Is Expanse supposed to be like Serum? I downloaded the trial & hate it so far. What am i missing?

[chk071]

Ya, no worries. I think the approach of Reason is still a thing which should make it different enough from other hosts to go that route, and more and more high quality RE's, or soundfills will come.

[EnochLight]

Lots of valid opinions in this thread - some delivered eloquently, and some obviously passive-aggressively trolling. Almost felt like some old PUF drama was starting to flow over here. (Thanks to the mods for stepping in)!

That said, here's my take:

I own Expanse, Antidote, Serum, and Spire. My personal take is that Expanse and Antidote sound fine - great in fact - but what Serum and Spire have over those (and most other stock Reason synths) is their massive professionally designed 3rd party libraries. Full stop. There's no question.

This is one of the reasons why I've been clamoring to have Spire in Reason as an RE - I've been using it in Studio One via ReWire and sometimes in Reason via audio loopback and Reason's External MIDI Instrument (pain in the ass, BTW). I have plenty of 3rd party libraries, and even its stock stuff is amazeballs. Same goes for Serum. And the larger, "high def" GUI/UX is much nicer to work on large monitors such as mine.

But to discard Expanse (or Antidote or stock Reason synths by extension) as shit? Naaaaaaa - that's just silly. I still prefer working in Reason, and I still use them - they have their place. I use everything. Not sure why this needs to be an either/or situation...

[chk071]

what Serum and Spire have over those (and most other stock Reason synths) is their massive professionally designed 3rd party libraries. Full stop. There's no question.

Funny thing is, i always judged Spire's factory soundbank by the first bank, because i'm not much of a preset guy, so, i usually played some of the presets in bank 1, and was like "Meh... the stuff i do with it sounds much better...". Then i played the second soundbank one day, after owning it for years. Jeez, what a difference. I think they should just remove soundbank 1. The others are not much, but a gazllion times better, and, as you say, surely in the top 10 of factory sounds i heard on any synth so far.

For me, it's not all about that though. Spire has a punch which other synths simply struggle to replicate, especially the Synapse ones. I really like the character of the filters too, even though they could do with some resonant behavior improvement (which is one of the few niggles i have with it). Anyway, talking of Synapse, it seems like they have a couple of things in the pipeline for Dune 3, which even could have a RE release, so, definitely should stay tuned for that too, because, i do think they learned a whole lot with The Legend. Not that Dune 2 or Antidote would be "bad" per se, but, always left me a bit lacklustre. Sound is too clinical, sterile, thin for me, and lacks the punch that some of the more popular synths can deliver.

[gullum]

personally I couldn't give a donkeys ass if Serum sound better or not. I'm on a Reason forum and I use Reason so VST are totally irrelevant to me.
Just that you are on a Reason forum should indicate that you like some things about Reason. If you use other DAWs that let you use VST fine use them when you need VST. What I've learned over time is if a synth or any instrument sound to full on it's own it's will make the full song sound like crap most of the times. So a simple mono subtractor could do more good to your music then a big screaming Serum. I'm no fanboy I just happen to haveinvested a lot of money into Reason and use it as best I can.

[QVprod]

Reason doesn't have to many hip hop sounds in my opinion. I treat reason like a sampler. I just love the sequencer, the mixer, and the wiring of devices. It's like having real hardware.

All depends on what you define as "hiphop sounds" I personally find that hiphop doesn't really have it's own sound set, just uses the same sounds as other genres in a different way. I've used so called "trance" sounds in hiphop productions.

[riemac]

Not here to compare synths, but saw Subtractor mentioned...
and I'm really looking forward to Aiyn Zahev's Subtractor ReFill

Do you know, that Aiyn Zahev is planning a Subtractor ReFill or was this a joke?
If I remember correctly he learned synthesis on Subtractor.

[Oquasec]

The sound of hiphop? is live drums & drum machines, software or physical.
They flipped funk albums and used them as oneshots.

That culture has been and will always be...the shit to me.
But yep also got that synth itch some years back and dabbled in a ton of random plugs due to amazement.[At what synths are and what they can do]
Some research here and there about what to add to my collection as usual.

