Your Most Unique VSTs?

What is the most unique vst for you, and why? The definition/criteria for unique in this case can be whatever you want it to be.

For me I'd say it is the additive synthesizer Harmor, and it's been so for years, though I haven't really tried many new plugins since 2018. At first it just seems like an overly complicated subtractive synth. However once you start to understand how it works, it starts to blow your mind with the level of control you have.

Many of the best features in Harmor are hidden kinda deep within it behind a few menus, where my mind was constantly blown by the possibilities, where you can make incredibly unique sounds 10 times faster than you'd be able to make them with a subtraction synth. Especially when it comes to layering a sound or really understanding how awesome its filters are, or the absurd number of filters you can create, with its custom filter feature. You basically can do almost anything with harmor. And that is just scratching the surface.

My biggest gripe is that harmor is in need of a 'harmor 2', as its audio fidelity can be lacking depending on what you're trying to do. The built in synthesis engine still sounds good to great, however the imaging feature could be better, as it converts your sound into a synth you can play in the vst itself. Basically it takes the sound, and then recreates it in the engine with lots of sine waves in order to be able to use the features in harmor on top of it. In the process it loses his 'panning information' and It makes your sample mono, and usually sounds worse than the sample until you've thrown on some effects to widen the stereofield again. I think that if this feature was improved to a near 1 to 1 conversion from the source sound into the additive engine that Harmor would be the best vst ever.

It's kind of a shame a successor to the synth hasn't materialized somewhere. There are definite improvements that could be made to make an already amazing synth, god-like.

Permut8

https://soniccharge.com/permut8

He's still releasing unique firmware for it too

Oh forgot the why: Because it's nasty

...the VSTs I end up using are so basic it's almost embarrassing.  There's not a lot my computer can handle, to be honest.  Probably time to upgrade... but then I have to upgrade everything, which means a bunch of things not working properly for a while.  If I could just skip that step, I'd upgrade my shit all the time.

https://www.unfilteredaudio.com/

Nothing unique for me just basic VST lol. I like the TAL free plugins a lot.

I can't argue with Harmor - it's still well ahead of any off-the-shelf synths in that area.  The things you can do with the Phaser are crazy!

I do wish it had poly-aftertouch assignment - imagine what you could do then! ..Though IL are one of those outfits that tend to let great products just wither on the vine, so I'm not expecting anything this century.

My current obsession is MSoundFactory.  It's got everything.  Some parts better than others, but the range of FX you can set up per-voice i.e. inside the patch - delays, reverbs, flangers, chorus, all kinds of dynamics, even a granular processor - make it something without any close equivalent.  Not to mention the endless FX available post patch - you get the entire Melda DSP toolkit to choose from.

I don't use a tonne of VSTs-as-instruments but I've alway loved Tweakbench's Tapeworm plug (specifically the flute patch):

It has a dusty kind of sound that falls right where I want it to sonics-wise in a track. Ridiculously simple design as well.

Permut8 is pretty amazing, I love under-driving it to exaggerate its sonic character (truncation artefacts are stronger that way), then compensating with its colored output trim. I've used it for years, yet I'm still unsure of how it really works, ah! Similarly, I've used Soundhack's ++delay a lot in the past : great texturizer, somehow akin to Live's GrainDelay(which is IMO Live's best native effect).

Regarding synths, I solely rely on a couple of u-he ones (Bazille and Hive 2), NI Razor and sometimes Plogue's Chipsynths. All sound fantastic and don't overlap. All 

I feel like Bazille is the underrated gem of the bunch, like the other one I listed it has a distinctive soundprint that makes FM/PD sing. Its learning curve is steep though. It's proudly digital yet can go into analogue territories effortlessly. Its semi-modular nature is a huge bonus, you can do all sorts of weird stuffs filtering modulation signals / FM modulators, fantastic synth. I suppose it's the one I'd pick as the most unique.

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:40 AM, xy_politics said:

I can't argue with Harmor - it's still well ahead of any off-the-shelf synths in that area.  The things you can do with the Phaser are crazy!

 

Yes! Instant Gabor Lazar!

Razor Lagab then hehe. Harmor = instant Kindohm

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:16 PM, Nil said:

Razor Lagab then hehe. Harmor = instant Kindohm

Yo thinka itz Razor? 
 

do you know if Kindohm uses tidal or something similar?
 

btw... permut8 is my no.1 guy

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:01 AM, dingformung said:

https://www.unfilteredaudio.com/

Is this the tool you’ve been using for that crazy good music of yours? 

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:28 PM, xox said:

Is this the tool you’ve been using for that crazy good music of yours? 

Yes, find myself using some of them often. They have a beautiful user interface and very good sound quality

I used to love to collect all the weird free VST's like Jack Dark's and HG Fortunes synths and effects. There was another one that based it's step sequencing on the game of life, that seems to have disappeared (it's not Newscool). Tweakbench made a lot of good stuff, and there are loads of weird physical modeling ones (how about a synthesized old boat engine in your song?). Not everything gets used but sometime it can bring a little inspiration or just a smile. 

The best one is Alionoctis, it's so easy to make cool textures. 

My current favorite for IOS is Aparillo, it sounds big&weird. 

@xox Kindohm is pretty much the Harmor x Tidal Cycles don. Add an Analog Rytm to the equation et voilà

His twitch and YT accounts are amazing resources re: his set-up, including several track walkthroughs. 

Now regarding Gabor Lazar, now that I know how to get the most of Razor*, I'm quite positive he's (solely ?) using it.

*TL;DR : don't overdo Razor patches, the less the better really. It has countless super narrow sweetspots that don't handle drastic modulations that well, nor too many modulations. In that regard, it's quite the opposite of say, Bazille. Now, once you keep that in mind, it opens up beautifully.

  On 5/4/2020 at 11:04 AM, Leon Sumbitches said:

I don't use a tonne of VSTs-as-instruments but I've alway loved Tweakbench's Tapeworm plug (specifically the flute patch):

It has a dusty kind of sound that falls right where I want it to sonics-wise in a track. Ridiculously simple design as well.

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Haha, I also love Tapeworm.

I guess the most exotic ones are the ones I designed myself on Reaktor? 

Loving these vsts suggestions and such, can't wait to check them out. I really need some new toys to play with to keep things freshish.

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:40 AM, xy_politics said:

 

My current obsession is MSoundFactory.  It's got everything.  Some parts better than others, but the range of FX you can set up per-voice i.e. inside the patch - delays, reverbs, flangers, chorus, all kinds of dynamics, even a granular processor - make it something without any close equivalent.  Not to mention the endless FX available post patch - you get the entire Melda DSP toolkit to choose from.

I've actually looked this synth up. It seems like if you take Melda's Mxxx and add mPowerSynth. I'd say Melda makes, by far, my favorite FX vsts, though their generators leave a lot to be desired. Though it sounds like MSoundFactory might finally be worth checking out.

  On 5/4/2020 at 12:57 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

...the VSTs I end up using are so basic it's almost embarrassing.  There's not a lot my computer can handle, to be honest.  Probably time to upgrade... but then I have to upgrade everything, which means a bunch of things not working properly for a while.  If I could just skip that step, I'd upgrade my shit all the time.

You/I can make 90-95% of all electronic sounds I generally use with basic vsts. It's when I'm in a sound design mood that I pull out the crazy VSTs like Harmor or Iris, or some granular synth, and then proceed to make some new genre's of moosic

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:57 PM, chim said:

I used to love to collect all the weird free VST's like Jack Dark's and HG Fortunes synths and effects.

I was the same way where I had a million vsts. But over time I've kinda stripped things down to just 1 or 2 vsts per 'effect'. Not on purpose, but I think having a million vsts and/or samples can be subconsciously daunting, to where I look at it all and it is a lil overwhealming since my DAW feels cluttered. I guess it was hard to get gud with something if I had 40 options for a reverb. Now I just use MTurboVerb or Valhalla's plugins and I feel like that is enough as it covers 98% of all my reverb needs.

Definitely gonna try out your suggestions though.

  On 5/4/2020 at 2:33 PM, Nil said:

Kindohm is pretty much the Harmor x Tidal Cycles don. Add an Analog Rytm to the equation et voilà

Does it have a steep learning curve?
 

  On 5/4/2020 at 1:16 PM, Nil said:

Razor Lagab then hehe. Harmor = instant Kindohm

Razor is awesome since it's like Harmor in many ways, though quicker and not as customizable. I remember watching a video where some guy would take a preset from razor, and then recreate it in harmor. In that sense it's kinda like Harmor's older brother 'Harmless'... which I have never really seen people use.

Every cool VST posted in this thread would crash my computer.

  On 5/5/2020 at 1:48 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Every cool VST posted in this thread would crash my computer.

I do kinda take that for granted since I can open 40 instances of Harmor and only slow down a bit. In addition FL Studio has a macro that will 'smart disable' vsts that aren't in use, which lightens the load CONSIDERABLY.

all i use anymore is the arturia minimoog and ableton live's wavetable. 

crystal can make some pretty wild sounds

  On 5/4/2020 at 11:04 AM, Leon Sumbitches said:

I don't use a tonne of VSTs-as-instruments but I've alway loved Tweakbench's Tapeworm plug (specifically the flute patch):

It has a dusty kind of sound that falls right where I want it to sonics-wise in a track. Ridiculously simple design as well.

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Oh i just realized I used to use this!  Great little mellotron modeller.  Didn't crash my computer either.  Good plug-in.

I don't use much exotic ITB but NuSpace Riviera probably fits the bill for "unique" pretty well.

  Quote

Riviera is a hybrid algorithmic-convolution reverb plugin for modeling specular acoustic reflections in N-dimensional orthotopes. e.g. string, plate, room, tesseract, and up

Basically it generates impulse responses on the fly based on mathematical models of 5 dimensional (maximum) space and has an interface straight out of 1999. I don't use it that often but it's a nice one to have around.

voiceofsnow is a good one, too.

Both are free.

AU Delay

  On 5/5/2020 at 9:35 PM, TubularCorporation said:

I don't use much exotic ITB but NuSpace Riviera probably fits the bill for "unique" pretty well.

 

Basically it generates impulse responses on the fly based on mathematical models of 5 dimensional (maximum) space and has an interface straight out of 1999. I don't use it that often but it's a nice one to have around.

voiceofsnow is a good one, too.

 

Both are free.

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I DL'd both and I'm impressed, especially by VoiceOfSnow. Most plugins are kinda crap when seperating tone/noise, or end up sounding imperfect, but it's actually really good at it.

  On 5/8/2020 at 1:03 AM, Braintree said:

AU Delay

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Is it what you used for your tuned delay tunes ?

Note to self : bookmarking your Bandcamp , liked what I've heard from you quite a lot.