Honestly at this point Serum is a good option. It is like a more modern, feature heavy version of Massive. Good shit and rent to own on Splice.
I do like Absynth 5 a lot…but I think Serum will do that and more really. Some of rhe Absynth fx are interesting.
I think i’m going to have to pull the trigger after everything I’ve heard about Serum. Might be the first softsynth I’ve purchased since Massive, but it seems so versatile with accessible workflow.
It rellay isnt super special sound wise. It is more work flow and features. Sounds better than Massive (better filters). Still digital. But good digital.
I’ve learned (after making nearly a whole album on massive) that yeah, it has a particular sound that is inescapable despite using it’s tools and modulation.
I love digital, absolutely love it. I’m fiending for a new workflow and with a fat tax return coming up… I might have to bite the bullet and get some new tools in my creative arsenal. Serum being the top one.
Lol. Adjust your withholdings, broseph. It always cracks me up when I hear people talk about their fat tax return, like it’s fucking free money. It’s your own money, dude, which you loaned to the government at 0% interest and now they are giving it back to you. The ideal thing to do is try to get as close as possible to 0 (either you owing them or they owing you).
But, yeah, Serum is great. Get it. If I’m going to use a soft synth and I don’t have a particular sound in mind, then it’s always Serum by default (though that doesn’t happen a whole lot lately cause hardware).
I honestly suck at savings so bad I kind of like withholding honestly. That’s kind of the idea. I also put 12% into my 401K (my company matches an insane maximum) so it’s basically money I can’t look at until later and get excited about. I know it’s false, but it’s my adult version of christmas. Lol
For those asking about Native, I would say firstly, Razor is awesome. If you like keys with some eerie flip side, The Giant has a 2nd side to it that does all sorts of stuff. And then, NI has free stuff as well that is worth looking into.
Like Mikro Prism, Blocks Wired, and they just released Kontakt Start, which is some free stuffs related to the Kontakt player. Which I haven’t tried but only because it wasn’t out the last time I looked. They even have a tube comp available for free.
+1 For Razor. And it works basically like Massive in the modulation department. It has “a sound”–to me it seems as if it was made specifically for all the “future” genres that are popular now (future house, future trap…w/e). But I like it.
I’m not hot on their smaller $100 and under instruments. A lot of them do offer much imo.
Yea razor has a sound to it but it’s still a, simple to use, bass machine, can get gnarly. Not really into the Errorsmith patches on it though. And I typically do most of my piano/writing with The Giant. I actually want to throw together a sample pack of the drum kit/perc stuff on the cinematic side from it. Some good sounds.
But the free stuff can always turn into some layer or noise for no charge. I’m really interested in what the Kontakt Start offers in use. Will be downloading in the near future.
For someone starting out anything free, especially made by a company like NI, is great. I’ve got So. Much. Shit. I mean like after my last system crash I reinstalled like like 15% of the software I own lol.
Yea, the Errorsmith patches on Razor are kinda gross. It is an amazing synth though. I quite like it for leads and fx myself. It can probably do gnarly mid-range growl stuff well too I imagine. It it easy to make a patch that’ll cut through any mix on it.
The Giant is a beast.
Tbh rn I’m disappointed since the Serum MPE implementation doesn’t seem to work very well with the LinnStrument. Only the pitch sliding works, I still have to use the internal Bitwig modulation to make Serum understand the LinnStrument expression more or less correctly. Hard to believe - maybe it’s some kind of user-side problem or they only used Seaboards for testing it…
In the the event that My comp crashes reason, I have my daw and the plugins I have backed up on an external hardrive
Dope collection of VSTi! Some of those actual machines are still pretty fun to use, but have to admit that I am all about the VSTi these days!
I’ll never own a CS80 or Fairlight, or Matrix 12… so yeah they’re great.
They’re going a long way for me currently as I’ve been on tour for 6 weeks and need to continue to write, my hardware misses me. 
…or maybe the other way around.