[chk071]

Not here to compare synths, but saw Subtractor mentioned...
and I'm really looking forward to Aiyn Zahev's Subtractor ReFill

Do you know, that Aiyn Zahev is planning a Subtractor ReFill or was this a joke?
If I remember correctly he learned synthesis on Subtractor.

I didn't even know he used Reason, before he did factory sounds for Expanse.

Reason, and the synth devices, are great to learn though, i remember just reading the Reason manual, back in the days when version 2.5 was recent, to learn some things. Wasn't before i physically fiddled with synths before i learned how they work though. Theory and reading is all fine, but, nothing beats hands on.

[SYBRIX]

I personally love it! Just bought it and you can do a lot with it

[joeyluck]

Not here to compare synths, but saw Subtractor mentioned...
and I'm really looking forward to Aiyn Zahev's Subtractor ReFill

Do you know, that Aiyn Zahev is planning a Subtractor ReFill or was this a joke?
If I remember correctly he learned synthesis on Subtractor.

Not a joke

[EnochLight]

what Serum and Spire have over those (and most other stock Reason synths) is their massive professionally designed 3rd party libraries. Full stop. There's no question.

Funny thing is, i always judged Spire's factory soundbank by the first bank, because i'm not much of a preset guy, so, i usually played some of the presets in bank 1, and was like "Meh... the stuff i do with it sounds much better...". Then i played the second soundbank one day, after owning it for years. Jeez, what a difference. I think they should just remove soundbank 1. The others are not much, but a gazllion times better, and, as you say, surely in the top 10 of factory sounds i heard on any synth so far..

Heheh, yeah - I had a similar experience. It's likely because Reveal Sound usually adds a stock library bank for every major update, and the first "release version" didn't get the exposure (nor professional sound design peeps) that later releases got. But yeah - Factory Bank 2 is pretty bad ass. The moment I hit a single key of "SQ Beauty V", I fell in love.

[riemac]

Not here to compare synths, but saw Subtractor mentioned...
and I'm really looking forward to Aiyn Zahev's Subtractor ReFill

Do you know, that Aiyn Zahev is planning a Subtractor ReFill or was this a joke?
If I remember correctly he learned synthesis on Subtractor.

Not a joke

Ok, now I see, you are right... this is fantastic news!!!

This is from Aiyn Zahev's Homepage blog:


March 16, 2017 08:57

Reason 9

Since 2015 I've been getting a lot of requests to provide sounds for Reason, either with Combi's or for some of the rack extensions available for it. For whatever reason I just never got around to it, despite intending to. This year, 2017, I've decided It will happen.

I initially planned to make some sound banks for synths like Thor & Antidote, but it seems like people want Combi's more than anything, so It looks like I'll focus on that. I think the majority of presets will use combi's for some basic things like adding EQ, some effects or doing some stacking when necessary, but I'm not looking to make huge complex combi's, at least not to start with.

As for my concrete plans, it looks like I'll be doing a Subtractor based combinator bank first. Everyone has access to Subtractor and it has a lot of mileage in it.

[mreese80]

I'm surprised that some people think you can just take the wavetables, put it in another synth, and it will sound exactly the same. Well, firstly, there's the "sound engine", then there's "oversampling", and the filters, and envelopes of different synths are different too...

Now, for an opinion, i do think that RE's are a bit overhyped, at least among Reason folks. I've yet to hear the RE, which can challenge Spire, Sylenth1, or Serum (or Waldorf Largo, which is one of the most awesome sounding VST synths there is), in terms of sound quality. Antidote is one of the most popular, and hyped RE synths around, yet, i don't see how it is supposed to sound better than Spire, or Sylenth1, which are in the same ballpark, feature wise. I must admit that i'm not a big fan of Dune 2 though, never got the hype around it, for me, it doesn't have bang and punch, and sounds kinda thin, fizzy, and clinical. Frankly, IMO, it's a god send, that Reveal-Sound decided to release Spire as a RE, and it will surely substitute Antidote for many users. The Legend? Mh, ok, as a VSTi, there is NI Monark available, which IMO also sounds better, but that's also rather an opinion.

