Please Recommend 'Current' Pop Keyboard Patches

[Razor7Music]

Hello--

I just joined Taxi and I've been out of the music scene for a while and would like to try my hand at writing Pop/Top 40 songs again. I know sounding current is vital.

What are some current keyboard patches that are being used in top 40 songs? I have kotakt 4 and several other good baked- in synths that come with Sonar. I'll try to listen to some of those tunes and see if I can figure out if I've already got something in my arsenal, but hoped someone here can point me in the right direction because that's not the style of music I listen to personally.

I think I'm posting this in the correct section, but please let me know if there is a better one.

[Cruciform]

You can't go wrong with Massive.

[Razor7Music]

You can't go wrong with Massive.

I'll check that out.

[Razor7Music]

You can't go wrong with Massive.

Dude, that looks sweet! I checked all over and I don't see if it needs to run inside of another NI host? Can you run it as a vst plug-in by itself or does it need something like kontakt, komplete, etc. to run?

[Silversun]

+1 for massive. Its great. There are also a load of patches out there for it.

It will run as a standalone but I run it as a plug in in protools (RTAS) so I presume there is probably a VST version (edit...there is.I just googled it)

The other one a lot of the darker side of the force use (dubsteppers etc ) is sylenth. You should check it out depending on the stuff you write.

[Razor7Music]

+1 for massive. Its great. There are also a load of patches out there for it.

It will run as a standalone but I run it as a plug in in protools (RTAS) so I presume there is probably a VST version (edit...there is.I just googled it)

The other one a lot of the darker side of the force use (dubsteppers etc ) is sylenth. You should check it out depending on the stuff you write.

Kewl--I'm open at this point. KVR has something on it. I'm checking it too.

[Razor7Music]

I'm reading on KVR that Massive is a CPU hog. Many positives, but that one was a reoccurring theme. A few people also had it crash a bit--that might be related to the CPU usage.

What say ye about CPU overhead?

[cardell]

+ 1 for Massive!

What say ye about CPU overhead?

Some of the really great Vst/Vsti's are CPU hogs. So, I just use the freeze & un-freeze functions in my DAW.

Provided you have a reasonably powerful computer: It's simply a question of "resource management".

Stuart

[StanSwin]

Massive is really great. It's not too bad to program either, if you want to try your hand at that. I also use Pro-53 a lot, and B4II (Hammond B3). NI has absynth and fm8 as well, but I don't use them very much. People tell me Omnisphere by Spectrasonics is really great, but I've never used it. It's about $500 too, so that's a non-starter for me right now.

[Cruciform]

A few things to expand on my original reply.

Massive isn't my favourite synth but it is heard everywhere in Top 40 music so if you want those kinds of sounds then it's the synth to get.

CPU use: I have a 2600k in my PC and running one instance of Massive (hosted inside Kore which is hosted inside my DAW) it hardly feels it. Maybe a 1% increase in use when playing. I've never had a crash with it so like you say, that maybe related to CPU issues on older machines.

Best thing is to download the demo and try it for yourself.