Finding my Ultimate Flagship Wavetable Synth

[Sleepwalker]

The Quest to Find my next Flagship VSTi Wavetable Synth
(As of march 2023)

Primarily focusing topics:
Workflow - Sound Quality - Options
Pigments 4, Massive X, Phase Plant 2, Synthmaster 2, Surge XT, Vital, Serum






Introduction:

First of all this is one mans opinion with some input from friends. What synth one might favor may differ a lot, as with anything. Still I tried to operate as fair, honest and unbiased as I could. Students and folks on a low budget will have a blast with Vital and Surge, and to even be on the list with these monsters as free options is a statement!

Because of the extreme demo time limitations on 4 of the 7 synths (15-20 minutes on the 3 worst) it was impossible to do a full shootout off all their functions. Blame the synth companies for that. It was actually hard enough just with my simple preset build: a saw osc, a filter, two lfos and a bit of FX. Multiple times I would lose everything just before I got time to record it. However using just 1 simple saw osc makes it much clearer anyway to differentiate between the filters, fx etc.

Those looking for a full list of futures can find it in any other review or at the companies own website. This shootout is not about that. All these synths are super flexible with almost endless possibilities. This is a personal quest to find the next big synth workhorse (to replace Virus Ti and some vsts) for the following 10 years as an active producer. Its about sound quality and workflow foremost, but I hope others can find some use or entertainment out of this as it was fun to compile. If you have specific technical interests you have to look up each synth on their respective websites.





(Higher is better. Priority elements gets higher numbers)

Sound quality of filters
(1 to 5)

1 - Vital - - - - - - - Clearly the least favorable of the bunch
2 - Surge - - - - - - Just slightly better then Vital
2 - Synthmaster - Crisp filter overdrive, but they sound thin
3 - Phase Plant - - Vanilla but decent. A step up from the previous
3 - Pigments - - - Well rounded filters, entering the top 3
4 - Serum - - - - - Very good filters, clearly better and more diverse then Pigments
5 - Massive X - - - Best in class zero latency filters


Overall sound quality (excluding fx section and filters)
(1 to 5)

1 - Vital - - - - - - - Its ok but falls slightly behind the best
1 - Surge - - - - - - Slightly better but the least favorable FM
2 - Synthmaster - Better FM then the previous two
3 - Phase Plant - - Decent but very limited options
3 - Pigments - - - It has some crispness with its osc modifiers
4 - Serum - - - - - The old industry standard, a true Virus Ti re-placer
5 - Massive X - - - Its the new standard, lots of options


Functionality/Workflow
(1 to 5)

2 - Synthmaster - Needs a gui workflow update in my opinion
4 - Massive X - - - Missing visual LFO waveforms. Layout similar to Pigments.
4 - Surge - - - - - - One of the first true workflow synths
4 - Serum - - - - - The old workflow benchmark
4 - Vital - - - - - - The challenger for free
4 - Phase Plant - - The modular challenger, but gets cluttered after a while
5 - Pigments - - - The winning challenger


Layout Overview
(1 to 4)

1 - Synthmaster - - Only 1 LFO at a time, requires 2 mouse clicks to view the next
2 - Vital - - - - - - - Only 1 LFO at a time, one mouse click for the next
2 - Surge - - - - - - Only 1 LFO at a time, one mouse click for the next
2 - Serum - - - - - Only 1 LFO at a time, one mouse click for the next
3 - Phase Plant - - See 3 LFOS at the same time, but needs to scroll if also Envelopes
4 - Pigments - - - See 3 LFOs at the same time
4 - Massive X - - - See 3 LFOs at the same time


Sound quality of the FX section
(1 to 4)

2 - Phase Plant - - - Its ok, nothing stands out. Option to purchase more FX
2 - Synthmaster - - Slightly better then Phase Plant, more parameters
2 - Vital - - - - - - - Similar to Synthmaster but great visual feedback
2 - Surge - - - - - - Nothing that stands out on sound quality, but it has a great FX library
2 - Pigments - - - - They are ok, but again just typical vanilla synth FX
3 - Serum - - - - - Great FX
4 - Massive X - - - The best FX. Its Native after all.