I haven't tried Expanse myself, only listened to sound demos, but, considering that it got the same hype here as anything else which comes out as RE these days, and there's obviously people not chiming in into the choir, as this thread shows, i also have a feeling that it might not be the Serum "killer" many want to see it is. Anyway, maybe i'm wrong, and should not judge before trying it. I've tried a couple of RE's though, including the "top" ones, like Antidote, or Predator, and mostly meh'd, kind of. Anyway, i feel like the competition in form of VSTi's is very strong anyway, so, it may bet a bit difficult to compare it. I can only say though, if you don't know Spire yet, be thrilled. It will most probably have quite an impact.

Expanse is pure trash. My opinion tho. I have never came across a Re that i've liked. That's why i've never bought any. They can't compare to vsts. Reason's sound library's aren't deep enough. Some people on here (dedicated reason users) love talking down on vsts. They know damn well they can't compete with the vst world. All they can say is they crash. I don't have issues with vsts crashing.

You obviously have made your decision on an opinion regarding the quality of expanse and REs in general. You stated this here and thats fine. Now plz stop ranting on a synth we all love for good reasons as well. Maybe Expanse is not Serum, but its still a decent Synthesizer and defintly not "trash". If your results with this powerful and beautiful Synth are crap, you can be almost 100% Sure its your lack of will to have a deeper look at Expanse. As I said, mabye Expanse is not Serum, but its still really good (and also almost just half as expensive). Your harsh POV makes me believe, you are here for quarrel and not for substantial discussion...

And now plz let me tinker with my beautiful nice toy that expanse is, without implying Im a fanboy with no opinion of my own.

Cheers!

If you have a problem with this post move on. I'm not having a quarrel with anybody and i never called anybody a fanboy. Your opinion is your opinion. The same way you don't care about mine i don't care yours. Now plz tinker with your toy

[mreese80]

I personally love it! Just bought it and you can do a lot with it

That's cool. Like i said, i was just under the impression it was like serum. I was expecting a library of patches. That's where i went wrong. Me expecting it to be one thing and it's totally something else. This is probably why i've made the decision i have about it.

[mreese80]

Lots of valid opinions in this thread - some delivered eloquently, and some obviously passive-aggressively trolling. Almost felt like some old PUF drama was starting to flow over here. (Thanks to the mods for stepping in)!

That said, here's my take:

I own Expanse, Antidote, Serum, and Spire. My personal take is that Expanse and Antidote sound fine - great in fact - but what Serum and Spire have over those (and most other stock Reason synths) is their massive professionally designed 3rd party libraries. Full stop. There's no question.

This is one of the reasons why I've been clamoring to have Spire in Reason as an RE - I've been using it in Studio One via ReWire and sometimes in Reason via audio loopback and Reason's External MIDI Instrument (pain in the ass, BTW). I have plenty of 3rd party libraries, and even its stock stuff is amazeballs. Same goes for Serum. And the larger, "high def" GUI/UX is much nicer to work on large monitors such as mine.

But to discard Expanse (or Antidote or stock Reason synths by extension) as shit? Naaaaaaa - that's just silly. I still prefer working in Reason, and I still use them - they have their place. I use everything. Not sure why this needs to be an either/or situation...

Well since you brought up Antidote, let me say this. I wanted to trial Antidote and Hydronexus. So i attempted to download them a while back. I'm pretty sure i would have bought had i been able to trial them. Anyways, while they were downloading the connection broke. So when i tried downloading them again It said my trial expired. wtf. I never got them installed. So i contacted props and never got a response. This thread made me attempt again. So i did via twitter. They responded today but basically said they can't reset trials. I'm pretty sure they could look and see if it ever got any usage, which it did not. My internet connection wasnt the best than but it's ok now. I have Dune 2 so i was pretty sure Antidote would've been good but i never got to trial it. So i've never had much luck with synth re's

[mreese80]

Reason doesn't have to many hip hop sounds in my opinion. I treat reason like a sampler. I just love the sequencer, the mixer, and the wiring of devices. It's like having real hardware.

All depends on what you define as "hiphop sounds" I personally find that hiphop doesn't really have it's own sound set, just uses the same sounds as other genres in a different way. I've used so called "trance" sounds in hiphop productions.

I have used trance sounds as well. I get all of those hip synth sounds from Bitley refill's. Reason stock imo doesn't have a good selection. They have some "go to"s" but that's it.

