Nope, it's NOT true. A good synth is a good synth no matter the platform. Motif and Fantom are more like workstations. You'll be hard pressed to find a softsynth that's quite like those, and they don't need to be. Most soft synths are just that, synths so don't have the fluff that the workstations need such as sampling, add-on cards, sequencers, hard disk recording, etc, etc.
There is also the software emulations of old hardware stuff... people are gonna tell you that software doesn't sound as "good" as the hardware... well... duh... they are never gonna sound like the hardware they are emulating, even if graphically they look like them... even the hardware from unit to unit doesn't quite sound like the other one... that's analog electronics for you.
However, there are good soft synths out there that no hardware can match.
So... here's my (very incomplete) list of faves:
Hardware:
1.
Kurzweil K2600XS (the daddy of all workstations... Released in 1999, a bit long in the tooth in some respects, but even the $8,000+ Oasys can't match it when it comes to sheer synthesis power).
2. Dave Smith PolyEvolver (talk about deranged!)
3. Virus (don't need to say more do I?)
4.
Nord Modular G2 (not everyone cares for the Nord sound, but so?)
5. Prophet 5 (It's all about those syncing oscillators and filter FM... yum and nasty)
6. Korg Wavestation
7. Yamaha FSR1 (mmmm... FM and Formant Synthesis...)
8.
Moog Minimoog (Can't stand playing it, but it sounds like wow!)
9. ... many more that I am not mentioning... no need to turn this into some catalog right?
Software:
1.
NI Reaktor (not only a synth, but an entire construction kit for creating all kinds of stuff from synths to weird audio magling contraptions. If you have time and patience, this is definitely the daddy of them all).
2.
NI Absynth (too many people automatically think "atmospherics", but it's capable of all kinds of sounds, including some seriously evolving and organic/trancy sequences thanks to it's envelopes, )
3. rgc:Audio (now Cakewalk) Z3TA+ (this is a really cool synth, one of the very few that prominently features waveshaping as synthesis method... the other ones being the Kurzweil K2xxx series synths and Reaktor, if you make synths using Reaktor's waveshaping modules).
4. Camel Audio Cameleon 5000. (Additive synthesizer, resynthesizer. Additive synthesis is one area where software truly shines over any hardware just because the graphical interface makes it a lot more intuitive to program. Add sample resynthesis capabilities and you're in heaven... one of my favorite synths of all time hardware or software).
5. LinPlug Albino. (Gotta love those filters and the arpeggiator. Yum)
6. Ohm Force Symtohm:melohman. (Granular/subtractive synth. Not everyone's cup of tea. No other synth sounds or can sound like it. Very unique and cool).
7. LinPlug Octopus. Another LinPlug/Rob Papen collab. Has some unique combination of synthesis methods, which while available separately on other synths, I don't know of any other synth that brings those together like this. Really cool.
8.
VirSyn Tera. Really complex, really good sounding and flexible synth.
9. … many more that I am not mentioning… no need to turn this into some catalog right? (And no… we don’t need to include the emulations to turn this into a catalog
)
Please note that none of the softsynths are emulation of anything else. They are synths on their own right instead of trying to be something else. I don't think comparing emulations is fair, and gives software bad rep because most emulations are software based. But even the digital hardware emulations don't sound like the analog hardware they emulate (for example Minimax, Prodissey, etc.).
