hi, im beginning to produce a kind of hybrid psy/euphoric trance kind of sound and the psy side of it i get mainly from any synth that has a non stepping filter (with lots of filter types) and lots of modulation options. some synths hardwire the LFOs to the oscillators (i.e. vanguard) but i found vanguard was good for evolving pads and evolving leads just using the M filter and the filter envelopes and by filtersweeping it. ill upload some sound experiments to my soundclick page and link you to it when i get the chance. zeta is a fantastic instrument but the filter behaves quite strangely. has a really resonant kind of quality to it (on the band and high pass filters, sweeping it makes this honking/high pitched screaming kind of sound). that synth does have a really hard edge though and its more suitable for instruments that dont...'move' (for lack of a better word) unless you can do it all on the LFO and mod matrix, which in zeta is very big and very scary. very complex synth. last week i got an access virus b and im finding that to be a monster psy synth because half of all the variables on the control surface can be modulated by something else. the LFO can modulate the oscillator tuning to produce these weird pitch dives, or oscillator waveforms to produce this undulating kind of wavey effect (or you can speed it up to the point where the oscillations are happenign so fast it produces this traditional gritty supersaw trance lead). the filter is also the smoothest thing in existence (like old analogue filters - no digital stepping). 90% of the music i write is made on vanguard and the virus. before i got the virus it was all written on vanguard, albino and impOSCar. i dont seem to use albino and impOSCar that much now cuz im focusing on learning how to program the virus. vanguard in itself is one of the most extensive softsynths ive ever used. you can get a mind boggling variety of sounds out of it (although the presets are really singleminded). the presets on all these synths do not do justice to what they are capable of so i recommend you get yourself a copy of vanguard and fiddle. if you can afford one, viruses are incredible but an order of magnitude more complex than vanguard because it has about 5 times as many variables many of which are dependant on the action of something else. i.e. the effect of the second filter is dependant on the cutoff point of the first filter which has an variable effect depending on how you've set the filter envelope and the whole thing can be modulated via the LFO. stuff like this gets me really confused too :huh: . it takes weeks to learn it and even get something decent sounding out of it but its worth it. its bassy and fat and sometimes a bit sludgy. virus b's go on ebay for less than £400 sterling whereas a couple of years ago it would set you back about £1,000. they are getting cheap cuz everyone is selling their old model to get the new virus TI but unless you can afford the £1,400 asking price, the older models will do just fine. highly recommended. alternatively you can get a sort of VST version of it as long as you have a TC powercore DSP card. its basically a virus b with a few things taken away and a lower polyphony but you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference. most people say they sound exactly the same. the powercore + the virus plugin costs waay more than a second hand virus c, but with the powercore you get DSP quality effects and mastering tools and you can get more of them. some of which are stupidly good (and stupidly expensive).
FX wise i use mainly fruity internal FX, although i also use Super Impulse Reverb (SIR), a free reverb plugin available here:
http://www.knufinke.de/sir/index_en.html
check out some *amazing* free impulses here:
http://www.noisevault.com/index.php?page=3&sid=b836afb47dd6b266b0c9e268ce55b277
the lexicon PCM91 impulses are in a few words, the best god damn reverbs ive ever heard. check it out. i dont use anything else for reverb.
distortion wise i use stereo greasetube (CPU load is high and turn the volume down first cuz it will blow the lid off your monitors and your ears) which is another free distortion plugin on the net. its quite grimey though. the name says exactly what it sounds like. SC_Overdrive is also free and i use that for gritty, bit reduced kind of distortion. very cold and synthetic. use sparingly.
delay wise, i use the virus inbuilt delay, which isnt fantastic but i cant afford PSP audioware 84. that plugin is an amazing delay unit that is capable of phase effects too but cuz of the virus im now skint. ahhh well.
also use fruity compressors, parametric EQs and freeware spectrum analysyer.
you dont really need that many plugins to make most types of music though. most virtual analogue synths (like vanguard for software and virus for hardware) are capable of creating 90% of all the sounds you hear in dance music. whats important is that you push each synth you've got to the absolute limits by programming your own patches and figuring out what every rotary and slider does and how it affects the sound you are making. this takes ages though. had vanguard for a year and theres still crazy shit that i can pull out of it. amazing instrument.
EDIT: holy shit this is long :o hope its helpful anyway.
The ImpOscar is a nice softsynth as well for various elements: bass, fx, pads, etc, good price too. There are lots more I could recommend like Reaktor if u fancy jumping in at the deep end, but perhaps best to have a few and get to know how to use them well. Reason can provide a lot of the elements u need, and with the new fx to come in Reason 3 the results can be better. There are quite a lot of freely available refills for presets, try googling for Peff or Doru Malaia.
tis simple, but good. 
