Which additive synth (on sale) to buy? Air Loom or Harmor?

[BlitBit]

I am looking for a synth with a synthesis method different from subtractive synthesis and look and behold currently there there are two additive synths for sale.

• Harmor by Image-Line (until 10.09.2014)
• Loom by AIR Music Technology (until 31.08.2014)

They both look very interesting although I have already read some things about Loom having some annoying copy protection and activation system.

Here are my questions:

• Which synth do you think is more interesting with regards to features?
• How intrusive and annoying are they really with regards to copy protection?
• Last but not least a Harmor specific question: Harmor is shown as costing 113.20€ when I put it into the shopping cart. I assume that this is not the final price and that at the final check out it will go down to 56.60€? Don't want to register to find out.

Thanks in advance for your input!

[4damind]

Harmor is the most interesting synth because it has features no other synth have, not to mention that Harmor has is own sound (a bit in the analog department). It's my preferred synth for all kind of pluck sounds and I use it in all tracks.
Imageline has afaik also lifetime free updates. Copy protection is on Windows a registry file which can be downloaded/generated how often you need from the account. This file will unlock all Imageline plug-ins.
For the 50% offer add the coupon code: 50PLUGIN this should do the "trick"

[wakax]

Harmor is something else:)
go for it. its the most interesting additive around and the resythesis is damn sharp and clean!

[Numanoid]

How intrusive and annoying are they really with regards to copy protection?

Loom looses this, it uses PACE, and can only be installed on 2 computers, with no chance to use iLok if that is prefered

With Harmor you only will need to run a keygen file on your computer and it will work, you can use it on how many computers you want, there is no limit on that.

[*] Last but not least a Harmor specific question: Harmor is shown as costing 113.20€ when I put it into the shopping cart. I assume that this is not the final price and that at the final check out it will go down to 56.60€?

Yes, that is what is stated at Image Line, but VAT will be added on top of €56,6 so it will end up costing more.

So pricewise Loom is the better choice.

[Robmobius]

Loom is also a class synth. Have a look at Russ's (pro tools expert) overview on youtube.

[ezelkow1]

They are fairly different. From having played around with both though Id sort of agree that harmor would win in the plucky area, for me loom's pluck type sounds all just end up sounding bell-ish. However for moving sounds and things with just more sonic content IMHO loom ends up with better results. For everything else they are basically tied in my mind, they just produce different sounding results due to their flow

[chroma]

they really are quite different.

harmor is FAR more flexible... between the image/spectral resynthesis, the user-programmable custom filter/phases curves, the ability to attach a unique envelope to pretty much ANYTHING in harmor... lots of things it will let you do, mapping all over the place, etc.

loom is a little less imposing... has a bunch of modules, you string them together in a line, each has a few parameters for tweaking. but maybe easy to just dive in and start playing with things.

neither one of them have a very accessible UI IMHO - both kind of feel like a random bag of cool toys throws together. but make no mistake, they _are_ cool toys.

both have pretty decent real-time control too - harmor has the xyz 3d control pad, loom has a very cool morph pad (if you've used animoog on the ipad, it's like that).

[BlackWinny]

I'll be the little black sheep... I will say Linplug Octopus.

[db3]

Buy Razor...from me for $40

[c_voltage]

funny, exactly this desire came to me recently. (unlike from for example VA variations, where you can choose a few favorite objects and unwind )
What about topic - sure both )

[blackflag]

I'd definitely go with Harmor.

[EvilDragon]

Loom looses this, it uses PACE, and can only be installed on 2 computers, with no chance to use iLok if that is prefered

They did say they are planning to update all their plugins with PACE Eden, which would mean you could transfer the soft-iLok licence to an actual iLok if you want.

[pdxindy]

I'd definitely go with Harmor.

+1

[aMUSEd]

Neither of them are really classic additive synths in the sense of giving you total control over every partial (same with Razor) - both offer, in different ways, an approach that is simpler and closer to subtractive synthesis, not that this makes them any less powerful as sound shapers, but if you want the ability to build a sound partial by partial (like you can with a Hammond) you really need to go for a more 'traditional' type of additive like Morphine, Alchemy (in additive mode) or Vertigo.

Also for overall sound quality and great presets Loom beats Harmor for me (so does Razor actually).

[Chandlerhimself]

I had to make this same decision a week ago. I went with harmor. The reason was it has a demo and it's copy protection didn't cause me problems. Loom looks really good, but I don't think it does anything that harmor doesn't. At first Harmor seems limited and hard to work with, but if you dig into it you'll find you can do almost anything with it.

Also the above poster said you can't control every partial in harmor, but actually you can. Not only can you mess with the individual partials, you can also import your own single cycle waveforms and then adjust their partials. I wish harmor had a different UI. I think they wanted to make it seem too much like a subtractive synth and it makes it hard to understand/find the advanced additive features. Once you figure everything out you realize how powerful harmor is.

Loom has really done themselves a disservice by not publishing more info on their product or having a demo.