It's kind of a small thing to start a thread over, but the forums have been quiet and tense lately, so maybe a little light conversation wouldn't hurt.

I've seen Sylenth called a 'standard' recently. A substantial percentage of videos/interviews showing big name producers' creative processes feature Sylenth in some way. I guess I'm just kind of curious what all the fuss is about. I've got nothing against it -- it's definitely a good synth. Nice layout, fine oscillators and filters as far as I can tell. Lots of 3rd party presets. Fast, easy browser (ahem... Massive). Nice built-in effects, etc.

What sets it apart from the rest that makes it so ubiquitous though? I've heard a lot about how it's alias-free (and therefore supposedly better sounding) but surely that can't account for all of it.

 

Ease of use/sound quality/cpu usage

 

It was quality synth from the beginning and later it turned into "it" synth because of availability and popularity among famous people, on every famous folk using it, you have legions of his followers on it too

It's light on the CPU, easy to program, sounds great and it's covered with tutorials and banks

Exactly

 

not forgetting all those famous peeps (and not so famous) who use a warez version

 

I never use sylenth on a project, it sound so artificial, but a famous mag choose it the best soft synth.
Sometimes people choose a synth because the libs of a specific genre.
He like because:
1 it use low resources (amateurs do not have a super computer)
2 plenty of libs (only comparable to massive
3 good marketing with pop stars
4 from page with all osc sections
5 good browser (something that Spire do not have
Understanding that each person have their needs and that a musical personality must develop in a special, different way, lead us to the road we choose and routines that we create/like/need.
So compare, choose, delete and chop to only have the things YOU like, because many people just copy or reinvent what is already invented....
Tense is good man, sometimes we must break eggs to make a cake
People are trying to create a higher conscience instead a leech thing, and thats good right?

 

Ooops, are you serious?
2000: NI Absynth, FM7, AAS Tassman
2002: Spectrasonics Atmosphere, the predecessor of Omnisphere
2004: Korg Legacy Collection
2005: NI Reaktor was already at version 5
... and various other great synths from these days.

As far as I remember, even NI Massive was out before Sylenth1.

I think what helped Sylenth1 become so popular is first its ease of use and the nice old-school UI, and second its solid sound (just like its "predecessor" Synth-1).
It's by far not the most powerful synth but it can give us quick results in 9 of 10 cases and being so light in size and cpu load, it's one perfect go-to synth. And the UI does invite even synth beginners to tweaking.
The fact that many users have been desperately waiting for a 64bit version for years obviously hasn't broken its reputation at all.
And with so many preset designers offering banks for Sylenth1, people get reminded of it often enough ;-)

I personally don't use it anymore, but I perfectly understand why so many still do.
Ease of use is probably an asset just as important for the popularity Omnisphere V1 and V2 - Not much there that couldn't be done by other synths, but IMHO it's the combination of features in one package and its great usability that make it so special.

With a good synth, you know what you're going to do before you even open the plugin.

 

don't know, spire is cleaner, sylenth1 v.2 has much more aliasing. Test it.

 

... and FX. Not to forget FX.
Sylenth has a great phaser for example, an effect that still Omni2 uses in many of the new presets.

Phasers are underrated anyway

 

It's just not true that sylenth1 was the first good softsynth.
Even 2003/2004 a lot of people produced inboard only.
Great synths of that time:

discodsp discovery, discodsp vertigo
novation basstation, novation v-station
virsyn cube, virsyn tera
gmedia oddity, gmedia imposcar and minimonsta
ni pro 53
arturia moog modular, minimoog, cs80v, arp 2600v
aas lounge lizar, aas tazman
hartmann neuron
refx quadrasid, refx vanguard

some of them could do supersaw...

 

For me, it is definitely CPU usage. I don't use a lot of sylenth on my main pc, but on my laptop it is king.

 

It never was my "synth to go". And i never was happy with its "supersaw" and filters. Don't know why it was #1 for so many years.

 

Full disclosure: I don't even know how to test it. I've been very busy this last 18 months just learning how to mix. I haven't had a chance or any desire to dive into even more technical stuff.

I never did get to try Spire. I downloaded a release -- my computer didn't agree with the installer so I just gave up on it. Not one to sweat it if a warez install goes bad. I'm kind of settled with the stuff I like/am good with. I've got all sorts of synths installed but when it's time to do some sound design I pretty much never reach for anything but Massive, Twin 2 or Operator.

I like really dirty, gritty sounds. For some reason Sylenth 'feels' cleaner to me, and that was what I experienced with the handful of libraries I perused so I pretty much only bother with it when I need lots of libraries. i.e. I'm looking for a certain sound and don't feel like designing it myself. One could make the argument that Twin 2 is 'cleaner' since it has no built in effects, but you can get plenty of dirt from all its filtering options. And it has more modulation flexibility than any other synth I've ever used.

I'm sure someone could come along and tell me why my assessment of Sylenth is total crap. Wouldn't surprise me, but I have a really easy time getting my desired vibe from massive and Operator. Not as much from Sylenth. Although I guess for dirt, wavetables and FM are ideal.

 

@Cav Emp:
Maybe you're just not like the bunch of musicians who got to love Sylenth1 for its simplicity?
If you feel at home with Massive, Operator and Twin2, there's apparently no reason to add Sylenth1 to your arsenal.
I can't imagine any sound that Sylenth1, from its pure capabilities, would add to them.
Twin2 is a great synth and it's interesting that you use it to get dirty/gritty sounds out of it, I wouldn't have put it into this category, but good to know.
And as you're with FabFilter, adding Timeless would certainly be a good FX enhancement

 

hey, audio lovers,

rarely using it, but if, when, then the warm drive feature (filter drive mode) plus the foldback feature (distortion mode) are surely doing their work (for me, the timbres achieved with, through, these modules are quite unique). *yes*

all the best for all of us...

 

I guess not? Funny thing is, I don't think of it as being simpler than Massive or Twin2. Though Operator damn confusing at first IMO. I just realized I really benefit from visual feedback - actually seeing the envelopes is a big help for me.

And hell yes @ Timeless. You talk about simplicity, Fabfilter is where it's at! They were the first plugins I ever really learned because the interface is so brilliantly designed not to overwhelm even a newb, while still offering complexity/precision.



This is just rambling but I really like it here. There really isn't any other audio site I've been to where I can just BS with people who are knowledgeable but also very cool and friendly. Whether or not the teams decide to come back, AudioSex is a great place for a musician to be and I'm grateful that I seem to be welcome even if I can't be much use to the 'scene'.

 

AudioSex is special place for sure, I never saw it connected to AudioZ sincerely and it shouldn't be, this place is so much more

 

Well said!!!