My protocol is as little scientific as possible and I am far from unbiased.
Yet the test was fun to do, so I decided to post about it, in case it could interest somebody.
Protocol: create a sound from scratch;
1 - a sawtooth with a unison of 7 tuned to taste,
2 - use the wave shapers / modifiers of the synth to make it sound more juicy.
3 - Add another sawtooth one octave below and use it also to ringmod, FM or phase mode the first oscillator.
4 - add a filter and modulated the cutoff heavily with an LFO.
5 - add an ADSR or MSEG in order to modulate the LFO rate.
LFO and envelops should both be polyphonic.
6 - add an eq and a reverb.
I like this protocole because it still gives an idea of the CPU load (but not accurate for sure as all synths don't produce exactly the same sound) but mostly it helps me see how creative is the synth and compare the results I get with this synth (and it is clearly for me, my comments can not be fully generalised for everybody).
For more clarity I added an MP3 with 9 examples of the sound on 9 different synths (not really comparable because parameters are not the same and I didn't spent an equal time with each synth). Synths are respectively: Avenger, Current, Twin 3, Serum, Pigments, Spire, Phase Plant, Hive 2 and Diva.
1 - Current (by JAC459):
CPU: one of the lowest of the test. Very good surprise.
Usability: super easy and straightforward.
Final result: to my surprise I didn't manage to make the FM sound nice like on other synths. But overall good sounding.
2 - Bitwig polymer with unison (by JAC459):
CPU: higher than Current! (To my surprise). But still on the low side which is expected for an integrated synth.
Usability: Extremely simple and intuitive.
Final result: top tier.
3 - Avenger 1 (by JAC459, Avenger 2 tested below):
CPU: second worse. Spikes and all (I am on M2 pro). CPU issues are not a legend in this synth.
Usability: so so, the MSEG are not in the same place than the LFO, I had a bit of difficulty to connect everything.
Final result: best of the whole tests. While the usability is not awesome for me, the synth has so many modifiers, wave shapers and all that by playing around you can really create awesome sounds.
So the legend of avenger is a CPU hungry vst but with sounds that cut to the mix is confirmed in my case.
4 - Bitwig Polymer with voice stacking (by JAC459)
CPU: the worst of the test, even worst than avenger..
Usability: ok but it is actually overall quite complex to configure the polyphonic modulations the right way due to the specificities of voice stacking.
Final result: Quite good but it could be awesome with more time. The voice stacking is by far the most powerful unison as you control everything, I just didn't want to spend too much time. Overall I really enjoyed this part it was the funniest of all synths and I will continue working on the sound later.
5 -phase Plant (by JAC459)
CPU: low, almost identical to Current.
Usability: phase plant is a joy to use, everything is where it is supposed to be.
Final Result: second best after avenger. The modulations are extremely intuitive and I found a fun phase modulation I loved.
6 - Twin 3 (by JAC459)
CPU: low.
Usability: good but not as good as I was expecting. As the synth features are limited, I had to trick with multiple oscillators to get the spread I wanted
Final result: ok.
7-Hive 2 (by JAC459)
CPU: low
Usability: hard. I couldn't find MSEG even if I know they have. So I used a standard ADSR. That being said, with CLAP I could have easily used the modulations of Bitwig. (Which is what I usually do with this synth).
Final results: ok.
8: synthmaster 2 (by JAC459) ==> Edited after KV331 kind help.
CPU: Very low not very noticeable.
Usability: Even with KV331 helps (which by the way is quite awesome to have a developer so involved in the community) I am still having difficulties in navigating the synth but it seems it is only my case because many people reacted to say they have no problem at all. On my side for example I am unable to turn on the unison or voice features on the layer part. It is a shame because there is a cutoff spread I would have been delighted to test. There is still a Unison by oscillator though, so it isn't too bad. Also the configuration from the LFO rate to be controlled by MSEG was far from smooth in my view. Many options but difficult to find the good one. But again, that has to be taken with a pinch of salt as this synth has many fan who find the usability good.