Overall Functions
(1 to 3)

2 - Synthmaster - Decent amount of options
2 - Serum - - - - - Most of what I need every day is here
2 - Vital - - - - - - Decent amount of options, great speech synth
2 - Pigments - - - About as good as the others
2 - Surge - - - - - 12 multi modulators (lfo/env/step/draw)
2 - Phase Plant - Fully modular but less functions then the rest
3 - Massive X - - Fully modular with great set of functions


Wavetable shaping options (not counting pitch and unison)
(1 to 3)

1 - Phase Plant - - While remap is amazing it has only 1 modifier
2 - Surge - - - - - - Has 5 shaping options + remap function
3 - Massive X - - - Has 10 shaping options + remap function
3 - Synthmaster - Has 17 shaping options + remap function
3 - Pigments - - - Has 17 shaping options + remap function
3 - Serum - - - - - Has 22 shaping options
3 - Vital - - - - - - Has 21 shaping options + remap function


Code/Resource efficiency
(1 to 3)

1 - Massive X - - - - - Eats 1.5gb of your drive even without presets
1 - Vital - - - - - - - - Its a bit heavy
2 - Serum - - - - - - - Its ok on new computers but not the best
2 - Phase Plant - - - Its ok
2 - Pigments - - - - - Its ok
3 - Surge - - - - - - - Great efficiency
3 - Synthmaster - - Great efficiency



Community & manual
(0 to 2)

1 - Pigments - - - Ok community, great manual
1 - Massive X - - - Ok community, great manual
1 - Synthmaster - Ok community, decent manual
2 - Serum - - - - - Excellent community, decent manual
2 - Phase Plant - - Great community, decent manual
2 - Surge - - - - - Great community, great manual
2 - Vital - - - - - - Great community, decent manual


Demo mode timeout
(0 to 2)

0 - Synthmaster - - The worst. Only 15 minutes demo mode
0 - Pigments - - - - Just 20min, had to remake 3 times before I had time to record it
0 - Serum - - - - - - Just 20min, also here had to remake 3 times, never got polished
1 - Massive X - - - - 60min. Enough to build my preset, not enough to try all the options
2 - Phase Plant - - 10 days! Its fantastic. More then enough time to demo all its features
2 - Vital - - - - - - - Its free so no competition there
2 - Surge - - - - - - Also free




Final score!

31 - Massive X
26 - Serum
25 - Pigments 4
24 - Phase Plant 2
22 - Surge XT
20 - Vital
18 - Synthmaster 2




Additionally for those on a budget
Cost of purchase score!
(0 to 2)

2 - Vital - - - - - - - Free
2 - Surge - - - - - - Free
1 - Synthmaster - $129 (frequent big discounts)
0 - Serum - - - - - $189
0 - Massive X - - - €200
0 - Pigments - - - - €200
0 - Phase Plant - - €200




Audio examples:
Pt. 1 - Plain saw osc, band pass filter and 2 lfos
Pt. 2 - Same but with onboard FX, unison etc.

Sequence:
Surge, Vital, Synthmaster, Phase Plant, Pigments, Serum, Massive x
It repeats one more time with onboard FX

You can download or stream the uncompressed wav files here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/aije1hvu ... g3xgrbqjew

(If you want to hear the often subtle differences of the filters I recommend using the best pair of headphones you can find!)






Technical:
Shootout was done on a MacBook Air m2 with Audeze LCD-1 headphones.



Preset recipe!
The grandfather of this sound is the classic funk rhythm guitar with wah wah pedal.
It is a classic psy-trance rhythm lead sound. We call it a “Knirk” in Norway. (The squeaky sound of an old door) In English it is called a Squelch.

