plugins that I don't use anymore:

Ivory for pianos - Keyscape has replaced it and is way better
Steven Slate Drums - Hated it
NI software except for Kontakt - Most of the instruments suck
Stutter Edit - Never really felt the need but got it cheap
Superior Drummer - Just way too annoying to use for me
Nerve - I tried desperately to like it but it was way too buggy

My main go to software

Omnisphere and all the expansions - I definitely do not understand the dismissal of this. It is orders of magnitude better than most synths and I think the main reason it gets dissed is people don't learn how to use it. The patch management is far better than anything out there. The live mode is better than anything out there. Hardware integration is incredible. The patch library is best in the business and creation of new patches using them as a base is so easy using the patch lock feature. They have the best included effects by far. I just wish they integrated Stylus RMX into it. Maybe for 3.0.

Avenger 2,4 - Fantastic feature sets and great interface to work with. Great expansion libraries

Nexus 5 - Now that it is opened up it is so easy to deal with and I have a huge patch library for it.

Unify - Absolutely essential. In everything.

Scaler 2 and 3

All the the Fabfilter plugins especially Pro Q4

Valhalla Vintage Verb

Infiltrator 2

Omnisphere is just not a good synth in my opinion. It’s a good preset machine. The hardware integration was annoying AF because it’s not intuitive and doesn’t work as it should due to Spectra’s design decisions rather than what’s best for the user. The preset system was ahead of its time - but it needed to be to handle a million presets you have to manage. Just an average synthesizer overall in 2025 in my opinion - which isn’t what you want for $400+. It’s also annoying difficult to try to make your own presets using samples (which requires a 3rd party tool, which isn’t what you want to deal with for $400+ on Omni) - which makes sense because they want you to spend more money to buy others. I also was disappointed in the effects - while pretty good in a synth, they weren’t up to modern standards (again, for $400+, not what you want). Finally, the UX was designed for 800x600 screens it seems, which means lots of clicking in and clicking back out. Good for the time, not so good now.

I had it for a couple years and tried hard to use and love it. It just didn’t work for me. Sold it and haven’t missed it one single time. Lots of hype, but it’s a specific tool for a subset of musicians. Seems amazing if that’s you, but, otherwise, it’s a waste of time and money.

Eric (Persing) hates it when people dismiss Omnisphere as a "ROMpler." And so Spectrasonics has tried valiantly to turn Omnisphere into a "proper" synth by adding loads of DSP-generated oscillator waveforms, wavetables, and so forth since version 2. This builds on the already powerful foundation of four layers per patch, many, many filter types, six envelopes (two ADSR and four multi-segment) and eight LFOs per layer, powerful mod matrix, layer and patch FX, plus granular synthesis and basic FM.

So to say that Omnisphere is "just not a good synth" is overstating things. What are you comparing it to? Zebra 2 may be more modular, but I don't think it sounds any better. Falcon, while a powerful sampler, is horribly convoluted as a synthesizer, and moreover, "just doesn't sound very good." It's cold and clinical. Then there are synths like Avenger and Synthmaster that try to do too much and also don't sound that impressive. The Avenger UI is cluttered and overly-busy with tiny controls that require a 30" 5K monitor to use.

IMO, Spectrasonics should lean into the ROMpler thing even more and build on their already impressive sample content. If Spectrasonics developed a general purpose set of acoustic, electric, orchestral, and world instruments for Omnisphere, it could utterly destroy something like Zenology Pro from Roland (and all of the Fantom hardware synths that use it as their primary synth engine). Spectrasonics could easily charge $300 for this collection of sounds that would be way higher quality than what's in Zenology (which is really just a warmed-over XV-5080,) and make Omnisphere the only synth plugin that the average keyboard player would need. It would be a modern "workstation" synth without all the dumb, limited sequencer features.

Will that happen? Probably not, because Spectrasonics, to their credit, is not really in this for the money. Good for them.

I use it for programming drums inside SD3 inside cubase, even though Cubase has an amazing midi drum editor Sd3's is also brilliant.

I program the drums, I don't use any of SD3's processing but I do use its mixer to get the tone I want, usually with full bleed on all mics and then just mix to taste, the room mics sound so good on pretty much all kits!

Then I use SD3's audio export functionality to export all tracks as audio into Cubase and mix from there.

I also use it to create my own breaks, program a cool midi beat, print the audio to a stereo track and then whack it into any sampler of your choice.

SDX's I think are amazing are:

The rooms of Hanas
State of the Art
Fields of Rock, it also has awesome random percussion like a ladder!
Hit Maker, also has incredible drum machine samples!

I also like the default kits, I'm pretty sure you can find a drum sound for any type of music with those expansions.

I can't overstate enough how good the room mics sound
on all the kits.