Final result: The result at the end is ok but even with the nice help of KV331, I couldn't do all the modifications I wanted so it is not exactly sounding the way I was planning.
To be noted that the presets of this synth are excellent so I am sure that with the correct learning curve this synth can be a beast... Also there is a cheap Ipad version if you want to train yourself on the go ==> that's what I will be doing as I feel I am missing something here.
9 - pigments (by JAC459)
CPU: low
Usability: good. Similar to current but I find current even a tiny bit better, for example in LFO assignment.
Final result: Quite good, the sound modifiers are really interesting in this synth. adding a bit of FM was very easy and spice nicely the sound. Also a plus is the MS20 Korg emulation, I really love the creamy sound of this filter and in this example I think it shows well. FX are good and complete. Not excellent to the level of Phase Plant or Current (Or Avenger 2) but still very very good, nothing to complain about.
10: serum (by JAC459)
CPU: medium-low
Usability: excellente, the panel organisation of serum is a classic, everything behave as it should. Modifiers were easy to find but I didn't remember how to ring mod or to use FM (but I think it is possible).
Final result: clean but a bit thin (as lacking the FM part).
11: spire (by JAC459)
CPU: low (exactly similar to pigment in this test).
Usability: much easier that I thought as normally I don't do much sounds with spire even if I love tweaking the presets. Modifiers and effects are not so rich but quite efficient.
Final result: top tier. Spent very little time on this one and got immediately a satisfactory sound. No FM/RM though... Not sure if Spire provide, I didn't search as I was ok with the sound as it was.
12 - Bazille (by kraster):
CPU: 81% singlethreaded, 34% multithreaded. Heaviest of the three I tested by far.
Usability: Fine. The only slightly fiddly part was adjusting the pitch offsets in the stack for unison. The rest is just patching.
Final Result: Superb! Tons of character, exceptionally musical. Worth the CPU hit!
13 - Msoundfactory (by kraster):
CPU: 14% with FM oversampling at 32X and OS algo set to extreme.
Usability: It's Melda! The least straightforward to set up. Lots of clicking and opening windows but not difficult.
Final result: Very good. Smooth and present and CPU hit wasn't too bad. Could be reduced by lowering the oversampling. Tons of options.
14 - Dune 3 (by kraster):
CPU: Very efficient. Using the maximum CPU setting (audio rate). Barely touched 3%. I duplicated the voice across all 8 slots using a different filter for each voice and it was only touching 14%.
Usability: Easiest of the three. Unison is a breeze and the rest is done in the mod matrix.
Final result: Clean but a little sterile to my ears. But with how easy it is to use and how performant it is it's the easiest synth to tweak until you land on something better.
15 - Falcon 3 (by JAC459):
CPU: Low.
Usability: Ouch... I really wanted to say that the 3 is better... But somehow the templates didn't work for me. So I restarted from scratch. Finding the analog oscillator was easy. I placed it in the key group as expected (unintuitive, but I remembered this part). Unison was quite easy and standard, placing the filter also (a lot of choices). Placing the LFO was weird. First I tried to place the LFO and drag and drop the title or anything to the filter cutoff. Then finally I managed to do it by creating the LFO "from" the control I wanted to modulate (right click filter cut-off and assign an LFO). Why not... Then the LFO only goes to 20hz... FIrst time I have this issue, not fast enough for the slowing down effect I wanted. Then I found one LFO, the parametric one, going to 50hz... Better. lost a few other minutes on that but anyway. Then I tried to right click on the filter cut-off rate to modulate it through an ADSR. It worked ! The Adsr appears, the multiplier is on 1... all seem good.... But the rate is not modulated. And then for about 10 minutes I tried to understand why... I couldn't and gave up. The rest was ok, filters where good and easy to place. I didn't really tried any modifier/wave shaper on the oscillator, didn't found how to do.
Final results: sound clean but of course, as I couldn't finish the sound... Not so good.
A shame because like synthmaster, I love this synth to browse presets and modify them... But from scratch is really with a learning curve... Not immediate like phase plant, serum or current.
