Whats the best Synth for Lead Sounds?

Not interested in pads or textures. Just a dang good sounding melody.

If it does chords great. Budget is anything.

But the priority is the sound and the keyboard and ease of use. I guess i will get a lot of anything will work. But concentrating on the above factors if suggestions could be backed up by reasons that you may not think of all the better. Cheers.

This is such a difficult question.
My best bet: buy a good midi keyboard and use what’s in your DAW.

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no keyboard integrated but the vermona perfourmer mkII can make a nice melody and 4 notes chords. It work well with elektron FX and sequencer.
Edit: ease to use is great because 1 knob 1 func

This is a bit of a vague question, tbh. Rather than just asking about melodies (which, as you say, any synth no matter if it’s mono or poly can do), why not specify the types of sounds or features you’re looking for? For example, plucky (with snappy exponential envelopes), hard sync, FM, analog, integrated FX, etc etc. Or name artists whose sounds used for melodies you like so we can try to identify the synths used, etc etc. Help us help you :slight_smile:

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Literally any synth? :sweat_smile:

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The sounds preferably are versatile rather than singling out just one. Also the knob per function would be high on the wish list.

Still not v helpful. Narrow down what you actually want out of the synth otherwise there won’t be any useful suggestions other than through pure luck. Or if budget is unlimited, get a Moog One or Prophet 10 and have the best of the best :slight_smile:

I cant narrow it down as then im stuck with a synth which is limited to that one sound. Atm i cant get away with any synth will do. But maybe the Pro 3?

A piano

Edit: This was rude, but literally anything you can get your hands on that makes tones

If your main instrument is guitar, then you want a synth that has at least 6 MIDI channels and decent support for MIDI CCs - for ease of mapping one string (real or virtual) per channel.

If your main instrument is keys, probably Osmose but there are so many unknowns since it has yet to reach the hands of the public.

If your main instrument is MIDI sequencer then you def. want strong MIDI implementation - fast and reliable response to Program Change, strong CC/NPRN support, etc. Similar requirements for the CV world. My main instrument is not sequencer so you’ll probably have to do your own research for more info.

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If it’s about versatility, you will have a hard time finding a synth that can do more than the Pro 3 can.

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And Pro 2 gets a lot of love around these parts.

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Although I am in the “every synth is awesome for melodies” camp, there are a couple features that I think are suited to playing expressive melodies:

  • ability to map velocity and key tracking to envelope parameters.
  • lfos that can subtly move osc shapes and tunings
  • tasty legato mode
  • dedicated delay

DSI instruments are good for all of this. But so are so many others. So yea……

I know its Mono but are there any duophonic chord tricks?

Also, @sabana, you’re a keys player, IIRC, right? So integrated keyboard is a must?

The Pro 3 seems the holy grail for melodies as it can mod so much with lfos. It seems to fit.

Yes. Not a sequencer guy but the melodies will be played by hand

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Melodies are not much modded by an LFO … in my book at least :sweat_smile:

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Sometimes i like a bit of warble :slight_smile:

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What about a Moog Grandmother? Patching can get you into some wild territories but also the base normalled sound is classic Moog.