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Kontakt 2 running vsl and other sounds including:
Stradivari violin (as great as Keyboard says it is)
East West platinum
Ivory Italian Grand
Mach Five using Sonic Implants strings and custom samples.

Reaktor for everything. this plug is just to cool.

Massive, from Native Instruments. Has to be used to be believed. Best VI synth ever.

Just signed onto Unicornation today, one of my main purposes was to get recommendations for VIs, so this thread is great. Big questions, though. Before now, a couple of things I'd thought were highly recommended were Colossus and Reason -- yet it seems that not a single person has mentioned either of these on this thread! Any comments?

Ah, yes. Reason. One of my favorites. But since it is Rewired and not an AU, I think it gets left out. I use it a ton and would rank it in my top five, but for some reason, I dont think of it when I think VI.

Native Instruments B4 Organ - I love good Rock/Blues Organ
Ethno
Having fun with the Korg M1/Wavestation AUs

DFHS, albino3, blue, ivory, cube2. i loved battery, but refuse to deal with the NI authorization scheme anymore. at the moment, i'm using microtonic.

on the wishlist: mx4, mach5(2?), guru, mebbe metasynth?
also, reason rocks!

kell

kelldammit wrote:DFHS, albino3, blue, ivory, cube2. i loved battery, but refuse to deal with the NI authorization scheme anymore. at the moment, i'm using microtonic.

on the wishlist: mx4, mach5(2?), guru, mebbe metasynth?
also, reason rocks!

kell

actually now that you mention it..Microtonic..top notch

Massive, from Native Instruments. Has to be used to be believed. Best VI synth ever.

I ran the demo; can't afford it yet. It's really something. Must be something in the water at the NI r&d lab. Incredibly thick sound.

MegaDPuser wrote:

Massive, from Native Instruments. Has to be used to be believed. Best VI synth ever.

I ran the demo; can't afford it yet. It's really something. Must be something in the water at the NI r&d lab. Incredibly thick sound.

Yeah, I really like Massive. It just doesn't quite get the day-to-day mileage some of my other bread-and-butter VIs get. Still, sounds great.

everything listed below. i bought it becuase i use it!

I really love Kontakt 2. I know it's not a very original or "out there" answer in a VI thread. I spent 2 weeks trying to figure out what on earth it actually did, other than the obvious (playing samples). That included giving up on around Day 3 and ordering the $50 DVD, which is 6 hours and I watched it 5 times start to finish one week. I then spent 2-3 weeks experinemting with it - every button, every preset, all the scripts, going through every menu and tool and how different parts interrelate and work together. Then I started putting it to use in my music. This tool is a godsend. I now see it as so much more than a sampler. I see it as a tool for designing musical instruments. Sure, if someone wants to use Kontakt to play a Steinway, it'll do that with no fuss. But I am working on some odd rhythmic pieces using sounds such as washing machines, car engines, and industrial eqipment. What I expected was that Kontakt would enable me to layer those samples in a map and "play" them. What I didn't expect was being able to layer, overlay, filter, arpeggiate, use old-school Moog type filters (ladders), add sends and inserts for individual groups, use convolution reverb, and just all around pull in my various weird rhythmic sounds into a coherent, well designed nusical instrument. I know this sounds crazy, but every morning now I wake up with Kontakt on my mind, with new ideas about how to use it for creative expression. I simply love it. I get the impression from numerous friends who have it that they do not know there's a monster residing in their computer. They buy Kontakt, then immediately go out and buy sample libraries and maybe - maybe - mess with a velocity curve for 3 minutes before laying down a track. Kontakt doesn't show you what it can really do until you start with a simple sine or saw wave and get into the guts of Kontakt to turn it into something great. There are other VIs I like, but Kontakt is my true virtual love

Fxpansion's Guru - just everything you want from a sample-base beatbox. It made the transition from hardware to software extremely easy. (In contrast to DP, which still intimidates me!)

Arturia's CS-80v and Arp2600v - Just brilliant. The CS-80v has an extremely warm sound and is really versatile and programmable. and actually sounds like a CS-80! Which is in total contrast to the Arp2600 which doesnt sound much like the real thing. However, it has a rich vibrant sound none the less, and couldve been a classic in its own right if it wasnt intended to imitate a legendary synth.

Glad to see so many mentions of Reaktor. If you are unfamiliar with it, it's worth checking out. The concept is a bit intimidating, but it need not be. You can build your own synths if you want, but it comes with many very usable synths out of the box. From subtractive analog, to electro beat boxes, to bizarre out of this world noise generators it's all included. But the real value comes in the User Library on N.I.'s site. It is truly astonishing how many quality creations are available to the Reaktor community. Effects, synths, samplers, drum machines etc. It's impossible to get bored with Reaktor.

If you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and check out the User Library. The top 100 is a good place to start.

Reaktor User Library

I have loads of hardware... cause guitars got too expensive.

My introduction to VIs was the Artura 2600. A real beast, but I've got some good sounds out of it. The M-Tron is my second try. Aaah, solved many of my musical problems. I'm looking at their imPoScAr and the Mini thing... I am doing ok with the new DP instruments, partaicularly the Poly. I probably won't be getting rid of the Juno 60 or Poly 6 (or my secret wepon the JEN 1001) any time soon, but I can enjoy the software side of things.

I did root around and see what sort of free software there is to be had. The Crystal has proved useful. It's might odd, but if you keep poking at it strange things happen.