Warm Soft Synths

[Matt Hughes]

A friend is looking for some suggestions for third party plug-ins that he can use with Abelton to produce warm synth stabs. He is lookming to emulate the sounds on productions from the likes of Osunlade and Jimpster.

One that I was looking at is the: Native Instruments Pro53 (http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=pro52)

Any thoughts on the Pro 53 and any other suggestions- thanks in advance, Matt.

[Twilight Being]

You can make any softsynth "Warm" through the use of chorus, oscillator detuning, and EQ adjustment in the 200-800 HZ range.

Try FreeAlpha from Linplug and go from there. Save you money and give them a nice donation instead. ;-)

[Ashwell]

Ditto on what Twilight Being is saying. I haven't tried the Linplug synth though.

For commercial vst's check out u-he Zebra, the arturia vsts, the polysix in the korg legacy collection and Thor is also very good if you're friend already has Reason.

[ebot9000]

Not sure about Jimpster, but Osunlade is definitely using analog synths - moog for sure. Soft synths still don't touch the real thing for that warmth and grit...

But assuming you don't have the dough for a real one, check out Arturia minimoog. Trilogy bass has a lot of good moog bass samples that you can also use higher for leads.

Seen the Pro53 in action. It's a cool one...

Linplug synths have some cool sounds in them, but they're less in the moog territory.

You also might want to look into some sort of plugin effect that makes the sound a little grittier. PSP Vintage Warmer works well for this and can be subtle enough. There are some other tube emulators, amp FX, distorters, etc that can help lessen the computer digi aspect.

[emuzik]

Absynth 4.

[Mocambo]

-Arturia vsts are nice.
-Vintage warmer is a favorite of mine.
-Izotope vinyl is and nice. I always add a dash of distortion to it. Just enough to feel not hear too much.

70s synth strings emulators(free):

-Stringer by Falke Music Lab - pretty nice.
-StringSynth by AlgoMusic - limited, yet has some really warm patches in it.

[dennis f]

I haven't found any plug ins to be warm. Only way to warm them up is to route them out of your daw into a tube pre, tape machine or analog desk and back in again. Or if you want to be really ghetto through the a/d d/a of an existing sampler that can Input thru. MPC2500 comes to mind. There are some plug ins that attempt to do this but what they don't do is recreate the low end extension and harmonics that somehow come from true analog equivalents. It's a mojo that tends to be missing in all plug in synths. Some Tape Sims work a bit...a hint though....Daw software tends record everything between 20hz and 20khz and higher...your old analog keyboards didn't do this and tape didn't do it either..so roll off the high end with a filter a bit! Your dreaded "ah man this sounds so digital" harshness will tend to disappear. Just cuz someone gave you a gigantic toolbox doesn't mean you have to use all the tools in it at one time. That's where most folks go wrong.

d

[steffenb]

also a good plug is tritones colortone, it got impulses from analog gear
from compressors to tape macheines to mic pre`s ect ...

it realy helps to get some warmth into digital :thumbsup:

sounds crazy but when you got a vhs videoplayer with a audio input
jack, you can use it as a ghetto tapemachine ;)

also old casette tapedecks are quite nice, you can for example get
some nice distortion or a bit tape compression by overloading the inputs ,
+ added noise also adds a bit of mojo ...

[migumartinez]

psp vintage warmer makes a good sound.

migu

[rissa]

psp vintage warmer makes a good sound.

migu

one of my favorites for bassgrooves :thumbsup:

[PDX]

Digital is cold and sterile. Computer music is boring. BUY A 505 if your going to go digital, I think 12bit is ok and 8bit is great. 16 and 24 is just too clean for music. yes get a 505 and a mopho now that sounds warm

[socratez]

Indeed role off @ 2000khz, its the aliasing and the distortion that accumulates in that freq-range.

Another trick is to go back to 96khz and bounce it back to 44.1 or 44.8. This way the distortions are pushed above the audible frequences resulting in a much clearer (not warmer) and better sound.

I do everything in the box, except synths.

Some synths sound better than softsynths and are cheaper alternatives

check out the Apha Juno they're cheap as hll, and sound extremely tight compared to softsynths:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18fDN4VHz0

[ogcmusic]

Yeah that PRO-53 is nice, so is the FM 8 and Massive VST's from NI
Check Out GSI the have some nice warm Rhode's piano's and Hammond B3 VST's.

Lennar Digital Too, Sylenth is dope !

*Can't give away too many WMP's

But check out TAL the ELEC7RO and Jupiter 6 /SH101 are BANG'N.
Oh and TAL Gives This Stuff Away, Take That Corporate VST Maker !!!!!!!