MachFive for Sound Design-like to hear from sound designers

[Steve Steele]

Sorry if this has been beaten to death..

I've been using different sound design apps for ages, and I've used the hard ones (MetaSynth, messed with Max and CSound but that's more than I want - although I've heard people do amazing things with these.), to the easy apps of the limited variety (the ones that have presets of sounds or samples with very basic manipulation techniques). I've also tried OmniSphere which everyone likes, but I didn't really "feel" it. Maybe I'll give it another try. Reaktor is cool. I hear Camel Alchemy is good. Some of the Flux or Ircam stuff is good. There is also all of the "packaged apps" mentioned above like Evolve, Hybrid Tools, Rust, and on and on..

I'm looking for something new. Preferably with sampling built it, some synthesis, filters, rhythmic tools, automation, file editing, scripting, effects,

I don't mind using a good tool to it's strengths, but I don't want to end up with the same sounds as very one else and I like to start from scratch, without too many limitations. i,e,. don't want an fx lib.

What I'm looking for is something that can do just about everything (within reason), but with a really great and fun to use interface (which MF has).

What do you sound designers think about MachFive for that purpose? I use Kontakt for my libs but MachFive seems to be really strong in this department. Just wish they offered a 10 - 14 day demo.

Thank for any thoughts!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I've used it a fair amount for design work and since ver 3 don't need anything else. No direct sampling but getting sound into it is otherwise drag and drop. That in conjunction with a decent source library is about as powerful as it gets.