Best Computer Recording Synthesizers Software
New Core library The massive new 7.4GB core library in Stylus RMX has thousands of cutting-edge grooves and sounds that were created by Spectrasonics' international sound design team, and produced by Eric Persing. Xpanders" libraries, Retro Funk (authentic vintage sound, feel, and classic grooves), BackBeat (live acoustic "straight-ahead" drum grooves), Metamorphosis (21st Century remix grooves), Burning Grooves (maximum impact, aggressive live drum grooves), and Liquid Grooves (unique acoustic drum. technology (Spectrasonics Advanced Groove Engine) Realtime auto-sync to the beat so grooves are always in time, even when performed live Groove Control is always active for optimum sound quality at virtually any tempo Massive, cutting-edge 7.4GB core library, with nearly triple the sounds of the original Stylus (the original Stylus core library also included) Includes "S.A.G.E.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you need an immense repository of great drum sounds and grooves, RMX is your ticket. The core library mainly focuses on electronic drums and percussive elements. Liquid Grooves gives you laid back drum and percussion sounds."
"Spectrasonics understands the needs of ambitious musicians and follows through in quality, inspiration and technical support."
"This product was such a big deal to me that when I moved from pro tools on imac with tiger to logic on macbookpro with snow leopard the first thing I installed was RMX and when upgrading support directed me to the proper place with no hassle and quickly allowing me to get rolling with my music right away."
"(one of the very few times that I've found it beneficial to me, the customer, to register a product, vs. simply providing the manufacturer with customer data) Spectrasonics customer service is terrific (and they were back then also, with general questions I had). However, it is neither of these extremes - it truly is a 'rhythm module', playable like an instrument."
"I'm not so good at writing reviews but I must say Stylus RMX is one top notch product! Even without using all the features I have done tracks used for library music used on tv and radio."
"But it's now 2015 and Stylus' grooves, sounds, and sonic quality are not top notch anymore."
Requires a registered copy of at least one of the following products: Kontakt 1-5Reaktor 2-5Maschine (Excluding Machine Mikro & Machine Mikro Mk2)Guitar Rig Kontrol Edition 1-5 (but not LE, GO, XE, SESSION or other versions of GUITAR RIG). Comprehensive range of production tools, featuring KINETIC METAL, ACTION STRINGS, and RISE&HIT.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Komplete is a premier instrument and effects suite that gives you so much bang for your buck it's insane. Two ROMplers (samplers) with 14 additional plugins, four software synths with seven additional plugins for one of them, plus an already packed effects suite with an additional 11 effects plugs. Each kit contains a configurable number of cells (24 to 48 standard, but can go all the way up to 128 if you want), which you can assign any drum or instrument sample you wish on each cell. Battery already comes with a massive amount of drum samples set to more than 200 kits. There is even a cool sample engine option to switch from the default sampling mode to a classic MP-60 or SP-1200 sample rate. Kontakt has its own internal effects that sound nice. Moving from instrument to instrument can be a bit annoying as you have to load instrument sets separately. Kontakt comes with 43GB of samples on its own (more than 1000 instruments). ORCHESTRAL - These samples come from the Vienna Symphonic Library, both new instruments and legacy instruments from previous Kontakt versions. SYNTH - This is the bulk of the instruments and samples. Lots and lots of sounds to choose from to cover every genre. style drums machines and sound effects. The interface has a look like a vintage beat box like the Drummulator or Overheim DMX drum machines with volume and tone controls for each sound and more. This is a nice collection of low-fi samples of vocals, hits and sound effects as well as analog style drums. Excellent samples of instruments around the world... with one exception. So those are the sounds that come stock with Kontakt 5 if you purchased it alone, since this is the Komplete collection you get over a dozen additional instrument sets: THE GIANT - This is one of four acoustic piano plug ins you get in Komplete. With over 2500 samples on this one too, and also can have tone and color adjustments to the sound (including raising/lowering the piano's lid). THE GRANDEUR - Like all of the piano add-ons you have over 2500 samples to make up this instrument and a good deal of parameters to change tone and such. This instrument was sampled from a 9ft Hamburg Steinway D concert grand. DrumLab is combing electronic and acoustic drums sounds together into a hybrid sound that has all the nuances of real drums with the punch and savvy of electronic. 