Thor vs The World!

[fotizimo]

Hello All,

I have, over the last year, gotten back into the Reason workspace since back in version 3, when I stopped making music, and am starting to look around the RE ecosystem, and have some questions regarding Thor's place in the rack as compared to some of the new power-house RE synths that are coming out.

So I am still getting back into all the things Thor can do, especially when paired with a Combinator in terms of modulation and automation, but I have also been trying some other third-party synths out lately, and I am wondering if anyone knows what these synths do that Thor can't?

I get it that for some part, these synth can emulate waveforms and oscillators that Thor doesn't have, but aside from that, it also seems that most of them just provide methods of performing the same configurations without having to get into the details that Thor can expose.

As an example, I was trying an RE synth out the other day, and found that I was able to get Thor to emulate the same sounds that the present offered fairly closely, but in using this other synth, I no longer had all of the options and choices such as multiple variable filter options and the modulation capabilities that allow for various signal routings.

Take this with a grain of salt that I am by no means a synth master, but I guess what I am wondering is, what do these RE synths offer besides a more readily method of accessing complex waveforms without having to dive too deeply into the synth itself? I mean, Thor has such power including it can modulate/sync its various oscillators against each other, and with all of the modulation capabilities that are expose as well as the step-sequencing, it just seems to offer so much more than the other synths that have locked oscillation methods and internal modulation signal paths. I have only tried a small handful of the options out there, but I have yet to have one really stand out as something I would use as my "go-to" synth for modulation and sound generation. Are there RE's out there that put Thor to shame, and if so, what is it that it offers that Thor doesn't have?

[esselfortium]

If you're really good and really patient, you can get all sorts of sounds from all sorts of synths, but different synths specialize in different things, making certain sounds easier or more difficult to accomplish with those different synths. Thor is capable of lots of stuff, and there are a bunch of RE synths that are super capable and advanced, too, with different configurations and feature sets. In the end it comes down to which tools can most quickly accomplish what you're trying to do.

[miscend]

Different synths have different characters and timbre. But you can get a nearly unlimited palette of sounds out of the stock synths. Thor is a great synth. If you are still new it is advisable to master Thor and the other tools first before before investing too much in rack extensions. Basically rack extensions just give you more sonic options and whether or not you buy more synths depends on what you are trying achieve.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

What you have to remember is there are people out there using Reason for the presets, shocking but true.. On a serious note but there are people who just want to write music and use the existing sounds and there is nothing wrong with that, I'm not a great composer however I like creating sounds and then that inspires me to write my tracks (Thor appears in a lot of my tracks(except those in which I use only one synth device)).

[fotizimo]

Thanks esselfortium, miscend, and carly. I guess I was just wondering if there wasn't some big part of the picture I was missing, as I reacquaint myself with Thor. I am still delving into the world of synth sound customization, and can easily get lost in some of the Thor patches I do have, experimenting and trying different mod options, but I was just wondering if there were any major features/functions that some of these synths have over Thor. I see a lot of discussions on the synths come down to UI/UX and so wasn't sure if the primary benefit of some of these was just as a simple method of creating sounds.

I tend to spend my time in Reason either actually trying to put acceptable tracks together, or just as likely, going down the rabbit-hole of modifying the stock players to make sounds I like (not sure I get anything useful done while in this mode). I do have a lot of refills and tend to collect any that specialize on Thor as I like to take these as building-blocks for sounds I like.

Thanks!

[Benedict]

Thor is very well named as Plolysonic because, with good skills, or just plain copying (which generally leads to the former), almost anything can be achieved.

There are of course limits to that but they are far further out than many assume.

[doctecazoid]

Thor is very well named as Polysonic because, with good skills, or just plain copying (which generally leads to the former), almost anything can be achieved.

There are of course limits to that but they are far further out than many assume.

This is true. I can say from experience, however, that from a sound design standpoint, synths like e.g. Parsec, Antidote, Oberon are capable of generating sounds and timbres that are nearly - if not completely - impossible to reproduce with the Thor.

On the flip side: Thor is an extremely versatile and feature-rich synth that is capable of producing sounds and timbres nearly if not completely impossible to reproduce with other synths. I get a lot of mileage out of Thor, and I suspect many Reasons users do as well.