Ingredients:
Key note at E2, typically very short rhythmic 16th notes, but a few notes slightly longer
1 Clean Saw oscillator
1 Bandpass 12/oct filter, some resonance, and overdrive to taste (if the filter has it)
1 Sine LFO, Unipolar, modulates from about E2 to G#3 (16 semi) at 4khz/0.25ms Speed
1 Sine LFO, Unipolar, modulates BP cutoff from 100hz to 3khz at 1khz/1ms Speed
Very short ENV volume release 25 to 50ms, no attack




*Massive vs Massive X: We feel they have nothing in common and we are confused by the use of the same name. Massive has large visual lfo waveforms. Massive X has none! We highly miss that. Everything else is different.

*The Phase Plant interface colors stood out as not optimized to me, so I modified it with more contrast. My friends call it comedically the High Definition preset. The plug looks much better with it in our humble opinion.

If you want to try it out here is the file and the instructions:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/aije1hvu ... g3xgrbqjew

I tried some Serum skins as well. There’s a ton if you google it.

*The reason Hive is not included in this shootout is that it is not really a true big wavetable synth. Compared to the others it is very limited and its wavetables are more like an add on. It does sound good though, like all U-he synths.

 I left out some others too that was not of interest to me, but might be for someone else. While amazing, Omnisphere is just way too heavy for my laptop ssd space, and the GUI really does not appeal to me personally either. This review only includes those synths I personally could live with as a go-to main workhorse for daily use. But if you think I missed some please let me know!


*If you are curious about my music productions you can check it out here:
https://yggdrasilrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hutti-heita
https://youtu.be/yWxTJlEp5pw

[martinjuenke]

Thanks!
You cured my GAS (already have MassiveX and Serum)

[Markus Krause]

I am wondering why Icarus2 doesn't even get mentioned here... I seems I should spend less money into development and more money into advertising

http://www.tone2.com/icarus.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awXJrWb31Wc

Summary

Icarus2 is a powerful synthesizer-workstation
Icarus2 is also the most advanced wavetable-synthesizer on the market, but not limited to wavetable-synthesis
The audio-engine can do 54 different synthesis modes and is able to produce all important synthesizer sounds
The 3D-wavetable-synthesis allows a new dimension of dynamic expression
High-end sound-quality with low CPU-requirement
Easy-to-use interface with animated displays and context-sensitive help
Huge sonic range
Over 1761 presets by professional designers
GUI with 12 sizes, 3 zoom-levels and 26 color-schemes
Drag & drop modulation
Drum-sequencer with 100 drum-patterns
Powerful arpeggiator with autochord-support, shuffle and swing
3 x 53 effects, vocoder
Glitch-sequencer
10x stereo hypersaw, unison, stacks, chords
Polyphonic, monophonic, several legato modes
The most powerful filter-section available on the market: Dual multi-mode filters with 62 filter-types and 8 distortion-types
Customizable user-interface
Expandability, modular

Features

Sound engine with true stereo-architecture
3D-wavetable-synthesis: Waves can be morphed in 3 dimensions
Multicore-processor support
MSEGs with BPM sync (multistage envelope generators)
Very flexible mod-matrix with precise modulation up to the audio-range
Efficient patch-browser
The most powerful wavetable-editor available on the market
Spectrum-editor for editing single harmonics
The re-synthesis allows you to rebuild any sound with a mouse-click
A random-buttom allows you to create new sounds with a mouse-click
Sample-import and automatic tuning
54 different synthesis-modes that can be combined
Dual multi-mode filters with 2 x 62 filter types
2 x 8 distortion types
3 x 53 effects, vocoder, trancegate
10x stereo Hypersaw, unison, stacks
Polyphonic, monophonic, legato
Up to 256 waveforms per wavetable
Unlimited number of wavetables and waveforms
Random-generator for wavetables
Midi-learn
MPE-support (Midi polyphonic expression)
Context sensitive help
Drag & drop modulation
Punchy envelopes and very fast LFOs
Expandability
Customizable user interface
Can import and export samples, waveforms or wavetables in wav format
Standalone version for PC
Flexible preset-management
Microtuning for enhanced chords
Equalizer with dynamic bass-boost and psychoacoustic processing.
Free support and updates