[scratchnsnifff]

I personally love it! Just bought it and you can do a lot with it

That's cool. Like i said, i was just under the impression it was like serum. I was expecting a library of patches. That's where i went wrong. Me expecting it to be one thing and it's totally something else. This is probably why i've made the decision i have about it.

Check out the reason talk community refill Check out some of my patches under the scratchnsnifff folder (made some dubstep sounds )

[Oquasec]

Ok so there's the problem, no wonder they weren't descriptive.
"I don't like any rack extensions because the presets suck"

THERE WE GO OK THAT's WHY THEY ARE HATING ON REASON.

[miscend]

I'm surprised that some people think you can just take the wavetables, put it in another synth, and it will sound exactly the same. Well, firstly, there's the "sound engine", then there's "oversampling", and the filters, and envelopes of different synths are different too...

Now, for an opinion, i do think that RE's are a bit overhyped, at least among Reason folks. I've yet to hear the RE, which can challenge Spire, Sylenth1, or Serum (or Waldorf Largo, which is one of the most awesome sounding VST synths there is), in terms of sound quality. Antidote is one of the most popular, and hyped RE synths around, yet, i don't see how it is supposed to sound better than Spire, or Sylenth1, which are in the same ballpark, feature wise. I must admit that i'm not a big fan of Dune 2 though, never got the hype around it, for me, it doesn't have bang and punch, and sounds kinda thin, fizzy, and clinical. Frankly, IMO, it's a god send, that Reveal-Sound decided to release Spire as a RE, and it will surely substitute Antidote for many users. The Legend? Mh, ok, as a VSTi, there is NI Monark available, which IMO also sounds better, but that's also rather an opinion.

I haven't tried Expanse myself, only listened to sound demos, but, considering that it got the same hype here as anything else which comes out as RE these days, and there's obviously people not chiming in into the choir, as this thread shows, i also have a feeling that it might not be the Serum "killer" many want to see it is. Anyway, maybe i'm wrong, and should not judge before trying it. I've tried a couple of RE's though, including the "top" ones, like Antidote, or Predator, and mostly meh'd, kind of. Anyway, i feel like the competition in form of VSTi's is very strong anyway, so, it may bet a bit difficult to compare it. I can only say though, if you don't know Spire yet, be thrilled. It will most probably have quite an impact.

Dune and Antidote are like siblings with the former being the bigger brother. IMHO Dune 2 > Spire > Sylneth1.

And also I prefer The Legend to Monark. And that seems to be the general consensus amongst users that The Legend is the best Mini Moog emulation ever made. It's the first software version to even convince the most hardcore hardware purists.

[Oquasec]

I've used the vst version of spire before. that's 2 subtractors in a combi.

[miscend]

Let's not forget Spire is coming completely feature complete to Reason.

Don't get caught up in the hype though. Spire is a good workhouse synth for bread and butter sounds - the main selling point is the quality of the soundbanks. It's quite versatile but it doesn't excel in any one particular area. It sounds good but not amazing like some people claim. In terms of character it's firmly within the Virus and JP8K territory.

[FLVZ]

Ok so there's the problem, no wonder they weren't descriptive.
"I don't like any rack extensions because the presets suck"

THERE WE GO OK THAT's WHY THEY ARE HATING ON REASON.

This is exactly what I also read from these posts...

[chk071]

I'm surprised that some people think you can just take the wavetables, put it in another synth, and it will sound exactly the same. Well, firstly, there's the "sound engine", then there's "oversampling", and the filters, and envelopes of different synths are different too...

Now, for an opinion, i do think that RE's are a bit overhyped, at least among Reason folks. I've yet to hear the RE, which can challenge Spire, Sylenth1, or Serum (or Waldorf Largo, which is one of the most awesome sounding VST synths there is), in terms of sound quality. Antidote is one of the most popular, and hyped RE synths around, yet, i don't see how it is supposed to sound better than Spire, or Sylenth1, which are in the same ballpark, feature wise. I must admit that i'm not a big fan of Dune 2 though, never got the hype around it, for me, it doesn't have bang and punch, and sounds kinda thin, fizzy, and clinical. Frankly, IMO, it's a god send, that Reveal-Sound decided to release Spire as a RE, and it will surely substitute Antidote for many users. The Legend? Mh, ok, as a VSTi, there is NI Monark available, which IMO also sounds better, but that's also rather an opinion.

