VST hunt

[arinlares]

I've got a small collection of VST instruments, maybe four or five.  I have a drum machine, and a few Tweakbench VSTs (Ritual, Peach, Toad, and Rebar).  I was looking at KVR Audio when I realized i don't know the name for the types of instruments I need!  I think the last thing I need is a 3 channel (three wave, i don't know) oscillator.  Can anybody point me in the right direction?  As far as effects go, any help in reverb, distortion and overdrive would be appreciated, and speech synthesizers.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

What do you mean by three channel oscillator? Do you a) want a synth that triggers three oscillators for a single note, b) want a synth that can trigger different notes on different channels, or c) want an FM synth with three oscillators in the chain?

A few good free VSTIs to try:
- Native Instruments Kore Player [sampler/synth/fm synth/modular synth]
- The DSK Plugins [various]
- Triangle II [synth]
- The TB plugs [various] (which you've already found)


A few good commercial VSTIs to try:
- NI Kontakt [sampler] (ain't nothing better! )
- NI Absynth [synth]
- NI Massive [the most modular synth known to man]
- NI FM-8 [fm synth]
- LinPlug Alpha [fm synth]


As to effects... I quite like the Kjaerhus "Audio Classic" series of effects, which includes a whole lot of general purpose effects, except distortion. For distortion, there's a great little plugin called "Float Crush" by CamSR & Arkecode which distorts the signal by playing around with the exponent and mantissa of the numbers in the audio signal. I don't normally use other distortions (like overdrive) outside of Kontakt, so I don't know what to recommend for them.

As for speech synthesisers... Well, that's a lot trickier. If you want a synth that can sing, you're going to need to pay money. If you just want synthesised vocal samples, there aren't many VSTs, but you can record the results of using a TTS system like Festival or Acapela.

[arinlares]

something like 3xosc in FL Studio is what I'm looking for as far as a synth goes.  I'm trying to get as close as possible to what I have in FL Studio, as far as included plugins go.  any tips would be awesome.

[LPChip]

3xOsc is really simple, and should be possible to see back in many plugins. Do note that you most likelly won't get the exact same sound, so its better to look for something equally good or better.

We made a topic where people show their love for VSTi's.

http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=332.0

You'll see a great deal of great plugins there. Just take the time to try them out. Even if they have less than 3 osc's they probably sound very cool, so don't go for the specs, go for its sound.

Its like a car really: the specs can say that it can drive really fast, but if the car isn't tuned properly, a slower car can beat it. The specs can say that the VSTi has everything for great sound, but a simple VSTi can simply rule over a big thing. In fact, there are many good and simple plugins out there.

In music, Bigger most definatelly isn't Better.

[arinlares]

i found a bunch I like, actually.  pads, mostly, but I managed to find a synth like i'm looking for, and then some.