I agree totally with Ed. I use and like Imposocar, Pro53, Arturia's Minimoog, CS80V, and Arp2600 emulations, Absynth, Korg Legacy, Pentagon, and the Superwave series, along with several others, including a few freeware offerings.

You can start for free and it's totally legit. There are plenty of good freeware synths to help you get started at www.kvraudio.com

Some are fairly simple and straight forward, which won't be a bad thing when you are starting out programming patches. Others are as complex as similar commercial synths. I recommend a look at the following freeware synths:

Minimogue - Excellent Minimoog emulation, almost on par with the commercial Arturia version.

Ugo Texture - Powerhouse Subtractive synth.

Ichiro Toda's Synth 1 - Very straightforward subtractive Synth ... Maybe not so pretty, but great to work with and learn patch editing. Pressts range from fair to good, but d/l some add on patches, particuarly those done by Tim Conrardy, and you'll see what it can really do. Based on the Clavia Nord

Green Oak Crystal. Semi Modular and hybrid synth that also can use wavetables ( in soundfont form ). One of the highest rated synths at KVR.

Superwave P8. My personal favorite freeware ( along with Minimogue ). Love the sounds on this one.

The entire set of softsynths from Mik Sybrandt. Some real gems here. Most are very simple to program.

RGC Triangle II - As good a mono-softsynth as I can find, commercial or otherwise. It's the sole reason I bought some of RGC Audio's commercial softwares

Cheers

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-30-2005).]