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Which iOS synths have the most compelling basic tone (vs breadth of features)?
Hey all, new to the forum although I've read it for years. So right off the bat, let me just state that sound is (obviously) subjective, and there's no such thing as the 'best' or 'worst' sounding synth in terms of flat out fact - however, I sometimes feel like a lot of the discussion/reviews of many of the synths in the iOS-verse (and elsewhere too) is overly focused on functionality (number of LFOs, waveforms, modulation routings, etc etc). There's a place for that sort of discussion (of course!), but especially since my music-making often involves extensive post-processing of loops/sounds, I often find that what I want out of a synth is a great basic tone which will hold up after being messed with. To put it in terms of hardware: there's a place for both the Nord Modular and the Moog Minitaur, (both of which I own) but they both do very different things - the modular is insanely flexible but requires a large investment of time in patch creation, and a simple 1 osc 1 filter patch sounds a little flat; on the other hand, the Minitaur is absurdly simple, but everything it does within those limited parameters sounds fantastic.
Anyway! The question here is - what synths do you find have the best tone on iOS (in your opinion, of course)? Preferably without overreliance on internal FX, though I understand that sometimes that's just part of the sound. They don't HAVE to be simple in terms of patch possibilities, but bonus points for a single screen (or close to it) interface. Here are a few of mine:
iSEM - there's a reason this synth is so well loved, despite the presence of many other synths with billions of filter options and more than two waveform types; it sounds phenomenal and rich, and the sound holds up no matter which way you tweak it.
Sunrizer - I was honestly shocked by how much I love how this synth sounds. I ignored it for literally years because 'on paper' it didn't seem particularly impressive compared to other apps I already owned (magellan, cassini, thor, etc etc), but I find that the intuitive one screen interface and surprisingly rich, characterful roland-ish tone of the synth remarkably compelling for basic sounds, and flexible enough to make some pretty wonderfully weird patches too.
FM4 - an out of the blue stunner. I've always loved cheapie Yamaha FM synths - from the TX81z to the lowly PSS line of 2op home keyboards (yep, hiss, funky chorus, and noisy aliasing and all) - and was blown away by how perfectly this replicates the sound of that hardware, including its odd limitations and noise etc.
There are others that I dig, but those three stand out for me. The Korg emulations sound pretty good, but I perhaps unfairly don't gel with their interfaces and find them a bit fiddly. By all rights I should like thor more, but for whatever reason I've never really loved making music with it. Nave can sound fantastic, but I honestly sort of hate the interface (boy, would I love a slimmed down version focused on raw wavetable sounds minus the whole FX section). Cassini, Audulus, and many others (for me) fall into the 'lots of features, but basically sound like late 90s VSTs in terms of tone' (the dreaded 'plastic' quality). I think Mitosynth and iPulsaret are amazing, but they're certainly not synths I go to for compelling sounds on init patch (if such a thing even exists for them) - they're closer to sound mangling tools for me.
Enough about me - let's hear what you guys think!
Comments
Thor was "Wow!" the first note I played.
Agree but, in two words: Animoog + Aftertouch.
animoog, isem, ivcs3
@Raised_Eyebrows Welcome to the pit
Like lots of things, of course, but today and for a while now the go-to/most used would be Thor and iSEM, with a lot of Module coming up on the rails...
I kind of wish (or not) that the same feature my kid has on his Steam games existed with music apps, whereby they automatically log/show how many hours you've played a certain game...would be revealing. Having said the Boy Child in question is busy playing Nun Zombie Death Match and I'm thinking when I was his age in 1972 Atari released Pong....things change.
@Raised_Eyebrows We seem to have similar taste. I'd pick the same but would replace fm4 (which I'm really enjoying!) with Nlog pro for 'basic tone quality'. He did a pretty marvelous job with the oscillators and filters on that one. I don't really like the layout so I don't use it much but the sauce is in there.
Imini too, actually. After having recently been lucky enough to play an actual Mini, I totally get why people say it sounds nothing like the real thing but the basic tones are still pretty great.
Animoog and Alchemy!
Animoog isem thor
I should have mentioned animoog - though it doesn't necessarily match what I'm going for a lot of the time, I do really like that it has an identifiable tone to it; very digital but with some moogish mojo as well. Imini for sure - I sort of passed it over for ages because it was bugging out constantly when I put it through audiobus (hanging notes, crashes, etc - made me appreciate iSEM even more), but it does have a really nice tone.
I've definitely heard good things about iVCS (both the osc/filter and the delay), so perhaps I should give that a shot next. I'll admit to my unfamiliarity with it's layout/interface scaring me off a bit.
Totally overlooked Nlog, will go check some videos out, and thanks for the tip.
Quick question for those who have both - how do the PPG apps compare to Nave in terms of tone (and interface)? They seem to have a distinctly interesting glassy/digital sound to them in videos (even more so than most wavetable synths), but I do find it worrisome that after a flurry of interest when they came out, I rarely hear people talking about them now...
BTW, feel free to mention any FX you also dig in terms of raw sound - for me, I'd say AuFX Dub and (a recent revelation) the WOW filter apps are spectacular. I know peeps love Crystalline (and holderness is an awesome company and dev), but I'll admit to not being that into it (perhaps because i have some Eventide hardware that covers similar territory). Oh, and most importantly - I'd love to hear WHY you guys like the particular synths you do; always more fun than just plain lists! (for instance, all you thor people - since the Osc options are so broad there, are there any particular ones you think sound incredible?)
