What workhorse synth would you buy if you couldn't get Omnisphere?

[Jac459]

SynthMaster 3 and Vengence 2
Sorry, that’s 2 not 1

You mean Avenger 2 right ?

Synthmaster 3 is getting a very very good path indeed.

[DarkS474]

Well, for creating the soundtracks for the first two games (each with 37 tracks) I am developing to be released on Steam so far I have used a combination of : VPS Avenger 1, Pigments 4, XLN XO, Air Transfuser, Massive X, BFD3, Output Movement and some 8dio libraries along with other samples (including vocals) and vst plugins---I was using an old and slow 4-core Xeon with 32GB RAM for those forcing high quality settings and high complexity parameters by mostly rendering the tracks that became too slow for realtime--this allowed me to achieve some very complex unique sounds. Now I plan adding some additional tracks to both games as extra instrumental only (+ some chorus) soundtracks (probably 7 for each game) and I will be using a combination of additional plugins I recently bought along with the ones I already had: UVI Falcon 3, VPS Avenger 1, Synthmaster 2 (or 3 if it becomes final when I will make those---in which case I would plan creating tracks with 16 arps/seqs fully utilizing the maximum 16 layers), Pigments 5, XLN XO, BFD3, Output Movement, Stepic, some newly bought 8dio libraries (including Soundpaint Adastra and Dunescape I think) and other vst plugins (compressors/limiters/reverbs)---I upgraded to a newer 18-core Xeon with 160GB RAM so I will be using higher quality settings for everything and higher complexity on each track overall.
Using a single synth I don't think it is the wisest choice although many prefer to do that instead of mixing many. However I think that mixing many allows for way better options to achieve some unique sounds. It might be harder for some but I find it easier instead which might be due to my DSP programming background maybe (although I currently don't have time to code anything DSP.. developing games is already too much time consuming itself with so many things to check).

[dartfordyes]

It sounds like you want a synth that covers many bases. Understand the more a synth does, the more its workflow suffers. And that no synth does it all. Keep demoing synths and examine the ease with which you can generate the sounds you want. Spend the time to learn how to leverage each synth. If you've demoed Diva and haven't explored and mastered the modifiers and trimmers then you haven't demoed it. There are tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere.

I have been creating presets in stock Logic synths and in UAD's PolyMAX and I bascially got the gist of that. I love designing my own presets.

What I honestly do care about in Omnisphere is the sampled content. There is no other synth that offers such incredibly useful and great sounding sampled instruments. The music box, steel pan, mbira, some great sampled synths (which have an analog quality hardly achievable in any other soft synth) is what I really want.

I guess for me the only way of getting these sounds is getting Omnisphere.

are you telling me you have alchemy ? doesn’t that have all the banks that came with the Pc camel
audio alchemy ( i don’t know bcause i’ve never tried the logic version but i assumed , if so that is an amazing workhorse sampled synth that could 100% compete with much of the other stuff mentioned why don’t you save your money and use that , wish i had alchemy i only ever had the free version and tried the other packs out after they was gone on trial it was lovely and would stand up today .so jealous of you mac guys but only for alchemy that is a great synth those camel audio guys were the best out there .

[dartfordyes]

does it come
with all these ?

https://web.archive.org/web/20140214200 ... raries.php


if so what are you doing use that ! lucky boy

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

If you plan to make music,not just to buy a toy, i would recommend to check proven in countless tracks synths, used in hit songs you have listen on radio.
From my humble 10-11 years experience i would list these as combination of sound quality,usability and cpu on two categories - Easy and Heavy weight:
A.Easy:
1.Sylenth1
2.Massive
3.Vital or Serum
4.Synthmaster One
5.Thorn

B.Heavy weight:
1.Icarus
2.Synthmaster 2
3.Avenger
4.Dune
5.Pigments

[LFO8]

It sounds like you want a synth that covers many bases. Understand the more a synth does, the more its workflow suffers. And that no synth does it all. Keep demoing synths and examine the ease with which you can generate the sounds you want. Spend the time to learn how to leverage each synth. If you've demoed Diva and haven't explored and mastered the modifiers and trimmers then you haven't demoed it. There are tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere.

I have been creating presets in stock Logic synths and in UAD's PolyMAX and I bascially got the gist of that. I love designing my own presets.

