Waves Elements or Steinberg Retrologue?

[fluffy_little_something]

Think outside the box, get Sawer



Still half price (and then some) at JRR shop

Sawer consumes much more CPU, while giving similar sound quality as Retrologue. Sawer seems to have been abandoned by Image Line quite some time ago.

Retrologue does sound a bit bland without stacking waves and using effects (which software synth doesn't?). But as soon as you use two instead of one wave per osc (you can use up to 8 per osc, but 3 or 4 seems to work best) and detune them a bit, the sound improves almost exponentially. It becomes very dense and professional. It is amazing that it can produce that sound with so little CPU power. Using 2 waves per osc, I can use a dozen or so instances at the same time, which of course I don't need to.

I don't know what kind of music you make, but the other day I almost accidentally made a pad that sounded just like the one of the intro to Thriller. Actually, I think you could do the entire album with Retrologue, it is ideal for the synth sounds used on that album, be it pads, bass, etc. With some serious effort one could even do the horns I suppose.

No idea what the Element sounds like, though... I like its user interface.

[yl]

I think Element is very quirky...
that said,
it's its quirkiness + high quality components are what makes it stand out from the crowd!
just my 2c..

[Sendy]

Retrologue does sound a bit bland without stacking waves and using effects (which software synth doesn't?)

I can name a few that I'm quite happy to use (a) raw or almost raw and (b) as a main focus point of the track. Even comparing these to real analog synths, I can't fault them. We have some proper "instrument" synths in VST land these days.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Of the current crop of VAs doing circuit modelling that I own......Xils Oxium is my favourite for decent sound and CPU balance (Compared with D16 Lush, Waves Element, FXpansion SoundSquad, Tal UNO, Uhe Ace)

[fluffy_little_something]

Retrologue does sound a bit bland without stacking waves and using effects (which software synth doesn't?)

I can name a few that I'm quite happy to use (a) raw or almost raw and (b) as a main focus point of the track. Even comparing these to real analog synths, I can't fault them. We have some proper "instrument" synths in VST land these days.

Except for bass synths and some leads, I can think of only few sounds that I would even want to use completely dry, be it using hardware or VSTi's like Diva.

[Sendy]

Retrologue does sound a bit bland without stacking waves and using effects (which software synth doesn't?)

I can name a few that I'm quite happy to use (a) raw or almost raw and (b) as a main focus point of the track. Even comparing these to real analog synths, I can't fault them. We have some proper "instrument" synths in VST land these days.

Except for bass synths and some leads, I can think of only few sounds that I would even want to use completely dry, be it using hardware or VSTi's like Diva.

I can go one step further, sometimes I use raw synth waveforms without even bothering with the filter . Yeah, some synths sound so good to me I can just listen to their oscillators do their thing all day

[cyphersuit]

Element has one thing going for it: the presets. Very good, useable stuff.

[yl]

Element has one thing going for it: the presets. Very good, useable stuff.

also the bonkers step sequencer and some unusual modulation destinations

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Igro]

Of the current crop of VAs doing circuit modelling that I own......Xils Oxium is my favourite for decent sound and CPU balance (Compared with D16 Lush, Waves Element, FXpansion SoundSquad, Tal UNO, Uhe Ace)

Oxium is really good and used to love it...but I don't like that the filter self-oscillation can't be turned off.

[AstralExistence]

also try tal uno lx. it just depends really, do you want the best sound, (which is the whole point of buying an analog synth.)or would you prefer the best cpu consumption while giving up analog accuracy and gaining more complex sounds. im still asking myself that very question.

[yessongs]

try synthmasters demo and listen to the tracks in their sound cloud page and the choice gets real easy especially when you look at the price and see its advertisement for a special code that knocks the price down even further all over KVR. Each preset bundle has a demo of the presets on soundcloud so check it out before you spend money you can't get back

[4damind]

Retrologue.

[fluffy_little_something]

Retrologue does sound a bit bland without stacking waves and using effects (which software synth doesn't?)

I can name a few that I'm quite happy to use (a) raw or almost raw and (b) as a main focus point of the track. Even comparing these to real analog synths, I can't fault them. We have some proper "instrument" synths in VST land these days.

Except for bass synths and some leads, I can think of only few sounds that I would even want to use completely dry, be it using hardware or VSTi's like Diva.

I can go one step further, sometimes I use raw synth waveforms without even bothering with the filter . Yeah, some synths sound so good to me I can just listen to their oscillators do their thing all day

Well, I like listening to raw waveforms as well (though not without filters, that would be annoying to me ), but using them in music is a different story.

However, I usually program patches without any effects. Some synths sound good even without any effects, others not so much. Once a sound is good dry, it often gets even better with effects.

Is there any info on whether or not those two synths use oversampling and 0df filters?
I don't really think Retrologue uses either one. There is some aliasing occasionally, especially in mid octaves. Not to an annoying degree, but still...

[Igro]

And to answer your other question: Yea, Halion 4 does have the same VA engine as Retrologue or vice versa. Can't tell you the differences, if any, though.

I don't know if you like other recommendations, beside those 2.

Hi emotica! So does Halion's VA have all the features Retrologue has and some additional stuff? Like unison, for instance. (I love Retrologue unison)

Added: I just discovered that Halion 4 has a demo....