Modulators (all can be used simunaniously)

2 MSEGs (loop support, BPM-sync)
4 AHDSR envelopes
14 Decay envelopes
2 Hold envelopes
16 LFOs with sine waveform
3 LFOs with 45 morphable waveforms and BPM-sync
Step-LFO / gate with custom-waveform
Arpeggiator
Various Midi CCs
4 Noise sources
Key-split

Synthesis methods (can be combined)

3D wavetables / classic wavetables
Resynthesis of samples
Vocoder
Hypersaw / stereo hypersaw / supersaw / unison
Stacks / chords / autochord
Additive
Subtractive / analog
FM with up to 6 operators
Speech-synthesis
Formant-synthesis
Wave-shaping
PWM
Sync
Ringmod, AM
Noise
Physical-modeling
Phase-distortion
Granular
Time-stretching
Pitch-shifting
Samples
Harmonic-morphing
FFT-filtering
Lofi
Import of waveforms and wavetables
Many other innovative modes, exclusive to Icarus


Effect types (can be combined for new effects)

Reverb Medium, Reverb Big, Reverb Plate, Reverb Glass, Reverb Dark, Reverb Infinite, Reverb Feedback, Reverb Spring, Reverb Trance, Reverb Cheap, Reflections
Delay, Pingpong, Multitap, Delay Fat, Delay Dual, Delay Diffuse, Delay Band, Tape Delay, Echo
Chorus, Smart Unison, Ensemble
Phaser, Phaser Stereo
Flanger, Flanger Stereo
Vibrato, Vibrato stereo
Autopan, Surround Pan, Rotary, Tremolo
EQ High Cut, EQ Low Cut, EQ Param
Saturate, Soft Clip, Hard Clip, Rectify, Bitcrush, Warp, Waveshape, Amp Sim, Multiband Distortion, Degrader, Multiband Degrader, Noise
Compressor, Limiter
Surround Encode
Trancegate
Glitch-sequencer with Repeat, Gate, Pan, Tremolo, Lowpass, Highpass, Bitcrush, Degrade, Detune, Pitchslide
Feedback
Microtuning
Psychoacoustic processing
Bass-boost


Filter types (can be combined)

Low-pass: Digital 12dB, Digital 24dB, Butter 24dB, Curtis 12dB, Curtis Analog, Tone2 24dB, Tone2 Analog, Tone2 Scream, 303 18dB, 303 Analog, Chain 6-48dB, Elliptic, Octave, Shaped, AM, HighQ
High-pass: Digital 12dB, Analog 12dB, Analog 24dB, Chain 6-48dB
Band-pass: Digital 12dB, Digital 24dB, Analog 12dB, Analog 24dB, Boobs
Equalizer: Notch, Peak Tight, Peak Medium, Peak Wide, Shelf Tight, Shelf Wide, Bandlimit
Vocalic: A, U, I, IEA, AOU, IYU, IEAOU
Comb-filters: Phaser 2x, Phaser 2x FB, Phaser 3x, Phaser 3x FB, Comb+, Comb-
Fractal-filters: LP 1, LP 2, LP 3, LP 4, FO 1, FO 2
Ring-modulation: Ringmod, LP, LP2, FM Lowpass, AM
Pysical-modeling resonators: Guitar, Flute, Odd, Even
LoFi: Resampling, Sample & Hold

[Sleepwalker]

I am wondering why Icarus2 doesn't even get mentioned here... I seems I should spend less money into development and more money into advertising

Thanks for the heads-up! Actually I had not even herd about this one.

I will try to add it as soon as I have time to do so.

[Teksonik]

It can't possibly be the "Ultimate Wavetable Flagship Shootout" when you've left out so many wavetable synths.

