't use at least half of the synths I recommended him. I recommended them because I thought they were easy to grasp. ;) SH-101 is easy enough. All Rolands are easy enough to learn from. U-NO-60 or U-NO-LX are definitely great synths to learn additive synthesis, which is the most common type of synthesis.

Once you get a grasp of what oscillators, envelopes, amplifier and filter do, it's easier to learn everything else.

 

I think you should take my advice on the recommended tutorials. They will do more for you than any easy synth and you can apply what you've learned to whatever you're using at the moment. It will allow you to forget about all the extra knobs and features and hone in on the different sections. That's why I suggested the minimoog since it doesn't have many controls and they're all laid out to make it easy to learn on. Then you can also deconstruct patches and see what makes them tick.