30 acoustic drums and 80 electronic make up the instrument palette. These are lots of drum loops sampled from a studio drummer that you can use to give you that live drummer sound on your tracks when you don't have one. Only two instruments to work with, but if you want to try that 70's Chicago band sound this is going to do it. RETRO MACHINES MK II - Over 16 vintage instruments are sampled on this set. Definitely that classic analog sound with some very useful instruments that can be mixed into newer songs (with outside processing). Some of them you can already find in the Kontakt 5 instrument set like the old Roland Electric Pianos, RMI and the Minimoog. Instruments I found sampled were the ARP Quadra, Crumar Orchestrator, Crumar Roady, MiniKorg 700, Korg Poly 6, Memory Moog, MiniMoog, Oberheim Four voice, Oberheim Matrix 12, Rhodes Chroma, RMI (Rocky Mountain instruments) 368 Electra Piano, Roland EP10, Roland EP20, Roland MKS-80 Super JP, Sequential Circuits Pro 1, Logan String Melody II, Yamaha CP11, Yamaha DX7. Onboard effects are "vintage" too with a simple reverb and echo (that sounds like the old amplifier spring reverbs). SCARBEE A200 - Thomas Skarbye does some awesome sampling by focusing on a single instrument and taking it to the highest level. I'm not really much a fan of these instruments, but I won't deny how much it sounds like the classic instruments. WEST AFRICA - It's a small set of instruments, but they sound fabulous. It includes over 70 instruments and effects to build your synth from. For people like me who do not design software synths luckily Komplete comes with an array of instruments. Now imagine creating a palette of four different sounds or sound variations on a single note (cell). It sounds super thick, full and the way a Minimoog should sound considering how much this classic synth is worshipped. While it's weird they spent time sampling the minimoog on the Retromachines when they have this baby, I guess it does round our your options between a sample of the original or a very impressive sounding emulation. One for synth sounds and one for using as an effect processor. Sounds more like the real think and less like a modelling synth (I do notice a difference with the cheaper ones out there). Along with Reaktor 5 and all of the software synths that are in that platform there are also three independend software synths in this package: ABSYNTH. This is a stand alone software synth that has some really sweet aural and tonal qualities. This synth can mix in surround sound right out of the box. The sounds are more synthetic than what I'm used to in regards to using this for anything other than pads and effects. You get sound sets ranging from Absynth Version 5 all the way down to sounds from its original inception back in 2000 (Absynth 5, 4, Absynth Legacy, Spectral Expansion, and Absynth Twilights). Wavetable uses sampled waveforms in generate the sounds as opposed to analog modelling synths that use computer algorythms to simulate analog waveforms. Of all the soft synths in this package this is quickly becoming my go to instrument. It's not just an armada of sounds and sound building tools that you get with Komplete. For the guitarist you get things like 17 ammplifier and 27 speaker cabinet emulations along with 54 effects that are right at home with instruments and vocals as well as guitars. Guitar Rig also comes with 11 reverb and delay units covering a wide variety of emulations, eight modulation units that go from vintage 70's phaser effects to chorus/flanger and more, eight filters from various wah-wahs to filtered EQ, seven dymanic processors for compression and noise gate effects, five "modifiers" like Low Frequency Oscillator and analog sequenecers, a loop machine that syncs to a host tempto, two tape deck emulators for quick recordings, a chomatic tuner and metronome. TRAKTOR'S 12 - Traktor is the DJ tool Native Instruments sells, and this is a set of effects that are most popular with it. Much of what you get seems to be more for the real professional sound designer that works in movie scoring, or the studio engineer who wants wider variety of instruments and effect emulations."
