Wednesday, September 30, 2020

 My Go-to commercial VSTs

Some time ago, I wrote an article about the free VSTs that I like to use. This time I will present my favorite commercial VSTs. No, this is not yet-another-post on Serum or Diva. In fact, I felt no reason to join the others for them, since I find much more powerful some of the following than Serum, and I own several analog hardware synths, that makes the need for synths of the type of Diva obsolete.

How many soft synths can someone use in a medium sized track? I would say unlimited, since one could create any kind of layering, or modular combinations (more about that, later).

This is a countdown, presenting the synths I actually use the most. To complete the following list, I would add that sometimes two free VSTs join my commercial ones in my production: Surge and Odin2. But let us go back to our topic.

Here is my top-ten, in reverse order of popularity:

#10. Steinberg Padshop: Although a synth that "comes with the DAW", padshop is very useful, and quick for, you guessed, pads (it's only that Rapid, after 1.8 update, is faster with granular synthesis, so Padshop has a strong competitor here).

#9. Waldorf Largo: Do I need some good brass, without the need to open the Virus? Largo will give me that, and others. People nowdays dislike non-vector synths (even a free synth, Surge, has a vector face). Well, good for me, because then I could get Largo with 75% discount.

#8. Synthmaster One: A very nice sounding synth, helps to build quickly support lines, and comes with excellent libraries.

#7. Thorn: Beautiful synth, quick synthesis, stunning glitches, it offers me synthesis in areas not covered by others. Really. I use it a lot.

#6. Wiggle: Yes, yes, and yes. The Chinese synth is an amazing instrument, with unlimited possibilities. Whenever I need to create a "different" sound, that I know it will attract attention, I just wiggle.

#5. Melda MPowersynth: Although this theoretically is part of MSoundFactory (more about that later), by its own is a very powerful synth and the most easy to use when doing additive synthesis (I do a lot, since I commonly need to invent new plucks for each new track). 3%-5% of the stems have MPowersynth.

#4. Arturia Pigments: The Arturia masterpiece is a brilliant synth, but quite heavy as compared with others, and as such does not find the recognition it deserves in my mixes. But its terrific arpeggiator is always a bonus to my tracks.

#3. Synthmaster 2.9: This "little" synth keeps growing and maturing. It has stunning sound quality. It is not higher in the rank mainly due to its details and rather not-so-stremlined workflow, that make sometimes editing a sound a bit tedious task.

#2. Parawave Rapid: This anti-Serum is by far a superior synth than Serum, having an incredible number of features, being continuously in development, and providing the most efficient way for sound design. It is #2 only because of the outwordly capabilities of the synth that is on #1. Rapid is nowadays around 30%-40% of instances.

#1. Melda MSoundFactory: do not think that its price is high; actually it is really discounted for its abilities. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the King of the soft synths: a modular synth that does everything and in a very fast way (comparatively to its complexity). How about running 10 instances of MPowersynth inside MSoundFactory? And that's only the beginning. Super efficient and super fast. Nearly 50% of the soft instances are MSoundFactory in my projects.

An extra mention to my principal soft drum machine: This is Melda MDrummer, an incredible drum power station. I have incorporated all my samples to it, and nowadays its streamlined processing quickens significantly my workflow.

Honorary mention goes also to Sektor, Vaporizer 2 and Codex, three wavetable synths that I commonly don't use (I find Sektor having ugly FX, Vaporizer having an unfamiliar interface and Codex very limited), but I chose to have them and to keep them, and from time to time, they find their way into my mixes. Also mention goes to Vacuum Pro and Retrologue, which compete for the same, analog-ish, position, the first for the quick buttons (and NOT for its voice doubler) and the second for its depth.