I haven't tried Expanse myself, only listened to sound demos, but, considering that it got the same hype here as anything else which comes out as RE these days, and there's obviously people not chiming in into the choir, as this thread shows, i also have a feeling that it might not be the Serum "killer" many want to see it is. Anyway, maybe i'm wrong, and should not judge before trying it. I've tried a couple of RE's though, including the "top" ones, like Antidote, or Predator, and mostly meh'd, kind of. Anyway, i feel like the competition in form of VSTi's is very strong anyway, so, it may bet a bit difficult to compare it. I can only say though, if you don't know Spire yet, be thrilled. It will most probably have quite an impact.

Dune and Antidote are like siblings with the former being the bigger brother. IMHO Dune 2 > Spire > Sylneth1.

And also I prefer The Legend to Monark. And that seems to be the general consensus amongst users that The Legend is the best Mini Moog emulation ever made. It's the first software version to even convince the most hardcore hardware purists.

Monark pretty much convinced hardware users too... and Diva before that. Actually, Urs from u-he said once that he finds Legend a bit sterile sounding, in terms of an emulation. FWIW.

[mreese80]

I'm surprised that some people think you can just take the wavetables, put it in another synth, and it will sound exactly the same. Well, firstly, there's the "sound engine", then there's "oversampling", and the filters, and envelopes of different synths are different too...

Now, for an opinion, i do think that RE's are a bit overhyped, at least among Reason folks. I've yet to hear the RE, which can challenge Spire, Sylenth1, or Serum (or Waldorf Largo, which is one of the most awesome sounding VST synths there is), in terms of sound quality. Antidote is one of the most popular, and hyped RE synths around, yet, i don't see how it is supposed to sound better than Spire, or Sylenth1, which are in the same ballpark, feature wise. I must admit that i'm not a big fan of Dune 2 though, never got the hype around it, for me, it doesn't have bang and punch, and sounds kinda thin, fizzy, and clinical. Frankly, IMO, it's a god send, that Reveal-Sound decided to release Spire as a RE, and it will surely substitute Antidote for many users. The Legend? Mh, ok, as a VSTi, there is NI Monark available, which IMO also sounds better, but that's also rather an opinion.

I haven't tried Expanse myself, only listened to sound demos, but, considering that it got the same hype here as anything else which comes out as RE these days, and there's obviously people not chiming in into the choir, as this thread shows, i also have a feeling that it might not be the Serum "killer" many want to see it is. Anyway, maybe i'm wrong, and should not judge before trying it. I've tried a couple of RE's though, including the "top" ones, like Antidote, or Predator, and mostly meh'd, kind of. Anyway, i feel like the competition in form of VSTi's is very strong anyway, so, it may bet a bit difficult to compare it. I can only say though, if you don't know Spire yet, be thrilled. It will most probably have quite an impact.

Dune and Antidote are like siblings with the former being the bigger brother. IMHO Dune 2 > Spire > Sylneth1.

And also I prefer The Legend to Monark. And that seems to be the general consensus amongst users that The Legend is the best Mini Moog emulation ever made. It's the first software version to even convince the most hardcore hardware purists.

Monark pretty much convinced hardware users too... and Diva before that. Actually, Urs from u-he said once that he finds Legend a bit sterile sounding, in terms of an emulation. FWIW.

Joey told me about the legend. I knew about it but i thought it was vst format and i never looked into it. I like synapse but i wasn't sure it would be a great emulation of the model d moog. Well it is, flawless i might say. I'm going to buy that for sure. I don't know which one is better, that or diva

[chk071]

If you're looking for an emulation true and close to the real thing, you should be better off with either Legend, or Monark, than with Diva, because Diva only features certain aspects of the Minimoog, like an emulation of the oscillators, and the filter. Neither the parameter values, nor the envelopes, or other "accessory" is modelled on the Minimoog's, AFAIK. Diva on the other hand features a lot of other stuff, like emulation of the Korg MS-20 filters, Oberheim oscillators, and filters, or the JP-8000 oscillators, so, it's rather an allrounder in terms of emulation of various hardware synthesizers.