I'm holding my breath for the Danny Carey of Tool SDX

As you can tell I really like SD3, I'd love to find a reverb and delay which I rate as much as SD3 and Cubase. I've found myself using hardware most of the time know.

Hardware synths going through a great tone shaping mic pre via an external DI so you can drive the pre if you want. Then I'm using guitar pedals like the Strymon Volante as effects sends etcs. I create the sounds I want and commit to them. I'm finding I've doing very little mixing this way other than for creative processes.

But yeah, I'd love to find a reverb and delay plugin which I feel is irreplaceable, maybe Altiverb and the UAD AMS RMX16 (but I'd probably buy the 500 unit as it will hold its value even though its 3.5 times the price of the plugin).

Software is great and IMO def has a place besides hardware but it has to be really great software like SD3 and Cubase, I wish more developers took that approach instead of churning at tons of reskinned compressors and EQ's to give you that extra MOJO...

Have you tried these:

Soundtoys Superplate (the ”newest” plate that I know of).

UAD Capitol Chambers

For me, I’ve hated all reverbs except these two. One problem I have with even these two is that the important action (to me) is in a quite narrow range of the knobs. Makes it difficult to get just right.

I still want a Bricasti, but Superplate and Capitol Chambers do a good job in the following cases:

- subtle reverb
- obvious for-effect reverb

I still don’t like the sound I get when using it as ”clearly there” but neither obvious nor subtle. Which is the type I would most like to use. I like reverb a lot, and a lot of music I like has lots of it on some or all sources (Beach Boys, the Doors, or newer stuff like Burial).

Maybe it’s my tweaking/routing skills that need to improve? It’s still fairly new to me to have real monitoring and serious intent.

Reverb is one of my favorite things in music and I really want to be able to use it musically and creatively without it coming across as artificial, or as is often the problem with these plugins, either harsch or muddy, or ”clonky”/”tanky”, a certain kind of metallic hollow resonance.

I’m not religious about it, but I tend to agree. For my money omnisphere is able to integrate into my hardware workflow and not sound out of place better than any software synth I’ve ever used.

The user interface is a bit ugly and unintuitive and even more menu divey than other well featured software synths, but it really just sounds great to my ears.

I’m late to many parties and have only had it for about 6 months maybe.

But I’ve owned a ton of soft synths by big brands and boutique brands. Softube, NI, u-he, Arturia, dune, etc etc. Trying to work most of these into a track next to a hardware Juno 60, prophet, Moog, etc. can make many soft synths draw attention to themselves, but in a negative way.

I’ve found the same thing with reverb. I own multiple algo reverbs from UAD, relab, Valhalla, etc. Then I heard someone on MWTM load up altiverb, dialing up a patch that I have modeled in multiple plugins, and it sounded so much better than the software verb I have that I couldn’t believe it. So I demoed and ultimately bought it, and it just sounds better than all these new, modeled algorithm reverbs. Not really close in many instances.

Zebra2 is pretty much the only VST I like... and yet, only as a preset machine (getting to understand this UI is really beyond me, and usually I'll just make it sound worse or not worth the effort).
There are other softsynths that sound good: Xenia, Vital, Arturia Easel V, but they're all super CPU-intensive. I only know of Zebra to pull it out both sounding good and being lightweight.

Sure. Lots of people share misconceptions about a great many things. It’s sort of the defining characteristic of this time. I challenge you to start from an init patch and start making patches using the Mini or MS20 filter models. Don’t forget to lean on the gain and filter FM a bit.

I came at plugins from a different perspective, but came to a similar conclusion. I abandoned analog in the 90s because I had needs that couldn’t be satisfied by any analog. I needed a workstation style keyboard to do live looping shows. Plugins interested me around the time of Absynth, but it didn’t seem ready for the type of gigs I was doing at that point. In the mid 2000s, it was easy to replace my digital synthesizers with plugins, and I did.

I later rediscovered analog synthesizers when my gigging days came to an end, and I could appreciate the sound quality and character. Even though software has come a really long way, I still keep a bunch of hardware analog and hybrid synths around, but I make sure that they offer something not found in plugins. Sometimes it’s just character, sometimes a feature set, often both. For example, there’s nothing like a PolyBrute in software. Nothing that does does what it does, or sounds like it. Could I do without it? Sure, but I don’t want to.

But I’ve spent a lot of time comparing various plugins to different hardware synths, and I think that you’d be surprised at how good Pigments sounds in comparison, though you wouldn’t know it by the presets.

No doubt they have very good stuff. Quality inatruments and very well curated presets. But the question is will i have any use of it or am i going to end up preset surffing thru thousands and thousands of presets when i already have Komplete 14 CE, arturia v collection, VPS Avenger etc

How do you edit Omnisphere ? With what controller ?