"I can't really improve on the detailed review of the products that is already posted, but I'll say this: the inclusion of Massive, FM8, Battery 4 AND Kontakt 5 makes this purchase worth far more than what I spent."
"This gave me the ability to cash in some Southwest points for Amazon gift cards and get this basically for free."
"I'm pretty sure it's a good piece of software."
"Definitely worth it!"
"Sorry only the individual who received can write this one."
"Came with about 10 discs to install haha luckily I have a 1TB SSD hard drive so my data transfer speed is crazy fast... still took me about 5 hours to install everything."
"Though it is a bit on the expensive side the sheer quantity of VIs and samples that you get more than justifies the price."
Synthesized and sampled sound, creative and studio effects, plus cinematic tools - this is the superlative collection for all production tasks. 75 products, over 17,000 sounds, over 440 GB of instruments and effects.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Komplete is a premier instrument and effects suite that gives you so much bang for your buck it's insane. Two ROMplers (samplers) with 14 additional plugins, four software synths with seven additional plugins for one of them, plus an already packed effects suite with an additional 11 effects plugs. Each kit contains a configurable number of cells (24 to 48 standard, but can go all the way up to 128 if you want), which you can assign any drum or instrument sample you wish on each cell. Battery already comes with a massive amount of drum samples set to more than 200 kits. There is even a cool sample engine option to switch from the default sampling mode to a classic MP-60 or SP-1200 sample rate. Kontakt has its own internal effects that sound nice. Moving from instrument to instrument can be a bit annoying as you have to load instrument sets separately. Kontakt comes with 43GB of samples on its own (more than 1000 instruments). ORCHESTRAL - These samples come from the Vienna Symphonic Library, both new instruments and legacy instruments from previous Kontakt versions. SYNTH - This is the bulk of the instruments and samples. Lots and lots of sounds to choose from to cover every genre. style drums machines and sound effects. The interface has a look like a vintage beat box like the Drummulator or Overheim DMX drum machines with volume and tone controls for each sound and more. This is a nice collection of low-fi samples of vocals, hits and sound effects as well as analog style drums. Excellent samples of instruments around the world... with one exception. So those are the sounds that come stock with Kontakt 5 if you purchased it alone, since this is the Komplete collection you get over a dozen additional instrument sets: THE GIANT - This is one of four acoustic piano plug ins you get in Komplete. With over 2500 samples on this one too, and also can have tone and color adjustments to the sound (including raising/lowering the piano's lid). THE GRANDEUR - Like all of the piano add-ons you have over 2500 samples to make up this instrument and a good deal of parameters to change tone and such. This instrument was sampled from a 9ft Hamburg Steinway D concert grand. DrumLab is combing electronic and acoustic drums sounds together into a hybrid sound that has all the nuances of real drums with the punch and savvy of electronic. 30 acoustic drums and 80 electronic make up the instrument palette. These are lots of drum loops sampled from a studio drummer that you can use to give you that live drummer sound on your tracks when you don't have one. Only two instruments to work with, but if you want to try that 70's Chicago band sound this is going to do it. RETRO MACHINES MK II - Over 16 vintage instruments are sampled on this set. Definitely that classic analog sound with some very useful instruments that can be mixed into newer songs (with outside processing). Some of them you can already find in the Kontakt 5 instrument set like the old Roland Electric Pianos, RMI and the Minimoog. Instruments I found sampled were the ARP Quadra, Crumar Orchestrator, Crumar Roady, MiniKorg 700, Korg Poly 6, Memory Moog, MiniMoog, Oberheim Four voice, Oberheim Matrix 12, Rhodes Chroma, RMI (Rocky Mountain instruments) 368 Electra Piano, Roland EP10, Roland EP20, Roland MKS-80 Super JP, Sequential Circuits Pro 1, Logan String Melody II, Yamaha CP11, Yamaha DX7. Onboard effects are "vintage" too with a simple reverb and echo (that sounds like the old amplifier spring reverbs). SCARBEE A200 - Thomas