All you've done is waste your time and the time of your readers.

[Sinisterbr]

I think it's an interesting initiative (not the first, tough). But I believe it'll never be really meaningful if you let something like Hive or Icarus out, as they're not negligible competitors in this comparison.

[fmr]

It can't possibly be the "Ultimate Wavetable Flagship Shootout" when you've left out so many wavetable synths.

All you've done is waste your time and the time of your readers.

Ditto. When synths like Icarus, Hive, Nave, Largo, PPG, etc. are absent, as well as the three big sampelrs of the market, which are all ALSO wavetable synths (HALion and Falcon, especially, are two incredibily powerful wavetable synths, probably the most powerful wavetable synths on the marlet currently) this can't be taken for serious.

[El°HYM]

Final score!

369 - Icarus

[Korg Supporter]

In addition to Icarus, you should check out Modwave by KORG. It's a CPU hog but sounds nice. Hive may not be the most advanced wavetable synth, bug it sounds damn amazing. ANA 2 and Viper also support Serum wavetables. The upcoming Zebra 3 will support both Uhm and Wav wavetables! Personally, I am not impressed with the sound of Pigments. No matter how many times I tried it, it sounds bland to me.

[Sleepwalker]

It can't possibly be the "Ultimate Wavetable Flagship Shootout" when you've left out so many wavetable synths.

Ok, I hear you. I will change the title!

[pdxindy]

One important factor doesn't get mentioned at all.

Whether user can import, create and resynthesize audio into wavetables. This is an important function of a wavetable synth. Icarus shines here. Serum has a full editor. Vital is pretty good and Massive X cannot import or generate new wavetables at all.

There should also be a modulation category. Vital is exceptional here. Massive X has weak LFO's and does not have MSEG's. Pigments is strong.

***

Hive is absolutely a full wavetable synth. IME, it has the best wavetable interpolation, can import wavetables, has 2 axis wavetables, and can generate its own wavetables with Uhm scripts. No other wavetable synth has that.

Both Icarus and Hive should be in any software wavetable synth comparison.

[Sleepwalker]

I think it's an interesting initiative (not the first, tough). But I believe it'll never be really meaningful if you let something like Hive or Icarus out, as they're not negligible competitors in this comparison.

I will try to add Icarus next opportunity I have to do so! Regarding Hive it is already mentioned in the OP why I did not include it.

Again, if anyone thinks I missed out on a big wavetable synth please let me know! I honestly do not know about every synth out there. Im 50 and do not have a lot time to hang on forums and follow soft synth news anymore, so I will highly appreciate any tips. If it peaks my interest I might shoot it out too and add it to the list.

I am not however going to shoot out a synth that is not in the segment im personally looking for: A big and flexible wavetable synth with optimized workflow and modern functional GUI. I hope this is understandable.

Regarding meaningfulness, as stated in the OP this is a personal shootout and its meaningful to me, and a bunch of my producer friends too. Im just shearing it online for those interested. Do what you want with it! I chose to share it online because my friends asked me to.

Ive been on this forum for 20 years so I expected some turbulence on this post for sure. This is fine by me. People get excited by these things, but its because we love synths and why we come here in the first place.

[Urs]

*The reason Hive is not included in this shootout is that it is not really a true big wavetable synth.

It would still have gotten 30 points

[El°HYM]

*The reason Hive is not included in this shootout is that it is not really a true big wavetable synth.

It would still have gotten 30 points

36

[Schnickschnack]

Hopefully its okay when I use this thread for an own question that I have:
I had some budget left to buy a software lately and my first impulse was getting Hive. The transaction did not work for some reasons and I stumbled across Diva and decided for that instead and enjoy it so much now. For the future I am generally still interested in Hive, especially now with my first experience with U-he being so good, but I wonder if I really need it, when I already have and like to use Serum very much. So far I have seen some videos on Youtube about Hive and liked the GUI very much. Any thoughts on this, that could be helpful for me?