What I honestly do care about in Omnisphere is the sampled content. There is no other synth that offers such incredibly useful and great sounding sampled instruments. The music box, steel pan, mbira, some great sampled synths (which have an analog quality hardly achievable in any other soft synth) is what I really want.

I guess for me the only way of getting these sounds is getting Omnisphere.

are you telling me you have alchemy ? doesn’t that have all the banks that came with the Pc camel
audio alchemy ( i don’t know bcause i’ve never tried the logic version but i assumed , if so that is an amazing workhorse sampled synth that could 100% compete with much of the other stuff mentioned why don’t you save your money and use that , wish i had alchemy i only ever had the free version and tried the other packs out after they was gone on trial it was lovely and would stand up today .so jealous of you mac guys but only for alchemy that is a great synth those camel audio guys were the best out there .

On paper.. Alchemy can look similar feature wise etc. But..imho Alchemy does not come close to Omnisphere in terms of sound quality. Everyone has different tastes in terms of sound though.

[dartfordyes]

It sounds like you want a synth that covers many bases. Understand the more a synth does, the more its workflow suffers. And that no synth does it all. Keep demoing synths and examine the ease with which you can generate the sounds you want. Spend the time to learn how to leverage each synth. If you've demoed Diva and haven't explored and mastered the modifiers and trimmers then you haven't demoed it. There are tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere.

I have been creating presets in stock Logic synths and in UAD's PolyMAX and I bascially got the gist of that. I love designing my own presets.

What I honestly do care about in Omnisphere is the sampled content. There is no other synth that offers such incredibly useful and great sounding sampled instruments. The music box, steel pan, mbira, some great sampled synths (which have an analog quality hardly achievable in any other soft synth) is what I really want.

I guess for me the only way of getting these sounds is getting Omnisphere.

are you telling me you have alchemy ? doesn’t that have all the banks that came with the Pc camel
audio alchemy ( i don’t know bcause i’ve never tried the logic version but i assumed , if so that is an amazing workhorse sampled synth that could 100% compete with much of the other stuff mentioned why don’t you save your money and use that , wish i had alchemy i only ever had the free version and tried the other packs out after they was gone on trial it was lovely and would stand up today .so jealous of you mac guys but only for alchemy that is a great synth those camel audio guys were the best out there .

On paper.. Alchemy can look similar feature wise etc. But..imho Alchemy does not come close to Omnisphere in terms of sound quality. Everyone has different tastes in terms of sound though.

your probably right but those libaries are top notch , if he is looking for something now that is a really good synth , you don’t HAVE to have omnisobere

[twal]

Dune 3 is such a beast that it's always a consideration even if it doesn't have all the features as Falcon, Omni, Helion, Msoundfactory, and what not and Dune 3's Genetics is serious business if you want to experiment in order to get to writing music fast (prefer Dune anyway). Go with what you feel and sometimes "scaling back" is worth it before you go to the "more advanced" options out there. Dune 3 is also, in the group of, best sounding synths; and after a break from it, you just come back and are blown away again by it. It's really all you need to make just about any sound unless you have to have all of the extra stuff from the other synths that in actuality you really don't unless you are a serious programmer who wants every angle in order to need all of those other options.

[Jermusic]

Well, for creating the soundtracks for the first two games (each with 37 tracks) I am developing to be released on Steam so far I have used a combination of : VPS Avenger 1, Pigments 4, XLN XO, Air Transfuser, Massive X, BFD3, Output Movement and some 8dio libraries along with other samples (including vocals) and vst plugins---I was using an old and slow 4-core Xeon with 32GB RAM for those forcing high quality settings and high complexity parameters by mostly rendering the tracks that became too slow for realtime--this allowed me to achieve some very complex unique sounds. Now I plan adding some additional tracks to both games as extra instrumental only (+ some chorus) soundtracks (probably 7 for each game) and I will be using a combination of additional plugins I recently bought along with the ones I already had: UVI Falcon 3, VPS Avenger 1, Synthmaster 2 (or 3 if it becomes final when I will make those---in which case I would plan creating tracks with 16 arps/seqs fully utilizing the maximum 16 layers), Pigments 5, XLN XO, BFD3, Output Movement, Stepic, some newly bought 8dio libraries (including Soundpaint Adastra and Dunescape I think) and other vst plugins (compressors/limiters/reverbs)---I upgraded to a newer 18-core Xeon with 160GB RAM so I will be using higher quality settings for everything and higher complexity on each track overall.
Using a single synth I don't think it is the wisest choice although many prefer to do that instead of mixing many. However I think that mixing many allows for way better options to achieve some unique sounds. It might be harder for some but I find it easier instead which might be due to my DSP programming background maybe (although I currently don't have time to code anything DSP.. developing games is already too much time consuming itself with so many things to check).