@JohnnyGoodyear said:
Ha, totally. I'd imagine my current breakdown would look like this:
40% Samplr
25% Audioshare
10% iSEM & Sunrizer
10% Caustic
10% my granular apps (iPulsaret/Grain Science/iDensity et al)
5% all of the rest of the 10,000 apps I've bought over the last 2 years. (oops... oh well, still cheaper than hardware GAS...)
@Raised_Eyebrows said:
Animoog's digital noise can be eliminated by removing any orbit and path travel in the x/y space. While it is a cool feature to morph between 8 timbres, I find you really have to use it subtly otherwise the "steppy" digital artifacts come in.
Yes, Animoog gets my vote.
@Hmtx said:
makes sense, though I hadn't thought of trying it - thanks for the tip, will give it a shot. Animoog definitely also sounds quite different when you take off the internal FX and route it through a different delay (or whatever), as was mentioned on another thread here.
@Raised_Eyebrows said:
(iPulsaret/Grain Science/iDensity et al)
You're going to fit in here almost too well I suspect
@JohnnyGoodyear said:
I ain't proud of it, but ces't la vie. I mean, 90% of that money spent could have been avoided if there was some kind of 1 hour long 'trial period' within which I could use an app to see how it actually works/sounds in practice before I have to keep it, but I suppose that sort of thing has been discussed here before and for some reason will never happen. Sigh.
At the risk of adding more to the dusty virtual collection, I have to say that I was impressed/seduced by the raw sound of Tera Synth.
(You could look up some youtube demos or possibly a trial version of the similar desktop version to see if it is to your personal taste too.)
As this such a subjective topic, I will say that for reference I didn't really like the tone of Thor for some reason.
This left me quite conflicted since I loved the look of the programming interface and feature set but just couldn't fall in love with its sound.
I actually tried it out on the PC too via a reason demo, but still felt the same.
(Maybe it's just too smooth/polished for my taste idk!)
I'll have to give a shout to Z3TA, although a lot of its charm is the sheer number of bells and whistles - which is sort of the antithesis of this thread.
That said, if you strip it down to just a couple of oscillator waveforms and treat it like a simple subtractive analogue you can find some excellent sounds underneath it all.
76 Synth, great pure tone with that one
I always forget about 76, but once in a great while it comes out and I think: A) Odd little thing b) Great sound.
@CalCutta said:
Good un.
Love it...also love it in the effects slot.
@funjunkie27 said:
this
I'll also 2nd NLog Pro for pure tone (like syrupcore said, the oscillators on that app are numerous and of high quality), and that's also a great app for the effects slot (quite like the flanger and phaser on that app)
Hmmmm. I am more of a do-what-you're-told guy than I imagine. Hadn't thought of putting the 76 in the second hole. Took me most of this past year to realize that Galileo can be a good fit there (thanks to suggestions from this board). Should spend the day some time just trying stuff from the list in slot two and see what it brings to the party...always welcome more experienced suggestions of course...
The rotary and wah effects on Galileo are drool-worthy when applied to external signals. Love running hi-hats through it.
I've never put 76 in the effects slot either. I can't wait to look through my AB effects slot list and consider the phrase 'second hole'.
76 synth has a great tone. Other good sounding synths are Thor, iSEM, Sunrizer, Animoog, iVCS3, Korg iMS20 and MitoSynth. Funny how many of these I don't use that often, I guess features and playability are more important to me than the tone.
FM4 and Animoog for me at the moment. Z3ta too, but mainly due to the number of presets. Thor can sound pretty huge and interesting.
However, I've found myself getting back into the Gadget synths of late. I feel like I'm achieving a lot of the sounds I want with Dublin (for subby and Housey basslines), Chaing Mai (for hitting metal things with delay type sounds) and Miami (as long as I don't over use the wobble bass buttons). Those 3 synths plus lots of drums and weird samples seem at the moment to be about all I need.
Id be really interested in more experienced opinions of the sound quality and flexibility of those 3 Gadget synths though. Do they stand up?
I think that all the Gadget synths sound good to great (as you might expect from something with the Korg label), and they are a lot more versatile than some people give them credit for. A good inclusion.
Yep i was going to mention the Gadget synths. I thought they'd be not quite as good as the standalone synths but they are, just less parameters to tweak which is no bad thing. I like chicago for bass and brussels for stabs and plucky type sounds. Standalone Tera without a doubt, Animoog i need to spends more time with but not the most intuitive interface!
Brussels is an odd one. Almost nothing to tweak in terms of the core sound. Anyone know what's under the hood? A super saw or something?
It makes some nice ravey sounding stuff though. And I tried it for bass the other day
There's a lot to be said for the synths in Gadget - they seem to have been carefully designed to compliment each other and fit with the apparent ethos of making an app that gets out of the way as much as possible and just serves as a platform for being creative.
@Matt - super saw (esque) is a good bet for Brussels - it definitely seems to target the 'wall of sound EDM lead' trend which pretty much derives from stacking unison saws
Thanks @Xen. I agree.
I just wish they all had the full FX options. Or at least all had a BPM delay.
I'd be interested in people's opinions of pure sound quality of Korg Gadget's Dublin vs Korg IMS20. They are similar beasts I believe.