Frank, keep up the great work, and please
keep us up to date with your progress.

Just to be curios, how can one aquire LiveSynth Pro when it is no longer available? And is 16GB really necessesary to sample instruments? It sounds a bit like overkill

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, it all depends on your goals and tastes as to whether 16GB is overkill. Yes, there comes a time of deminishing returns or it may even be like 'picking fly shit out of pepper'....hard to do .... no big returns.... but it feels good when it works for you!!!!

To satisfy yourself on this you could listen to some of the demos available at the various Sample Developer's web sites, e.g., Bardstown Audio, VRSound, VSL, EastWest, and so on.

Regarding LiveSynth Pro you could email me at flr@mts.net.

Should you decide to go down the soft arranger system road, it may be best to convert your styles to the GM format (sounds and drums) and then you can use other samplers to play GM Wavetables....and there are many, many choices for you (samplers & wavetables). I recommend it and you will never turn back....but the drawback is that the control surface is not as good as with a hardware based arranger system but the quality and flexibility of a software based system makes it all worth it.

Also you need to have a good dose of patience to make all this work for you. Plus it takes a fair amount of effort up front to put it all together and make it work. Once you got it....it is easily as reliable as any hardware based solution. To help with reliability I use two computers (one for editing and testing and general use and the other solely for playing music).

This is just my opinion....an old fragile man's opinion.

Frank, does Kontakt require all drumkits
to be in Bank 128? Can you have 2 kits, one
on ch.9 and one on ch.10?
Also, will a .sty file with Bank 127 select
messages be selecting the correct kit, albeit
from Bank 128?
Thanks.

Vquestor, here is where most of the issues arise. I have not been able to make the selection of the appropriate drumkit work in Kontakt. I think in the end I will have to use two instances of Kontakt (one for the instruments and another for the drums). The drums will likely need to be placed on channel 10 and given the appropriate kit number (program change number). I would have to say that these kind of issues are at best a pain. You would think by now every man and his dog would know the rules and would be wise enough to implement them correctly....oh well. I will get it working.

Hello again, I would love to hear a sample of what your system sounds like in action!

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, many over the years have asked me to produce a sample of what my system sounds like. I have resisted in doing so due to my poor (make it very very very very poor) musicianship which would only serve to distract from the quality of the software based system.

Another way to find out for yourself what the system sounds like is to try the free demos avialable on the internet, e.g., OMB, LiveStyler, VSTs, effects, virtual instruments, etc. As noted previously the sample developers often have examples of what their virtual instruments sound like. These examples are done by professional musicians who do justice to such instruments.

Hi Frank

What are you using for vocal harmony, if anything?

Clif

Clif, I am using Akai DecaBuddy and Antares for my harmony and pitch correction software. It seems to work well with my software based system and the Roland A37 Controller keyboard. There are other alternatives, e.g, Clone Ensemble, Steinberg's VoiceMachine, etc. A search of the internet could indicate additional choices.