Skarbye does some awesome sampling by focusing on a single instrument and taking it to the highest level. I'm not really much a fan of these instruments, but I won't deny how much it sounds like the classic instruments. WEST AFRICA - It's a small set of instruments, but they sound fabulous. It includes over 70 instruments and effects to build your synth from. For people like me who do not design software synths luckily Komplete comes with an array of instruments. Now imagine creating a palette of four different sounds or sound variations on a single note (cell). It sounds super thick, full and the way a Minimoog should sound considering how much this classic synth is worshipped. While it's weird they spent time sampling the minimoog on the Retromachines when they have this baby, I guess it does round our your options between a sample of the original or a very impressive sounding emulation. One for synth sounds and one for using as an effect processor. Sounds more like the real think and less like a modelling synth (I do notice a difference with the cheaper ones out there). Along with Reaktor 5 and all of the software synths that are in that platform there are also three independend software synths in this package: ABSYNTH. This is a stand alone software synth that has some really sweet aural and tonal qualities. This synth can mix in surround sound right out of the box. The sounds are more synthetic than what I'm used to in regards to using this for anything other than pads and effects. You get sound sets ranging from Absynth Version 5 all the way down to sounds from its original inception back in 2000 (Absynth 5, 4, Absynth Legacy, Spectral Expansion, and Absynth Twilights). Wavetable uses sampled waveforms in generate the sounds as opposed to analog modelling synths that use computer algorythms to simulate analog waveforms. Of all the soft synths in this package this is quickly becoming my go to instrument. It's not just an armada of sounds and sound building tools that you get with Komplete. For the guitarist you get things like 17 ammplifier and 27 speaker cabinet emulations along with 54 effects that are right at home with instruments and vocals as well as guitars. Guitar Rig also comes with 11 reverb and delay units covering a wide variety of emulations, eight modulation units that go from vintage 70's phaser effects to chorus/flanger and more, eight filters from various wah-wahs to filtered EQ, seven dymanic processors for compression and noise gate effects, five "modifiers" like Low Frequency Oscillator and analog sequenecers, a loop machine that syncs to a host tempto, two tape deck emulators for quick recordings, a chomatic tuner and metronome. TRAKTOR'S 12 - Traktor is the DJ tool Native Instruments sells, and this is a set of effects that are most popular with it. Much of what you get seems to be more for the real professional sound designer that works in movie scoring, or the studio engineer who wants wider variety of instruments and effect emulations."
"I can't really improve on the detailed review of the products that is already posted, but I'll say this: the inclusion of Massive, FM8, Battery 4 AND Kontakt 5 makes this purchase worth far more than what I spent."
"This gave me the ability to cash in some Southwest points for Amazon gift cards and get this basically for free."
"I'm pretty sure it's a good piece of software."
"Definitely worth it!"
"Sorry only the individual who received can write this one."
"Came with about 10 discs to install haha luckily I have a 1TB SSD hard drive so my data transfer speed is crazy fast... still took me about 5 hours to install everything."
"Though it is a bit on the expensive side the sheer quantity of VIs and samples that you get more than justifies the price."
Best Computer Recording Sampling Software
For version 5, Steinberg has added amazing new instruments, a new granular synth engine, stunning effects, a wicked slicing mode, and more. Wide range of high-end audio effects, including Reverence convolution reverb, VST Amp simulation and many more.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As far as programming new synth sounds, I'll leave that to all the techie synth sound programmers."
"However, they sound just like my Yamaha Motif XF(which are close, but not good enough). Sample slice options are easy to understand, as usual, with more editing tools. Halion 5 commands most of my projects at home, and I am getting ready to use it on stage using Cantabile."
"I have been using Steinberg products for a long time."
