Re: The Best Reason Synth?
Posted: 19 Feb 2021
I'm starting to understand the appeal now . It's probably gonna bug me now.
I would say, any synth RS owns the rights to, whether they commissioned the work or did it in-house. I suppose that rules out PX7 (formerly mis-branded Propellerhead).Mataya wrote: ↑19 Feb 2021Right. Attention was low. Malstrom for sure then. Becasue the sounds I get from it are just so unusual often...and also, it doesn't have onboard fx, which I like, a and also cpu usage is low. But even Malstrom was made by Magnus from Soniccharge, so what's really a true Prop synth?
Stick it in a combinator
Kevin Sunray wrote: ↑20 Feb 2021I think speaking of which synth is the best it really depends. For me a good synth is always a synth that can get you a good sound pretty fast. So thinking of this I can say overall Thor but if Malström had the effects attached into it then Malström could win Thor easily because it's easier to use and you can create a lot of unique sounds fast while with Thor you need more time to get a good sound and I am talking about sounds that can be the LEADer of a track, not secondary/background or layer type sounds. Subtractor is great but alone is poor to deliver you a good sound without the use of additional effects.
Now Europa, because I am fairly new to it and I haven't played a lot with it yet seems to win all of them because you can actually alter the waveform however you want which is amazing and it has all the effects attached to it so you may not have to load tons of effects to get a good sound. Though I can not say it's the best because I haven't explored it a lot to do sounds yet.
Subtractor is just a very simple sound device, that is great to make some basic sounds and of course if you add external effects you can get great sounds.chaosroyale wrote: ↑21 Feb 2021Strongly agree that "fast" is a highly under-rated feature in itself, that goes for all plugins.
A little piece of advice which will give you big results: get used to using the external effects on your synths. Just save a couple of fx presets you like that give a a good starting place. One of the best things about Subtractor for me is that it has no effects, which keeps the UI simple and clear, and lets you use the much better external effects. The effects in Thor and Europa are very weak compared to what you can do with the ones in the rack.
Shameless self-promotion: if you want an idea of how powerful this can be, grab one of my FX packs (thread below) and try putting them on "dry" sounds from Thor, Malstrom and Subtractor (a simple drag and drop of the combinator after the synth will do it) and I think you will be surprised how deep things can sound.
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Kevin Sunray wrote: ↑22 Feb 2021
Subtractor is just a very simple sound device, that is great to make some basic sounds and of course if you add external effects you can get great sounds.
Though in my post I am talking and comparing reason devices as is, without the use of external devices. A good device is a device that can help me make a sound fast without having to load many other devices.
ShelLuser wrote: ↑23 Feb 2021For me it boils down to Thor, that powerhouse is amazing and has aged tremendously well over the years. I'm quite passionate about soft synths and I've always favored the stuff made by the Props, which is also why I own all synths (actually all RE's) which they released.
My home studio includes Komplete Ultimate, thanks to a really generous Native Instruments Holliday season deal I could also add several U-HE synths to my setup (mind blowing...) and despite all that potential I still keep coming back to Thor out of all synths. Other "old school" synths are awesome as well, I definitely share the love for Subtractor and Malstrom, but Thor...
And I dunno you guys... You mentioned the new synth they announced. I'm actually unimpressed with what I heard. I can't help shake off the feeling that Reason Studios (yech) are trying way too hard to be something they're not, and this feeling actually started when picking up on that U-HE deal and learning more about their stuff.
See.. I also own and love Complex-1, it's an amazing synth and provides tons of flexibility. Yah, sure... but... errrr. then I discovered Bazille (which I now also own). Notice any resemblances? Of course this synth was around since 2009 (give or take) whereas Complex got released nearly 10 years later? And with all due respect to Complex-1 but.. after messing around with Bazille the only reason I still use Complex is for all my patches and the Reason workflow which I love and admire (even within the RRP). But all of a sudden I'm not that much impressed with Complex-1 anymore. I admire it for what it is but.... this wasn't very original.
Thor was game changing, so was Malstrom and so was Europe. But all these modern devices.. Scenic has many things in common with NI's Thrill and/or Straylight, Friktion heavily reminds me of Ableton's Live Tension (in both sound and interface), and there are more examples. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not being negative about this stuff, heck no. Sure, owning Thrill made me recognize stuff, but Scenic does an awesome job in itself and it's costs are but a fraction. Not to mention one very important difference: Scenic can be used for your own material as well.
No, my point is that I get the feeling ever so more that Reason is no longer in front of the pack (though.. a major exception would be their player devices, those are ground breaking here and there IMO) but they're also trying to mimic stuff that already exists out there.
Sure it's a very thin line and in the end everyone borrows from everyone, I know.
But when I hear that new synth I hear stuff I already know from Komplete, and I can't help wonder if we won't be getting some hybrid between a synth and the pattern mutator (their last player). Which would, once again, mean that there's nothing really new here.
Or maybe I'm just too cynical, could be, but I know one thing for sure: Reason isn't what it used to be. Heck, apparently we're not even allowed to share our love for Frank anymore because how dare we criticize the work of a real person when that person happens to be a woman....
.. and no: I'm not even referring to the removal of that thread here ironically enough.
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