Hi,
What are your favorite VST Synths these days ?
Here is a list of my Favorite VST-Synths as of August 2015.
U-he : Zebra, Diva, Hive
Spectrasonics : Omnisphere 2
KV331 : Synthmaster 2.7
Reveal Sound : Spire
Synapse Audio : Dune 2
Steinberg : Retrologue, PadShop Pro
Cheers,
Muziksculp
u-he Diva: This ist still the best analogue emulation out there, Jupiter 6/8, Moog, Oberheim - it’s all there. It is so far ahead of all the Arturia stuff, it’s unreal.
Sonic Projects OP-X Pro-II: When I need Oberheim sounds that need too much CPU when made with Diva.
Waldorf PPG Wave 3.V: You can’t beat Wavetable for that “special flavour” if you really need it. Version 3.V sounds more authentic and can load user made samples/waves
Palm Wavegenerator, Wavemapper: For truely unique soundscapes with a Wavetable twist.
DEXED: Though still in beta, my goto FM-synth. Much more authentic than FM7 which I was using before. And it’s freeware.
General Vibe VectorSector: Best Prophet VS emulation with some classic 80s sounds. Great choirs. Unfortunately the company was defunct just around the time the Arturia Prophet came out und the product is not available or supported anymore. But it still works perfectly with jbridge in Cubase 8 so I still use it.
HAlion 5: Best sampler for my purposes/workflow, but unfortunately not as much dedicated 3rd party content as Kontakt.
Aloha M,
+1 for Padshop Pro as well.
I am still discovering new and different sounds using this plug.
{‘-’}
Padshop Pro is great, but I can’t say that it’s very versatile for general song writing. If it is, standard sounds require too much effort, the entire thing is very fiddly, and sort of ‘take what it gives you’. Does it sound good. Yes it does.
I used to love Gladiator, but it has a particular sound, ans sort of stereo quality that sounds really dated, but can be useful at times. It does not sound amazing these days, but there is a time and place for that sound.
Right now I love the TAL Juno emulation, it covers a lot of territory, sounds clean (and modern, to be ironic lol).
I am a big PPG fan, I think it’s also pretty flexible, even when it’s not supposed to be.
I still really like the Cubase synths, Prologue, Mystic, Spector, but I HATE HATE HATE the modulation and envelope page. Way to make something a stupid and un-intuitive as possible. I think Retrologue was ok, until I compared it. I do not like it anymore, but it is useable. It has some good presets that can be utilised.
oh yeah. The Arturia Collection. Most likely to find a plethora of sawtooth strings to use, oddly enough the Jupiter did not have the best synth brass, which suprised me. It’s a very useful collection to have… some of the modulars, I still need to figure out.
I have to say i still quite like Retrologue. I don’t use it as much as i used to but it helped me out a lot in the beginning as i was learning synthesis and what does what. Still sounds quite nice too!
I really like U-He Hive. For my own synthesis escapades i use that the most. Easy good-looking layout, dual chainable filters. Stock dancesynth but it’s got some character 
Thanks for getting me stuck back into Padshop Pro btw, many fun hours ahead