Best Recording Software
Unlimited audio, instrument and MIDI tracks and up to 256 physical inputs and outputs.Full Control Room integration, including talkback and four different cue mixes.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Thankfully, I was able to get a free upgrade to 9.5 after activating the product, as part of the Steinberg grace period program."
"Good item."
"It works seemlessly and relatively easily."
"Great Software for Prosumers."
"Installation was easy, though I should point out that downloading the application took nearly an hour. After installing this application on my HP Desktop, it took me less than twenty minutes to produce an nice, workable guitar track."
"As a voice actor I do a fair amount of recording from home, though nothing on the scale of a fully produced piece. I wanted to try something new to see if I'm missing out on features, and Steinberg's Cubase Elements 9 is definitely a different DAW all together."
"I'm a long-time Cubase user and was interested to look at Elements to see if it's a worthy subset of the full-fledged Cubase, and it is. This is Cubase "light", so you can't expect to get all the bells and whistles as with the complete Cubase, but it's powerful enough to give you basic tracking and mix-down functions."
"It will almost download all the way and it will stop, giving you a damaged zip file. If you search this online you will see a lot of bad reviews because of this."
Best Recording Audio Plug-Ins Software
The UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt QUAD Core comes with UA's "Analog Classics Plus" plug-in bundle, and provide access to more than 90 plug-ins from brands including Ampex, Manley, Lexicon, EMT, Empirical Labs, Neve, Roland, Fairchild, Pultec, Studer, SSL, and more (sold separately). Run UAD Powered Plug-Ins via Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 connection on new Macs, Dual Thunderbolt ports for convenient daisy-chaining of Thunderbolt peripherals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The Best Plugins ever and a very good price!"
"Top quality Brand I'm a satisfied client."
"ultimate digital analog world."
Best Recording Looping & Remixing Software
Mixcraft Pro Studio 7 is a powerful music production and multi-track recording workstation with over 8900 music loops and dozens of audio effects and virtual instruments. Combining 250 MB of high quality Steinway Model D piano samples with advanced physical modeling, Pianissimo recreates the warmth, response, and playability of a real grand piano. Burn directly to an audio CD!
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It has all the bells and whistles one would need to do professional work with; and right now it's on the brink of taking on the professional market. I come from Hollywood, and I have no problem using this in a professional setting."
"After using it for a week, I have to say that I am really impressed with this software."
"[UPDATE(1/23/17): Mixcraft Pro Studio 8 is now available with some great upgrades; this review applies pretty much equally to this new version.]. I am a professional music producer and Mixcraft Pro Studio 7 is my go-to DAW. In particular, there is only one feature not included which forces me to occasionally resort to Ableton: continuous transposition of audio files. They might be referring to the number of underlying synths that are used to create various virtual instruments, but there are many, many virtual instruments from kotos, dulcimers, Irish bagpipes, pianos, guitars, banjos, timpani, glockenspiels, glass harmonicas, accordions, bassoons, oboes, and pretty much everything else!"
"Comes with a lot extras including completed projects and thousands of loops and sound effects."
"I was a bit skeptical at first about purchasing Mixcraft Pro Studio 7, mainly because of the large price difference in comparison to high-end DAW's such as Pro Tools or Cubase."
"Excellent home studio software!"
Best Recording Virtual Instruments Software
The software is downloaded and managed via Native Access, which also maintains all NI softwares and plugins with serial numbers in one location. An Internet connection and a graphics card which supports OpenGL 2.1 or higher are required to download and activate MASCHINE software.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Boyfriend bought this to make beats for personal music projects."
"my son luvs his pre birthday gift."
"Excellent buying experience, from beggining through end, brand new, latest model, and manufacturer direct access, with added bonus, 110% satisfied!!!"
"An incredible instrument that is as extremely deep or as shallow as you'd like to explore Very well made."
"Awesome tool, especially if making beats is more of a hobby for you."
"Perfect gift for my teenager son!!"
"Right out of the box this Maschine is all I expected and even more and it is easy to use."