Every RE synth has its own special character, or what I call its sonic footprint. I've been playing around with The Legend for the past few days and I can say definitively that while the basic waveforms and routing available on that synth are also available on the Thor, The Legend has a sonic footprint I've never heard out of any other synth RE - rich, deep, and very much like the classic analog synth it emulates. I could come close with the Thor but I think it would still be very difficult if not impossible to achieve the depth and complexity of Legend's sonic footprint using a Thor in its place.

[The_G]

Thor is still an excellent synth, though at this point I'd say several REs have surpassed it. But yes, its still a powerful and versatile synth.

[frog974new]

Thor still the best synth to manage DSP and having good quality tunes ..
and as it said before a very versatyl synth ^^

reminds me one challenge we've done on Reason France , making a truck using only thor synth and max 20 thors to focus on the powerful of this stock device

[modecca]

[quote="frog974new"]Thor still the best synth to manage DSP and having good quality tunes ..
and as it said before a very versatyl synth ^^

reminds me one challenge we've done on Reason France , making a TRUCK using only thor synth and max 20 thors to focus on the powerful of this stock device

That would be amazing having a thor refill that had all kinds of automobile presets.

[pothole]

Thor still the best synth to manage DSP and having good quality tunes ..
and as it said before a very versatyl synth ^^

reminds me one challenge we've done on Reason France , making a TRUCK using only thor synth and max 20 thors to focus on the powerful of this stock device

That would be amazing having a thor refill that had all kinds of automobile presets.

just remember to change the filters regularly

[kloeckno]

One thing that cannot be achieved with Thor is more complex FM synthesis. If you get really into programming FM synths you will realize that only having 3 operators can limit the possibilities. It's not a huge deal since you can use several Thors to achieve some algorithms that are essentially parallel in their routing. But if you want an operator with, for example, 4 modulators it can't really be done properly for a polyphonic sound. The max you can have is 3 modulators to an operator if you use the LFO.

And then of course there is the limitation of the ADSR or AHDSR envelopes. Having MSEG or other more advanced envelopes is very nice when you get used to them.

But there is a lot of ground to be covered with Thor, and only very advanced synthesizer users will be concerned with some of the points I brought up. Thor has a lot more it can do than can't!

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah I do struggle a bit with this sometimes. There are a handful of synths that I'm on the fence about buying, and then I think...I could probably build something similar in Thor. Legend is a good example of this. I mean a three oscillator mono synth with the third oscillator as an LFO is more than doable. But then it's a case of all the extra "mojo" that the RE might have, especially if they've emulated analogue circuitry and quirks specific to the hardware being emulated. Having trialled Legend I think it's safe to say it has something about it that Thor doesn't, specifically in the filters.

Then you've got REs like Nostromo and Expanse that really do go beyond anything you can do with the stock devices. Of course they have the price tag to match, but I do intend to buy them eventually. I made the mistake of starting some songs with the demos, so now I can't work on them until I own them haha.

And I mean, there are a handful of racks that really, I just bought for the convenience more than anything. QEs Jackboxes for instance. I already have all the old retro drum samples but, they're largely cobbled together from different sources, and they're not all of the best quality. And it's nice having separate audio output jacks for each drum.

One thing's for sure though; it's a great time for REs right now. So much awesome stuff out at the moment!

[Lowas]

I'm no expert but nothing adds more depth to a track than mixing synth engines imo, and some fx
Sometimes we get too technical and intellectual about sounds and listen with our "ears" only.
Try to pay attention how it makes you "feel" when you switch a patch or a synth around too
I agree though that Thor is very versatile.

[Arrant]

Thor is fantastic, especially so given it's 10 years old. I would love an update to it though, particularly with a unison feature which is a big miss now. Throwing the half-rack unison device after it is just not the same. At all.

[Logismos]

I think thor is the best unit ph ever made to date.
Moar!

[dana]

Thor is great, i use it all the time. The fact it uses almost zero dsp is a huge positive. I always program it from scratch, even randomize pattern on the sequencer is a great feature.

But if you compare with something like parsec, which can shape sounds spectrally in unique ways, or other synths like polysix, antidote, expanse, the legend etc. that have stereo spread and unison, and a different character of sound, plus all the wavetable synths, yeah. To cover all these bases, they would need to expand thor to double the size probably and in all realness its probably not worth it and best to just use different synths for different types of sound.

It is a synth i know like the back of my hand, favourite thing i like doing is tuning the kbd on some comb filters and sending a sawtooth waveform to it then bending the pitch, creates a kind of mad alien warp sound.