Can we check out your games on Steam? Do you have a link? Thanks

[Gam456]

Dune 3 is such a beast that it's always a consideration even if it doesn't have all the features as Falcon, Omni, Helion, Msoundfactory, and what not and Dune 3's Genetics is serious business if you want to experiment in order to get to writing music fast (prefer Dune anyway). Go with what you feel and sometimes "scaling back" is worth it before you go to the "more advanced" options out there. Dune 3 is also, in the group of, best sounding synths; and after a break from it, you just come back and are blown away again by it. It's really all you need to make just about any sound unless you have to have all of the extra stuff from the other synths that in actuality you really don't unless you are a serious programmer who wants every angle in order to need all of those other options.

Dune is great, but to clean. The lack of drift make it hard to sound more organic.
Even the noise as source doens't sound as expected.

Synapse should introduce their experience on Obsession and Legend, to push that organic feeling into Dune.

[DarkS474]

Well, for creating the soundtracks for the first two games (each with 37 tracks) I am developing to be released on Steam so far I have used a combination of : VPS Avenger 1, Pigments 4, XLN XO, Air Transfuser, Massive X, BFD3, Output Movement and some 8dio libraries along with other samples (including vocals) and vst plugins---I was using an old and slow 4-core Xeon with 32GB RAM for those forcing high quality settings and high complexity parameters by mostly rendering the tracks that became too slow for realtime--this allowed me to achieve some very complex unique sounds. Now I plan adding some additional tracks to both games as extra instrumental only (+ some chorus) soundtracks (probably 7 for each game) and I will be using a combination of additional plugins I recently bought along with the ones I already had: UVI Falcon 3, VPS Avenger 1, Synthmaster 2 (or 3 if it becomes final when I will make those---in which case I would plan creating tracks with 16 arps/seqs fully utilizing the maximum 16 layers), Pigments 5, XLN XO, BFD3, Output Movement, Stepic, some newly bought 8dio libraries (including Soundpaint Adastra and Dunescape I think) and other vst plugins (compressors/limiters/reverbs)---I upgraded to a newer 18-core Xeon with 160GB RAM so I will be using higher quality settings for everything and higher complexity on each track overall.
Using a single synth I don't think it is the wisest choice although many prefer to do that instead of mixing many. However I think that mixing many allows for way better options to achieve some unique sounds. It might be harder for some but I find it easier instead which might be due to my DSP programming background maybe (although I currently don't have time to code anything DSP.. developing games is already too much time consuming itself with so many things to check).

Can we check out your games on Steam? Do you have a link? Thanks

I am still working on them. I should release the first one in a few months if I don't see any major bugs (there are 50 4x4km maps on the first game so it takes time). And then I would release the second one in a few months after that too (which I plan to make bigger than the first one). These first two games are going to be fighting style TPS games. Right now the main soundtracks are final and ready for release but I plan adding some extra music tracks to both games that I should be able to make in a few weeks before release.
Actually I have plans to release 4 games by Spring 2025 .. if I manage to release the first two without too many delays. The fact is that I am a solo indie developer and there are so many things to do in order to make a fully working game that just works as it should.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

The latest Synthmaster might be an option for a workhorse. On a great intro discount at the moment.

