First synth RE for a new upgrade from Essentials?

[Sus4]

Hi everyone! My first post after a whole lot of lurking.

I'm upgrading after a few years of Essentials, and might just treat myself to a synth. I'm a neophyte tweaker looking for recommendations from fellow tweakers.

I'll be using Reason for three main things -
* Compositions tending toward noisy/ambient/soundscapey... Tim Hecker, Death Grips, Oneohtrix Point Never, and GY!BE are inspirations
* Pads/leads to accompany rock bands in studio
* Sound design/FX

I prefer building sounds... it's nice to have great presets as a starting point or for inspiration, but they don't matter as much as range of building blocks and ways to put them together. Same goes for FX- I'm happy to build combis or long signal chains, so, for instance, Antidote's arp and effects are great and all, but I'd rather have more LFO, CV, and matrix options.

FM, additive, wavetable, whatever... I know I'm not fond of more retro-sounding FM, and like being able to make sounds that are either really down and dirty or celestial and glittery (I'm a big fan of the Blofeld in the hardware realm), but am happy to hear any recommendations of synths that fill a space not filled by Subtractor, Thor, and Malstrom...

Parsec's caught my eye, as has Solaris... (Or maybe R9 stock will be enough to keep me busy for a while? Remember I've been restricted to Subtractor for a long time, so I'm perfectly happy to let someone talk me out of spending money )

Hope this isn't too specific a question. Thanks!

[Loque]

At first i had said ReSpire, because of price and good patches. But for your requirements i would choose eXpanse or Nostromo.

[chk071]

How about a VST? If you liked Blofeld, Waldorf Largo would be great for your requirements.

[Sus4]

Loque, Nostromo looks really interesting... also like it might require me to think differently, which could be good. Thanks for the tip.

chk071, I thought I'd kind of wait for a while to see how VST implementation actually works out in Reason, though I am tempted by a VST based on Blofeld, which I hadn't considered might exist for some reason.

[tiker01]

At first i had said ReSpire, because of price and good patches. But for your requirements i would choose eXpanse or Nostromo.

Expanse might be the best choice but Zero is pretty good too.

[theshoemaker]

eXpanse, Parsec, Nostromo. Oberon might also be a good (cheap) choice. Keep in Mind May Madness Sale Ends Tomorrow.

Parsec is very versatile In different sounds and really beautifull for Pads. ReSpire have been surprising me by its Sound, also like it for Pads (But is cumbersome to program).

Don't underestimate Malström. Old like hell, yes. But still for ambient stuff very good! Just use Effects on top of it. And go have a look for the khs Toolbox. There are a couple of free ones. Polar is suprisingling good for ambient stuff, but I'd start wit the free/included ones. RV7000MKII is very versatile, just have a look at the different modes.

For Ambient I'd say alos have a look at the granular Synths, too. Namely Fritz and Arakana.

[Sus4]

These are some great suggestions... ReSpire especially sounds lovely, but my thought was similar to Shoemaker's - it seems a pain to automate.

Kombucha, you might be right now that the Polar demo has convinced me it's a must-buy, plus I'm eyeing Lectric Panda's sequencers hungrily (since I've never been crazy about Redrum or Matrix.) So those might blow my budget for now, but I'm going to demo all of the suggested synths nonetheless, and I know at least one of them will be mine at some point!

[fieldframe]

Pulsar (LFO generator) is included in Reason now, but Polar (pitch shifter) remains a separate purchase.

[Sus4]

EDITED: What fieldframe said.

I feel like Polar will probably become stock in some future version as well, but it's too nice for me to wait.

I'm afraid your wisdom on demoing has reached me a bit too late, but I'm optimistic I'll be able to get a memorable impression of at mmmmost of the synths over the next month