Maybe so, cos Keyscape is a dedicated plugin.
But he needs to add layers to Omni, at least 4 more or even more so.

My analog synths are all hardware and my digital synths/samplers are all VSTs. I've uninstalled all VSTs except for Ominisphere 2, Keyscape, Plogue OPS7, and Kontakt. I use some of the Valhalla plugin effects, but that's about it. I am still bitter about NI discontinuing Absynth (which I loved). In the past, I've bought several VSTs from GForce (MTron, IMPOscar), Cherry Audio (ELKA-X, PS3300, GX-80, Polymode), TAL (TAL-U-NO-LX), Arturia (CS-80V, Moog Modular), and NI (Battery, Reaktor, Massive), but found I never used them or felt they didn't fit with my sound/style.

To Each His Own.

Those two are still my favorite Go-To VSTs.. I could kick myself for not buying Omnisphere sooner!

I get it.

I could kick myself for not getting rid of it (and Diva) sooner :-)

Omnisphere's current 4-layer patch architecture is not enough for you? It used to be just two layers per patch, btw.

That's four completely independent layers, each with its own dual filters, envelopes, LFOs, separate mod matrix, effects, etc. That's way more power than your average synth.

But if four layers per patch are not enough, you can always use the Multi mode to stack eight 4-layer patches for a total of 32 layers. Treat each Multi as one mondo "patch" and use separate instances of Omnisphere for each layered sound. That's no different from using the Multi/Combi/Performance mode on countless synths.

Again, there aren't that many synths that feature four independent layers per patch. It's not unheard of. But it's certainly not the majority of synths, most of which include two layers per patch, if they support layering at all.

No, just a mouse. By hardware workflow, I mean that 98% of my sound sources are physical, analog hardware. I have a modular that is substantially based around ajh synth minimod stuff, several full voices of it and some other analog Eurorack stuff, and then a Juno 60, and then a 909, MPC, etc for drums duty. It’s all tracked through good quality gear on the front end (API, ELI, SSL, etc.) Against that backdrop, I often find most soft synths sound a bit flat.

I bought a virus to have a play with as I had never played with one before, and to control omnisphere. I resold it within days at a big loss. That thing sounded awful IMO and also omnisphere has so much going on that hardware control really isn’t all that meaningful. So many things can’t be controlled with hardware that it’s not all that worthwhile.

Because FM7 was used in some old projects, I know the interface and I like the colour of it. It's not broken... (wasn't broken)

"But what have the Romans ever done for us?"

The fx in OPS7 and other chipsynths are soooo good! I hope Plogue releases the fx as a separate plugin. The chorus works so well with the FM sound. I also use Echorus with OPS7.

I've yet to ever purchase a standalone VST, thinking about the Korg collection when it goes on sale.
But I'm a Reason user and even though I compose in it, I have yet to touch its built-in synths to an extent.

Keyscape is best used operating inside of Omnisphere. There are four layers to every patch already in Omnisphere. When did you use it last? It's been like that for years. Each layer can have its own effects stack. You can have 8 patches in a multi and each patch has its own effects and the multi has its own effects. You have 8 output channels to route to external effects if desired.

I would suggest that people bashing Omnisphere are not actually familiar with all of the amazing features it has. Drop a midi clip on the envelope window and instant groove envelope you can tempo sync. Patch locking for new patch creations. Envelopes that can vary per measure using Chaos mode. A pitch envelope that can be chromatically quantized if desired. On and on. The manual is available and incredibly well written.

Indeed. And don't forget Omnisphere's killer arpeggiator. It's so good I wish Spectrasonics would release it as a standalone MIDI plugin.

Spectrasonics is working on a update.... they sent this "MPE is something we are working to add to Omnisphere, but there’s no current timetable for release." I'm sure there will be other updated items.....

Heck, I’m not even familiar with 0.01% of the presets it comes with…!I am certain they are!

Omnisphere could easily be the only synth one ever needs for everything, literally everything
I love it

There’s a few, but the most recent would be the legend hz expressive suite. Getting MPE working properly in Ableton with a push 3 is more effort per patch than it’s worth. So it sits there mocking me for buying it. And I only bought it for the advertised MPE.

Anything after “decades “ they stepped up after that

Arrsnge the list on toontrack by release date

Decades
Hansa
And whatever style a you need
My 2c

Yeah FM8 sounds identical to FM7 and has additional features...

Bought this stuff decades ago, never getting warm with
Waves 73, Echo Chambers, 12345TG, , Izotope mastering shissl, and some other PluginBoutiqe bargains, GAS was only a problem with Reasons Rack Extensions especial synths

So yeah there is now a market shakeout, wich results in fusions and companys who getting out of business....

So maybee Kirchhof EQ and Lindells Mu666 might be my last vst invests, this year or still forever.