[Jac459]

Well, for creating the soundtracks for the first two games (each with 37 tracks) I am developing to be released on Steam so far I have used a combination of : VPS Avenger 1, Pigments 4, XLN XO, Air Transfuser, Massive X, BFD3, Output Movement and some 8dio libraries along with other samples (including vocals) and vst plugins---I was using an old and slow 4-core Xeon with 32GB RAM for those forcing high quality settings and high complexity parameters by mostly rendering the tracks that became too slow for realtime--this allowed me to achieve some very complex unique sounds. Now I plan adding some additional tracks to both games as extra instrumental only (+ some chorus) soundtracks (probably 7 for each game) and I will be using a combination of additional plugins I recently bought along with the ones I already had: UVI Falcon 3, VPS Avenger 1, Synthmaster 2 (or 3 if it becomes final when I will make those---in which case I would plan creating tracks with 16 arps/seqs fully utilizing the maximum 16 layers), Pigments 5, XLN XO, BFD3, Output Movement, Stepic, some newly bought 8dio libraries (including Soundpaint Adastra and Dunescape I think) and other vst plugins (compressors/limiters/reverbs)---I upgraded to a newer 18-core Xeon with 160GB RAM so I will be using higher quality settings for everything and higher complexity on each track overall.
Using a single synth I don't think it is the wisest choice although many prefer to do that instead of mixing many. However I think that mixing many allows for way better options to achieve some unique sounds. It might be harder for some but I find it easier instead which might be due to my DSP programming background maybe (although I currently don't have time to code anything DSP.. developing games is already too much time consuming itself with so many things to check).

Man you HAVE to buy the v2 of Avenger. It is a new division on its own. Really a different game.

[Jermusic]

Well, for creating the soundtracks for the first two games (each with 37 tracks) I am developing to be released on Steam so far I have used a combination of : VPS Avenger 1, Pigments 4, XLN XO, Air Transfuser, Massive X, BFD3, Output Movement and some 8dio libraries along with other samples (including vocals) and vst plugins---I was using an old and slow 4-core Xeon with 32GB RAM for those forcing high quality settings and high complexity parameters by mostly rendering the tracks that became too slow for realtime--this allowed me to achieve some very complex unique sounds. Now I plan adding some additional tracks to both games as extra instrumental only (+ some chorus) soundtracks (probably 7 for each game) and I will be using a combination of additional plugins I recently bought along with the ones I already had: UVI Falcon 3, VPS Avenger 1, Synthmaster 2 (or 3 if it becomes final when I will make those---in which case I would plan creating tracks with 16 arps/seqs fully utilizing the maximum 16 layers), Pigments 5, XLN XO, BFD3, Output Movement, Stepic, some newly bought 8dio libraries (including Soundpaint Adastra and Dunescape I think) and other vst plugins (compressors/limiters/reverbs)---I upgraded to a newer 18-core Xeon with 160GB RAM so I will be using higher quality settings for everything and higher complexity on each track overall.
Using a single synth I don't think it is the wisest choice although many prefer to do that instead of mixing many. However I think that mixing many allows for way better options to achieve some unique sounds. It might be harder for some but I find it easier instead which might be due to my DSP programming background maybe (although I currently don't have time to code anything DSP.. developing games is already too much time consuming itself with so many things to check).

Can we check out your games on Steam? Do you have a link? Thanks

I am still working on them. I should release the first one in a few months if I don't see any major bugs (there are 50 4x4km maps on the first game so it takes time). And then I would release the second one in a few months after that too (which I plan to make bigger than the first one). These first two games are going to be fighting style TPS games. Right now the main soundtracks are final and ready for release but I plan adding some extra music tracks to both games that I should be able to make in a few weeks before release.
Actually I have plans to release 4 games by Spring 2025 .. if I manage to release the first two without too many delays. The fact is that I am a solo indie developer and there are so many things to do in order to make a fully working game that just works as it should.

Thanks! I'd like to check them out when they're released. When you say fighting style TPS, you mean 3rd person shooters with weapons meaning projectile based weapons or hand-to-hand combat beat-em ups with or without melee weapons, (like a 3D Final Fight or Streets of Rage) or both?

[DarkS474]

Thanks! I'd like to check them out when they're released. When you say fighting style TPS, you mean 3rd person shooters with weapons meaning projectile based weapons or hand-to-hand combat beat-em ups with or without melee weapons, (like a 3D Final Fight or Streets of Rage) or both?

I aim to make it with some mechanics and features resembling a mix of games (with my own original characters and everything else) like Jump Force, DBZ Kakarot, NieR Automata, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade -- just to give an idea of the type of mechanics and TPS camera views (but I might add the ability to switch to FPS or not I have to check that later on). How much I will be able to achieve something like that I will know only when everything works as I would like to.
Both games are going to be full splatter anyway so adult only in most countries on Steam for sure.