seriously... i'm all about the computer... abletron, reason, all that good shit, its all good...

but i just ordered this last week...

its a limited machine and my mixes have never been the same since!

Check out the Urs Heckmann (u-he) plug-ins. He makes a softsynth called Zebra that is REALLY cool, the interface is kind of weird and takes some getting used to, but you can get great sounds out of it. Its a combination of additive and subtractive synthesis and acts kind of modular in its design. I know these aren't sound SOURCES but he also makes FX plug-ins that are sonically amazing, I've personally used his filter plug-in called Filterscape and a monster of a delay plug-in called the MFM2 (more feedback machine). He might have some others, but those are the only ones that I've tried out and I can't speak highly enough of them. If you wanna make crazy sounds that make people go "wtf did you use to make THAT" then you should definitely check out his stuff. His plug-ins are still not all that well-known either, though they have won some awards in the audiophile magazines.

BTW, since you're a MD owner, if you have the sampling model, have you tried making it sample itself? That's when shit gets REALLY fun :D I forget what the exact names of the machines are since I am not sitting in front of mine at the moment, but throw an input/record machine on there--you can have up to 2 separate input machines--place some hits, make sure the right input level knob is turned up (there are knobs for the input jacks and also one for the MD's output as an input... that's the one you want), then add a playback machine (or 2) and place more hits... tweak the knobs on the playback machine=WHOA, especially if the retrig comes into play.

If none of this makes sense I will write a better description when I'm sitting in front of it, or maybe you've already gone there with yours.

Maybe you should check out some of the Virus stuff. You still get the tactile experience of using hardware, but if its part of their TI line (TI=total integration), it comes with a plug-in that works like any softsynth in your DAW. Then you get all the benefits of softsynths like easy automation but you can still tweak hardware knobs in the process. :D

I've been eyeing the new Polar TI Snow. Super compact, nice design, would be great for bringing out to gigs, and it has some pretty cool features like wavetable and granular oscillators, which is sure to produce some pretty freaky sounds. They have one at Robotspeak, but it hasn't been powered/hooked up to headphones yet since I've been there. I might have to request that here soon.

I have a friend who swears by the Nord G2. You know what's cool, is they have a pretty functional demo of the G2 software that is free on the Clavia website. The only differences between the demo and the real software are a few missing modules, the demo is monophonic, and you can't use audio in or MIDI out. But the meat & bones are still there, and you can still make plenty of great sounds with the demo--also get a taste for it and decide whether you like it or not before taking the plunge to buy the real thing.

You can get that demo here:

http://www.clavia.se/products/nordmodular/demo.htm

That kind of customization and flexibility is what I love about modular synths... but there is definitely a slight learning curve if you've never used something modular before. Its a bit of a different way of thinking about synthesis, signal flow, etc. but I believe they have some tutorials on the Clavia website, as well as example patches that you can explore. Its not the kind of thing where you will make something amazing immediately the first time you sit down with it (think, lots of boring sawtooth waves and "BZZZ" sounds). It just takes a little time and experimentation. I gotta hand it to Elektron, they certainly nailed the "ease of use" aspect with their hardware! But as you said, its limited...that's the trade-off I guess.

but i just ordered this last week...

its a limited machine and my mixes have never been the same since!

that shit is funny.. "where's the breakdown!? i can't hear it cause theres a bunch of static!! wait.. that IS the breakdown!"

unless this isn't a joke and this becomes all to frighteningly scary :shock: