What are Your Favorite Software Synths, Samplers and Sound Modules?

My toy: M-Audio Axiom 25 USB MIDI keyboard

For my 40th birthday, the Ginger Ninja got me something I’d had my eye on for some time: a USB MIDI keyboard, specifically an M-Audio Axiom 25, a nice little unit with a lot of features. Prior to my picking up the accordion and getting the “Accordion Guy” nickname, I was a synth player for a good long time. I’ve been meaning to get back into it.

I still have a couple of old hardware synths: a Korg Wavestation A/D (a rackmount unit version of the Korg Wavestation) from my days at Crazy Go Nuts University and a Korg Poly-800 that my friend Steph gave to me when she moved out of town.

My last experience was software synths wasn’t all that hot: it was in the late 1990s, when computers and networking were a great deal slower. Software synths felt very “laggy” in comparison to my good ol’ reliable hardware, and after noodling with them for a while, I decided that I’d give technology some time to play catch-up. That time has come, and I’d like to ask any of you who are familiar with this stuff: what are your favorite software synths, samplers and sound modules?

I’m looking for a couple of things in software form:

A nice, decent general purpose synth/sampler. I expect I’ll be doing more sequencing than live performance, but you never know…
A “groove builder” or “Groovebox” in the spirit of the Roland MC-303

I’m currently on a PC laptop (running Ubuntu and when absolutely necessary, Vista), but I expect to buy a Macbook Pro sometime in the near future. I’d like to hear about what’s available for any platform. Let me know in the comments!

Joey deVilla

Next A Full List of Recalled Maple Leaf Meat Products [Updated] »

Previous « Watch for Bikes

View Comments

Joetek says:

August 20, 2008 at 4:39 pm

I'm nowhere near the level of the "Accordion Guy", but I've enjoyed playing with Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/)

Joe
Justin says:

August 21, 2008 at 10:50 am

Brother Joe (as Robertson asked me to call you) -

Being a "hardware guy" who also uses software, I must say Propellerheads Reason (now at version 4) is your best bet for real-time software sampling. It will work with a plethora of controllers, offers the Redrum drum machine (which can load samples), the NN-19 (basic sampler) and the NN-XT (more advanced sampler).

Get a hold of Propellerheads Recycle, a useful utility for sample/loop manipulation, completely compatible with Reason (through Reason's ".rex" file compatibility):

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/recycle/

As for a software equivalent to Groovebox sequencers such as the Roland MC-303, MC-505, Yamaha RM1x, etc., I would highly recommend Ableton Live:

http://www.ableton.com/

Ableton can control Reason, acting as the sequencer through it's "ReWire" compatibility. The "Session View" in Ableton allows complete live control of sequences and audio loops/segments and has the performance feel of a "groovebox" sequencer while offering the typical "Arrangement View" of DAWs and Software Sequencers such as Cubase, Logic, etc.

Your M-Audio Axiom will be at home with both Ableton Live and Reason.

Hope this has been helpful!

~Justin
Greg Burns says:

August 21, 2008 at 11:27 pm

Hey Joey,

Happy birthday. Hope you're good.

Korg actually has a VST Wavestation as part of their Legacy Collection. I've heard it's great.

For a DAW I'd recommend Cubase, or if you're a Mac guy then Logic is a pretty awesome value.

For dance sequencing then Live is pretty awesome too.

Synth-wise the Native Instruments Synth collection is good, as are Gmedia's stuff. Take a look at the KVR Audio forums - http://www.kvraudio.com to see what others think of the products.

Here's some free stuff to get you started. Drop me a line if you have any questions - I love talking about this stuff.

VSTHost: http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm

YellowTools Independence Free: http://www.yellowtools.com/ has great sampled instruments for free

Saved by Technology has a lot of great stuff on its site: http://www.savedbytechnology.com too