I have to have knobs to tweak. I have a Novation MIDI controller, and sometimes use Automap (comes with it), which makes it easy to map your knobs so that they function the same for each synth. Sometimes in haste I just use the DAW's controller link feature to map whatever parameter I want to tweak to the mod wheel, and do it one at a time. Zebra has some live mode X-Y pads that might change the way you feel about how useful a mouse can be in this scenario, although admittedly I dont use it much.
In short though, you can definately still keep your hands on the music keyboard & knobs instead of the computer the same way you would with hardware.

About the single-core Mac... well there's a reason I'm still PC based... Every time I look at the cost of a Mac that's in the same league as my PC, I am horrified. Usually Apple doesn't even offer the latest and greatest processors, and they are dodgy on their website about actual specs ("oh don't worry, its a 2.8ghz quad core but we reserve the right to not tell you exactly which Intel model CPU it is"), which stinks because not all CPUs with equal cores and equal clock speed perform the same.

that's good news. yep about skrillex, I've heard from someone that's met him a few times that he starts a patch in massive, modulates the shit out of it, resamples it, does the same, and continues doing that until the sound is as big as he wants, then vocodes it. So yep, a lot of post processing. Massive is one of the softsynths I'm actually considering, as its modulation section looks pretty cool.

I'm listening to your tracks on soundcloud, and they're really sick- do you use the virus a bit in them?

Thank you :) Those tracks are somewhat older now and when I put up some new things hopefully the sound quality/processing will be more up to scratch.

My go to plugins are -

Virus TI (obviously)
Massive
Camel Audio Alchemy
Reaktor utilising some 3rd party patches that are quite tasty.

I use Massive for reesey, growly bass line samples and then get in there and multiband them, multiband distortion, rate reduction etc etc. Theres a really nice soundset called RSL on the TI site that has great dubsteppy/dnb wobbles, growls etc. That said, I have been using the TI more for those kind of sounds, as I wrap my head around what the processes are in Massive, then attempt to replicate aspects of them with the TI.

Also in some of the tracks theres a bit of Sherman Filterbank action which can drastically destroy and crunch the tones - combine the warm TI sound with the warm Sherman and it can get quite wild.

I bought the TI being an absolute newb when it came to synthesis - having mostly used production keyboards like the Motif, Triton etc etc - having it all hands on taught me so much and allowed me to explore synthesis with an instrument that sounds beautiful.

All up, I'd consider how much money you can justify spending. If its not really an object, the TI might be the best music purchase youve ever made. It certainly is for me.

This is the main thing holding me back. I'm in my late teens, and sadly I live in the woods do I'm unemployed- it's a 45 minute walk to the nearest gas station, nevermind better employment. I'll be applying for my permit in a month or two, so hopefully that'll help, but then there's the issue of getting a car and paying for petrol >.>

Anyways, I could manage to get enough money from savings, ebaying etc. to get a used or maybe new snow, but a new polar is wayyy out of my price range- and I'd like knobs and a keyboard. A new desktop is also past what I can afford and doesn't have the convenience of keys. I've been looking around ebay, but I can't seem to find any used Polars/Desktops for sale, nevermind a good price.

Maybe when I hone my playing skills and have a few compositions, I can get a gig and earn some more cash. I honestly have no clue how to DJ so I'd probably just sequence some synths and play one or two, or maybe have my backing tracks prerecorded and just play something over them; who knows. Otherwise, it's seeing what my parents will help me with; my dads a keyboardist as well although more of a realistic preset masher, he just purchased an M50 on impulse so he may match whatever I'll pay.

In that case, i would get soft synths... you can 'trial' them initially, and once your satifised its the synth for you, then put down your money for a legitimate copy. Some companies give you demo versions (Eg alchemy have a 30 day trial with no limitations)

Another good thing about softsynths -- you will learn an insane amount about synthesis and sound design, because you'll be exposed to many more different types of synthesis (not just subtractive, but FM, Additive, weird variations like HCM etc) than you would even if you had a couple of dozen HW synths.

The softsynths feedingear mentions are all fantastic plugins and worthy of your collection, but IMO they tend to isolate you more from sound design than something like Zebra2 or KarmaFX which are modular in nature and give you an enormous amount of visibility of the nuts and bolts of a sounds. Also if you're interested in books on the nuts&bolts stuff, this guy has written a few: http://simoncann.com/ .. You can get one of his books in pdf format free at this link: http://noisesculpture.com/how-to-make-a-noise

Definitely wish I had a guide like that when I was starting out, I could barely find anything when I was starting out! I'll take a look at it.
My R3 does have Ring/Sync/Cross mod, and its own version of FM called Variable Phrase Modification, but yes, it's very focused on subtractive synthesis. More synthesis types could be nice.
I like Massive because of it's really cool modulation section that I've seen from youtube vids, unfortunately I can't state what specifics about the mod section I like because Native Instruments requires I have the latest version of flash, and adobe NO LONGER SUPPORTS POWERPC T.T

I'll look into Zebra and Karma though.

I still really want a AVTI Polar. I want a real synth. With a lot of knobs. And pretty LEDs.

Not wanting to start a whole thing here but Alchemy uses Additive, Subtractive, Spectral, Granular synthesis forms across 4 sound sources with a crazy amount of modulation.

But yes, for other synth types, you can use Reaktor and get as deep into modular creation as you like, or check out something like Max/MSP.

I think Alchemy sounds fantastic and I know it's very flexible, I also have only experience with the limited trial so correct me if I'm wrong but arent most of the CamelAudio presets basically samples with synthesis applied/blended into them? Usually if you install a synth and it takes more than a few megs of disk space, it is probably using sampled waveforms as harmonic basis, and then the line between that and a Motif/Triton type instrument begins to blur in my opinion. As I said I didn't play around with it much but I got the impression it is something like Omnisphere (which I do own), where you can use a sample or synthesis, but most of the really good stuff in their sound library is samples + processing/fx/synthetic variations.

Max/MSP on the other hand seems like it would probably be amazing for learning... maybe even getting so deep that one might get so caught up in the technical aspects that there's no time left in the day to make music :)

This is why I think Zebra hits such a sweet spot. It's semi-modular so you're not designing a new instrument from the ground up each time. The user interface is absolutely brilliant (once past the learning curve) on so many levels, and makes it very easy to change the paths of signal, modulation, etc. And the ways you can modulate, including the waveshape morphing feature, multisegment envelopes etc are something that I have just not seen done as well in another synth. There is a good reason this synth is consistently at the top of the plug-ins ratings even though it has not changed much in recent years.

0.0 Zebra looks amazing.