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I may as well make it 4 votes for the mighty V. I love the VA waves and the insane amount of filtering with those dual COSM's along with the elastic audio and morphing capabilities of the Variphrase make it a mean mofo. Add in the backwards and forwards PCM looping with the Time Trip pad and a Multi-Step Modulator and you have the computer game of synth's. It is so much fun and easy to edit on.

Good to see Sharp mentioned the OASYS and KRONOS because they can do it all with aplomb. The HD-1 Programs are versatile enough. Add in the LAC-1 and the MOD-7 and you have the Swiss Army knife of synths!

One more honorable mention goes to the JD-990 because of those lush filters. Only 24 voice polyphony (like the V-Synth) but who's counting? I have 4 of them and I can stack foir 96 voice polyphony if needed.

By the way...what is "ambient?" Are we talking about the Eno ambient, Ambient Dub, or has the term morphed into something entirely different? Do you Shpongle?

I would advice you Waldorf Blofeld and Access Virus aswell.
This because I had the opportunity to use it for my abstract drone compositions.
Two different ranges of prices but it depends on what you want to make.
If you want a live monster then go for synthesizers you can modulate in a easy way(eg. lot of knobs).

Blofeld is instead unique compared to a good price, I really had great time to create drones and sound FX.
The only problem of the Waldorf is in a defect that happens really often to every user: the output jacks start to have a lack of volume and the headphone jack will not work at all!
I am talking about the old white version, don´t know about the black one.

For software:
Reaktor(metaphysical function, skrewell etc), Absynth.
Ableton too but you have to work on it to create the proper random sound

I'm not an ambient expert, but I'll second Reaktor has an almost infinite supply of user and factory generated noise, drone and hit patches, often with interesting modulation or sequencing option built right in. Absynth is nice too.
And don't forget to check out Qui Robinez' ambient patches for the Kronos on his site.

Sharp wrote:KAWAI K5000

Secret weapon, this thing.

Late reply ... have you ever checked out one of the NI Reaktor ensembles:

- "Metaphysical Function"
- "Screwell"
- "Space Drone"

That's sound generation by quite unconventional synth architecture and so are the sounds. You allmost don't need a keyboard. Just tweak the parameters and get surprised ... and ... Reaktor allows to record the output ...

you may find some hidden treasures there