Best Recording Production Stations Software
Powerful time-stretching, arranging and sequencing capabilities let you quickly create and capture musical ideas, turn them into finished productions, and take them to the stage. Powerful and creative MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Bought it for 21 year old college student in Audio Engineering."
"It is exactly what i expected it to be and the serial number works perfectly allowing you to download the 64-bit version from their website."
"It's an amazing program."
"With the right add ons it is a great product."
"use this for music backgrounds for animations."
"The program is great but the serial number that comes with it its invalid."
"It was just as stated and works perfectly."
"I used to use adobe audition for mixing and propeller heads reason for music making, but this is an all in one software."
Best Sound Editing
Vegas Pro 13 takes giant steps toward making the total multimedia creation experience faster and easier than ever. The app provides a comprehensive review system within a gesture-driven control surface and represents a genuine breakthrough in project collaboration and control.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I was frustrated with the limitations of my low end video editing software and wanted support for 4K and also the XAVC-S format that my Sony camera uses, I remembered that my older version, a really old version of Sony movie studio was very easy to use and I had read that Vegas Pro was easier to learn than some of the other Pro level editing software."
"The GUI shows the signs of aging, especially when compared to the latest DaVinci Resolve."
"This is a very good upgrade from the Sony Movie Studio 11.0."
"Great product !"
"Yes it did and I'm loving it!"
"Everything was in great condition and the program worked perfectly."
"Worth every penny."
Best Music Creation & Sequencing
![Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51P41H10AZL._SS600_.jpg)
Offering the most powerful set of integrated digital media tools available, Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum gives you the creative control to capture photos and video, create DVD movies or photo slide shows, organize your music library, and fix photos or save important documents on CD or DVD.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Been using Roxio for years, but found Corel Movie Factory 7 easier."
"The program provides a couple dozen menu themes, but there doesn't appear to be any way to create use a custom theme, and the provided themes seem to be based around a familiar chapter-style interface--more traditional menu navigation (ie, "Play Movie/Set-Up/Special Features") doesn't seem to be an option. Fortunately, the program seems to be able to handle just about anything you throw at it where content is concerned: I mixed MPEG files with raw DV footage, including a variety of resolutions ranging from 160 x 120 to 752 x 480, and the program just workhorsed its way through the job at the click of a button. Addenda: I discovered the drag-to-modify nature of the track markers which allows the user to easily move or delete existing tracks simply by tugging on their flags. I also discovered an unfortunate glitch where the track markers are concerned: it seems that sometimes a tiny, split-second piece of your track will inadvertently get attached to the track marker, resulting in a short burp of sound right before the actual track begins. This would be bad enough to be a show-stopper, except that it's easily corrected: if you have a burping track marker, delete it and create a brand new track marker (with no associated burp) in exactly the same spot."
"V6 is near perfect for my use of convertsions CD, WMA, MP3, and label creation."
"After reading all the horrible reviews I was very sceptical and sought advice from my computer 'gurus' who weren't much of any help but I still went ahead and bought it."
"Useful, but your OS should have everything that you need these days."
"It will not recognise drives on my system so I emailed Roxio with my situation (quickly as the free tech support is only free for a very short period). In the mean time my dell got hit by lightning and I installed it on my new 2.8 W/ gig of ram."
"I've used every version of Roxio's CD software - back to when it was from Adaptec and I really liked every version - until this one."
"After installing Roxio 6, I experienced so many problems with my installed software that I had no choice but to abandon the Roxio 6."
Best MIDI
Band-in-a-Box 2017, RealBand 2017, Over 1,800 RealTracks, Over 150 MIDI SuperTracks, Over 2,000 MIDI Styles, Over 300 MIDI Soloists, Over 200 MIDI Melodists, 21 Nature Sounds and Percussion Loops,98 Artist Performances, 1000 Dubstep, Modern and Top 40 Loops.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is what you see and hear in the videos!"
"Been a fan of this product for years."