I'm as big on sound design as anyone, but for some things (chordstacks, arps, seqs, pads), there really is no need to reinvent the wheel so its good to have some go-to sounds that are good right out of the box.

What does everyone recommend?

 

good thinking, sorry for going out of question

i wanted to ask you where you learnt mostly sound design for? and are you doing it mainly for leads or what?

 

Mostly for bass and lead design. Some ambiance as well. Those are what you really want to be unique and memorable about a track. The stuff happening in the background... not as much, so I don't like to waste too much time on it.

 

Omnisphere is kind of a rompler. Kontakt is a sampler but with packs can be a rompler

 

I assume you want a synth with a lot of presets, then why not try the free Synth1, old school vst that has about 15k presets to choose from. If you want to make your own, imo Serum is the best and easiest to make a sound

 

romplers are dead , dune 3 has amazing presets for what you want though and it sounds huge

 

this thing is like the ultimate way to learn sounddesign , you get literally 2 decades of presets with sound design ideas that was popular but died before anyone got to hear it

 

Korg or Roland romplers if you need oldschool sounds.

 

ANA2 is a great one, it have lot of pressets too and is more flexible than sylenth

 

A lot of them are old school presets indeed, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you may need those old school sounds, that's why we have emulations of classic synths today still

 

I don't know why anyone would consider having 15k presets a good thing. Quality > Quantity. I'd rather have 150 GOOD presets than spend 2 weeks going through all 15k presets. Also, I haven't used synth1, but if I'm not mistaken iti sn't exactly the most powerful synth out there.

I agree, Dune 3 does have some killer sounds in it.

Yeah, I've seen/heard great stuff about Omnisphere. Maybe I'll see about getting it if I can clear enough space on my hard drive.

I love Kontakt, so much great stuff. Although it's more for multisampled instruments than synth stuff, but it is great for that.

I'd give my left nut to have UVI Falcon and Meteor, but they're just flat out too expensive. I also hate iLok with a passion, so much so that I refuse to buy any product that uses it or similar. Too many bad experiences. I'll grab it the second it gets cracked tho.

All those synths are great for sound design, but (with the exception of Dune and Zebra) they don't have that many quality presets that are ready-to-go unless you get 3rd party banks. Absynth was great back in the day, but I think its jut outdated now and there's no much reason to use it anymore unfortunately.

Yeah ANA2 is about 10 years newer than Sylenth, so that much makes sense. I do like the Allpass filters in ANA2 quite a bit, other than that though, it's kinda meh. Some of the presets are alright, mainly the Zardonic ones.

 

I'm curious why you think that?

There's still not much out there that can do those nice twinkly, slightly resonant chime-y pads and stabs. And surround sound, which makes it perfect for video/film stuff.

Well, maybe Alchemy can do it somewhat (another great beast in that vein), but I suppose that's outdated as well.

 

I mean I agree, but it is what OP wants pretty much. Synth1 is free tho, gets the job done for some old school vibes. My go to is Serum but sometimes I load up Synth1 for some trance presets

 

Don't get me wrong, if NI put out Absynth 6 with a new gui, a better sampler and more wavetables & fx, then I'd grab it in a heartbeat.

But right now, I think a lot of newer granular synths and kontakt libraries can do everything Absynth does and more, and when you add 3rd party fx like Portal, Grainspace, Shimmer, Raum, etc., I think you got all your bases covered.

Sure, the aetherizer/surround effect from Absynth is still cool, but you can always just use that in the fx chain with some other sound source if you want that character specifically.

 

Cakewalk - Dimension Pro VSTi, Nils Schneider - Nils K1, Nucleus SoundLab - Viral Outbreak, Wusik - Wusikstation, Wusik - Eve 3,
GForce - Virtual String Machine (VSM), reFX - Nexus 2, Ueberschall - Elastik 3, Spectrasonics - Keyscape, IK Multimedia - SampleTank 4

We live in a huge sound universe where everyone can find their own sound.

Never before have there been so many virtual synthesizers, presets, patches, loops, singles, SoundFonts, SFZ, wav's and waveforms. We have so many effects and digital audio workstations. We are in sound heaven. Everything is there, even storage options, and everything is at the highest digital level. Thanks to all the Cracker Teams, who also made it possible for the poorer people to be musically creative.

We now have everything - let's make the best of it. Make music and be happy.

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2021

LethalAudio is a solid rompler, especially in terms of being similar to Nexus.

 

Thanks! I was wondering about Lethal, heard a few mixed reviews on it though

 

Initial Audio Heat-Up 3 has some bad reputation among the Synth-Gods-Ultimate-Purist-I-Can-Hear-Above-20Giga-Hertz but it could comes in handy for Hip-Hop/Trap production as 95% of the preset is something you have heard before, the sound on the records that is out there. I use it for the quick sounds the bells, flute, stabs, hits etc, the thing I love about it, it is cleanly filtered and no patches that has all the high end harshness you dont need.

For quick patch while you got the vibe flowing, I think it is good tool. I don't recommend tweaking it to find the type of sound you like but rather browsing all the patches because they load super quick, quicker than Nexus.

It's a big library with all the EXP though but if you aren't doing the type of music I've mentioned above, you will not like it.

 

Modern - Omnisphere, Keyscape, Trilian
Classic - Korg M1, Roland JV series, Emulator (Emulator X as software), Synclavier, Mirage
Vintage - Mellotron

technically some of these aren't pure romplers.. But close enough.