16 - Diva (by JAC459):
CPU: Extra high ! The worst so far. I am in accuracy great, not even divine. It is maybe 2.5% times higher than avenger 1&2, the other synth with high CPU usage... So diva is on another level of CPU consumption for me (m2 pro), I use triple VCO, one filter, plate reverb and chorus... And a modulated 12db lpf. And when I put the stack to 6 (unison), then I go to almost 100% cpu. That's insane because normally on this laptop I run everything, like 30 tracks, with filters and effects on every tracks, plus an heavy ozone on the master bus, with limiter, compression, eq and a lot of complex processing and I don't reach this consumption... So basically I tried "draft" which sounds... really horrible to a point it is difficult to work with and finish with fast that was using "only" 50% of my cpu...
Usability: Here I feel I will sound ridiculous but I actually struggled. Fortunately I remembered my previous toying and making sounds with Diva but I don't find it very intuitie. Even to attach the envelop modulation to the LFO rate, is not very intuitive to me even if when you know it, it seems obvious... A very good point though is that as UHe is awesome and implement CLAP, you can also do all this polyphonic modulations in your DAW, and then it become an enjoyable piece of cake.
Final result: ok, a lot of fine tweaking possible but also a lot of limitation due to the nature of "VA" of the synth (which is normal and not a critic).
17 - Bleass Monolit (by JAC459)
CPU: almost 0, not noticeable.
Usability: as a monophonic free synth, it was extremely easi to setup. All is as expected with immediate visual feedback. Excellent !.
Sound: very symple as the synth is very simple. That being said, the sound is clean and without alienasing or audible artefacts. Overall, excellent surprise and I'll certainly try more of Bleass products as they also have CLAP compatibility.
18 - Apricot (by JAC459)
CPU: Very low (not noticeable on Bitwig DSP meter).
Usabitily: top class. Very easy to setup on the main features, unison is directly on oscillators, ADSR and LFO are immediately available (I regret that there is not MSEG though). I could phase modulate also the oscillators in a very easy and intuitive way.
FX are ok but so-so.
Final Result:
Very very good overal, I would have preferred a bit richer effects but overall it is excellent and definitely top-tier.
This plugin is free and CLAP compatible and way overlooked. It deserve much more love.
19 - Massive X (by kraster)
CPU: Relatively intense. I used Oscillator 2 (aux) as PM source and was hitting about 24% in Ableton. Using the dedicated PM1 and PM2 oscillators dropped it to 20%.
Usability: Very easy. Apart from routing oscillator 2 to the PM Aux and switching on Unison everything was on one page. Drag and drop modulation.
Final result: My favourite of the modern digital ones I've tried. Very lush and everything sounds very cohesive and musical with a good deal of character while still unashamedly digital. It's a really lovely sounding synth overall.
20 - Dawesome Kult (by kraster)
CPU: On Ultra setting I was hitting about 34% with long chords held. About 15% on ECO mode. Not a massive amount of difference in sound.
Usability: Very Easy. You can only FM with the dedicated Oscillator which I assume is a sine wave. But apart from that everything is very accessible. Modulation system is great. Add a modulator click on parameter you want to modulate and adjust the depth. Very simple.
Final result: FM is quite tame but still pleasant. The oscillators themselves have things like spectral shift which add a lot of movement and character. FX are excellent. Filters sound really nice. Quite unique sounding overall. Underrated Synth, imho.
21 - Waldorf Largo 2 (by kraster)
CPU: Very Low in general. About 4-6% with held chords.
Usability: Okay The FM is directly under the Oscillator. A little fiddly with the modulation due to the interface being kind of crowded and small but overall not difficult or obtuse.
Final result: Sounds weird. The FM seems to have a weird beating like something is cyclically resetting. Kind of disappears when you push the FM. The FM itself doesn't sound great, kind of noisy and a bit harsh. Sounds better at lower FM depths but you run into the weird beating thing. Filters sound decent but the FX are kind of meh. Not great not terrible.
22 - Avenger 2 (by JAC459):
CPU:High, spikes still present in Apple Silicon..
