Very quick and easy to tweak that stuff, though. The Nexus presets are designed to sound amazing when you're previewing them, but the default effects and spectrum of many of the patches is often too much for a standard arrangement. In my experience the real key to Nexus is getting the effects and EQ under control when you're trying to work it into an arrangement.
Just a really well-designed interface that makes it quick and powerful to navigate. In my opinion, Hive has the edge here, mainly in terms of usability. Spire vs Hive: Both great-sounding synths, and both easy to program.
(Massive also has one of the best preset browsers ever, if you're a preset user.) Massive sounds great, has a huge library (which is even larger if you get into Maschine expansions), super easy to program, and is much lighter on your system. It is actually the single heaviest plugin I've used, CPU-wise. Massive vs Serum: Serum sounds wonderful and might have a little more programmability potential, but it also is a HUGE CPU hog.Hive (relatively new, was thinking about this one)To make it less of an apples/oranges comparison I'd break it down like this: Nexus (not really into it in comparison to these others) I can't for the life of me make up my mind with this so I'm looking forward to other people's opinions With that said, I was looking into Massive or Zebra2. I REALLY like Omnisphere, however for its price it's a bit expensive whereas I could purchase both Massive and Spire for an equal or lesser price. I am pretty well-versed with Sylenth, I have spent a lot of time practicing what each particular tool is able to do as well as watching tons of masterclasses. I would not under any circumstances recommend getting Massive on its own - the extra $300 for Komplete is WELL worth it! The only thing that you really miss in Ultimate (other than the sample libraries) is Razor, but you'll be busy with all the new toys in any case.Thank you for the response. The pre-built Reaktor units (Monark, Spark, Razor) are excellent, as well. There are basically infinite sounds in there, especially if you put in the time with Reaktor and Kontakt. Or, and this is my real advice, just get Komplete and mess with the synths that come with it. I would not under any circumstances recommend getting Massive on its own - the extra $300 for Komplete is WELL worth it! The only thing that you really miss in Ultimate (other than the sample libraries) is Razor, but you'll be busy with all the new toys in any case. I'd go either with a "big rompler" like Omnisphere (yes, it is expensive, but it does EVERYTHING) or an FM/Modular-oriented synth (Zebra comes to mind) before Hive or Massive. I suspect you really know Sylenth, and are looking for something massively different - and if that is the case, I'd go looking somewhere else than what you listed. That being said, I use Omnisphere 2 for synth sounds far more often than the "dedicated" synths, mainly because I know it. I have all those you listed except Nexus (tried it, didn't gel with me), and Massive is the one amongst those that gets the most use. In my mind, Massive is a must have - sure, it sounds digital (GASP), but it is super versatile and capable.