5 TOP
SYNTHESIZERS FOR
ELECTRONIC
MUSIC PRODUCTION
There is nothing like best or favorite synths, it's more about
how comfortable one is with the synth and how much the
person knows about the synths and its features. The more
you try to master one synth, the more comfortable you
get with it and you get the sound you have in your head.
I am listing out 5 synths that are really good for electronic
music production.
1. Xfer Records Serum
The Serum is a beast. For me, it’s the go to the plugin as it has
amazing presets of the best sound quality. It’s extremely easy to
use. If you are a person who likes to tweak around and go in-depth
into tones, it can do a lot of things like creating own wavetables,
making customized LFO shapes etc. Just like few other synths you
have the 1/4th, 1/8th etc options for the oscillation. You can make
amazing wobbles with these. The Serum has loads of expansion
packs which make it more easier to get the sounds you want easily.
2. Native Instruments Massive
Massive is everyone's favorite synth for music production. Every
producer will have a phase where he uses massive literally on all
of his tracks. Massive has three oscillators which control pitch,
wavetables, and amp. The best part is a variety of waveforms can
be used for 3 oscillators with which in-depth sound design can
be done. There are filters available which can be assigned to the
LFO's. When the dubstep genre was at its peak, most of the growls
were made using massive. More than presets, a lot of new sounds
can be generated easily on Massive.
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3. ReFX Nexus 2
Nexus2 is a synth which contains over 1000 patches that are apt
for Electronic music production. One big advantage for Nexus is
that it is very preset centric, that everything is ready to go and
no real big tweaks are needed. The presets are so good that it
immediately takes your track to a whole new level. The other big
plus for nexus is that it uses very little CPU so it really won't take
a toll on your system and the sounds load so easily. The filters
are very easy to understand and are very straightforward. It also
has an arpeggiator which can make different arps, and they also
have presets. It has straightforward filters and the cutoff knob
and other knobs are seen clearly and can be tweaked very easily.
4. Native Instruments Monark
Monark is used predominantly for house music. Monark sounds
close to a Minimoog. It has vintage sounding presets and good
presets for house music. Just like other synths, this has its
oscillators and MM Filter. It is different from the other synths
because it loads inside Native Instruments Reaktor player.
5. Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2
Omnisphere by Spectrasonics is a hybrid synthesizer that allows
users to dive deeper into sound design. Omnisphere includes
loads of sounds in its sound library. It pretty much has major
features like atmospheres, synth leads, fx, ethnic sounds, and
percussive sounds. Omnisphere has a browser to navigate the
huge sound library and tags can be added to each sound to help
remember. The sound library is around 50gb and every sound is of
extremely high quality. There is a live mode option in this plugin
where a musician can move from one preset to the other without
any issues. This is one unique feature. You can also layer up to
8 different sounds in one plugin which is really good when you
want to make your sound fat. Omnisphere also has an arpeggiator
which is really cool because it also has presets with which you
can tweak around. It’s a really good synth with which you can
make crazy new sounds and new electronic sounds.
Author Vishal Ramakrishnan, Global Peace song of the year
award winning and music producer. He is also a music production
trainer. For more details, visit www.vishaladitya.com