Usability: mixed bag, the UI is good, and some parts are excellent, with lots, lots of option to play arround with the sound in a way that is immediately gratifying. On the other hand, I found myself struggling a bit to find some basic features like having the LFO polymorphic or accessing the MSEG or deleting in the modmatrix. It is not bad but not awesome as Phase Plant, Current or Serum.
Final Result: Again clearly awesome, from the synths I have tested, Avenger 1 or 2 consistantly score the best because it is so easy to manipulate the sound on the way you want. Overall, my feeling on the v2 of Avenger is that, yes, it may be a bit expansive and the launch was not perfectly done but the value delivered by the synth and the quality of sound is beyond any any criticism... Well done to the developers!
23 - Antidote Reason Rack Extension by Synapse (by JAC459):
CPU: Low (equivalent Current/Serum)
Usability: Very good, Antidote is a simple VA with one front panel very well organised and packed with a lot of features.
Final Result: Whaou! Antidote is a kind of legendary synth in Reason Studios Rack Extensions realm, and boy does it deliver ! It seems a bit ancient and low key when compared to other modern synths but the sound it delivers, in a not so straight forward setup is really really top, more or less at the same level than Avenger (and it tells a lot). The guys of Synapse really kow what they are doing...
24 - Zero hybrid Reason Rack Extension (by JAC459):
CPU: Low
Usability: though this synth is normally an FM synth, it can also do more as it is a real power house. The whole setup process is quite easy as all the features are in one panel. The affectation of envelop to LFO was a bit complex though.
Final result: very good sound overall but the effects are a bit "simple". The FM is obviously top not though.
25 - Europa Reason Rack Extension (by JAC459):
CPU: Low (not noticeable).
Usability: Good, everything on the same panel, with a tab for 3 oscillators. The oscillators are wavetables with countless modifiers (I didn't remeber there were so much, stupid me!). Each oscillator has also its own spectral filter like DS Thorn.
The Mod Matrix is efficient but I'd like some drag and drop...
Final result: Very good but dry because the FX are really... meh... The order of the FX is configurable but for example the EQ has... one band. That doesn't matter in RRP environment though as you can add any of the wonderful Reason FX outside of the synth. Overall, when I am using Europa, I really wonder why I don't use it much more often... It is really an outstanding synth with a rich spectral feature...
26a - DS Thorn (by JAC459):
CPU: High, about as high as Avenger, kind of a (bad) surprise actually.
Usability: All was smooth and good until I went to the LFO, ADSR and Mseg. They are behaving weirdly and I found it very difficult to configure them, to a point of frustration. I started with the adsr controlling the LFO and after struggling I tried on the mseg, not really easier. Surprising because the mod matrix is similar to the one of reason extensions and I had no issue with any of them.
Final result: a bit disappointing. I love the sound of DS Thorn, the oscillators and filters sound just great, among the very best I heard. But then the modulations are really not great and the FX really so-so, they show the age of this synth. On a positive note, playing with the glitch sequencer is always fun and good sounding.
26b - DS Thorn (by Kraster):
CPU: Heavy. Around 28% without OSC Oversampling and 34% with.
Usability: Pretty Easy. I did have to look up how to use the FM. It uses the next Oscillator as the modulator
But apart from that it's very easy. Modulation is straightforward.
Final results: Very good! You definitely need to use the Oversampling. Very thick rounded sound. Missing a little bit of presence but could be easily dialled back in.
27 - F'em (By Kraster):
CPU: Moderate. Around 11%.
Usability: Very Easy. Since this is an FM synth the FM part was a breeze. Just use the second operator back into the first. Filter Modulation was a cinch since each module has its own dedicated envelopes and LFOS so everything you need is contained within the filter module.
Final results: Excellent. As an FM/PM synth you'd expect it to shine in that department and it doesn't disappoint. Very clean sounding without having to adjust anything. Took me a minute to find the unison settings but apart from that it's the synth that was most tailored to this test.
That's all for now....
(Now you know what I do when I am procrastinating being stuck in a project ,
)Big big thanks to Kraster for so many high quality contributions !
