I have several of the better freeware softsynths and a couple of commercial ones, including the Yamaha SYXG-50 and the Sound canvas stuff, but never thought of them as much more than nice toys, and in the case of the SYXG50, something that does a fairly good job of allowing me to play the Yamaha styles in OMB without a lot of tweaking.

Today, that has changed. After demoing a few of the latest releases, I plan on purchasing at least 3 of the ones I demoed, and more may follow. The one that blows me away is Arturia's CS80v. It is a very good emulator of the classic and Yamaha CS80, which I remember seeing well over 20 yrs ago ( and falling in love with ), but like so many others I couldn't afford the steep price tag ( around 6 or 7 grand if I remember right ). Arturia also makes the Moog Modular 5, and the emulator comes complete with "cords" that plug in just like the real thing. That one is joining the lineup too. It sounds great as well. The Other one I will purchase is the Novation "V" station, an emulation of the "K" station.

I have the AN150 analog modeling board for my Motif ES. It does a good job and has done a creditable job of replacing the Poly 6 I had missed so much. One has to work on the presets, as the effects are dry in the board, but they really come to life when they are tweaked. Still, the sounds it puts out and the synth sounds from the ES itself ( not to mention my PA80 synth sounds ) pale in comparison to the CS80v and Moog Modular V on my system. I can easily tell, because the Motif ES6, PA80 and softsynths all get routed to the same sound system.

I'm thinking of getting a laptop now too. Not only for storage and use with an arranger for live play, but also as a host for the above softsynths, so I can play them away from the studio. I'd want an "add on" soundcard ( better quality and low latency are key ) to enhance the sound if possible. Now that I have the SQ01 sequencing software that came bundled with the Motif ES, I use the VSTi versions. They load up and work well without a hitch in the SQ01. DXi versions of sofsynths that I have tried also work well in Sonar, but the SQ01 is easier to use for loading sofsynths.

I use the Motif ES to control them, and with my Midiman Audiophile 2496, latencty is about 8 ms, and not noticeable at all. I have already tried layering the softsynth sounds with those on the ES, with excellent results ( they both come through the same soundsystem simultaneously. )

My thanks to Frank Rosenthal and a few others for opening my eyes to this stuff. I can now own 3 emulations of some outstanding analog synths for a fraction of the cost of one of the original ones. They all sound incredible, and I don't miss my Poly6 any more. In fact the Poly6, good as it was for the price, could never approach some of the sounds these things do. Good deal.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-03-2004).]

Like it or not this is probably the future for us. I hope to hear some of your music using this software technology AJ....good luck on your new Journey!!!

Thanks Donny,

Oh I like it... a lot. I could never afford the real thing back in it's heyday, and now they aren't so easy to find any more.

Today's workstations are great as a smorgasboard for " a little of everything ", and some of the better analog emulation boards are very good too, but even at 25 or more years old, the CS80 and Moog stack up favorably against them for the classic synth sounds. I always wanted just a piece of the racks of gear that Emerson and Eakeman had, but could never approach something like that.

Now... in a virtual way, I can. It can and will change the sound of my music, and help to send me more into the direction I had always wanted to go. I'll always have some "hardware" ( real keyboards ), and judging by the demos, I think the two things can now coexist very well, but I'll probably never be able to get a hardware CS80, so... for the soft version I am very grateful.

Cheers

AJ

As a former PolySix owner and fan also, it's worth noting that Korg has already announced a softysnth PolySix is coming (originally it was supposed to ship 3rd Quarter of 2003 but I suspect it'll be released at the upcoming NAMM show).

I've been using Reason for quite a while with my laptop and I love it - it's not as CPU intensive as some VSTi's and is more of a complete studio rather than just a single instrument emulation. But I think we're seeing a revolution in the making with softsynths - several of us in another forum have a bet going as to which we'll see more of at NAMM: hard or soft synths?

Several midi controllers now also contain an audio interface built-in and I look for a lot more to come out at NAMM. This would be the ideal thing to use with a laptop so you might want to wait and see what comes out later this month.

I've been using soft synths for a couple of years now (using a MAC so I actually get less latency then on some of my hardware synths believe it or not).
ONe thing to watch out for is mouse clicking. It' will get to you at some point. If you're just getting into soft synths, try to get a hold of some kind of fader box, so you can control your soft synths with hardware faders. Otherwise it's gonna get annoying...
Click Click Click Click Click etc
I HATE IT!
Thank god for Emagic controller.

-ED-

Thanks for the tip Ed. Here is a link to demo songs from the CS80v and Moog Modular for anyone who is interested in a listen. Check out the CS80v medley ( second song from the top on the page ). Man this is my kinda stuff to a "T" .
http://www.arbitermt.co.uk/arturia/products/cs80v.htm


AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-03-2004).]

AJ, don't forget to try Native instrument's B4...It is better than the real one..

Thanks for the reply Fran. I will eventually get the B4 software after I purchase the analog emulations and other software I want. I tried the B4 demo already and it is very good.

It isn't a must have for me right now because the Motif ES does an excellent B3 / C3 emulation too. Unfortunately, there are no adjustable drawbars, so I'll get the B4 software when I'm done with the rest. Still, I'd love to hear the ES C3 sound through real Leslies. I bet it would come pretty close to the real thing. What the Motif doesn't do so well is some of those classic CS80 / Moog sounds, even with the analog modeling board, even though the AN150 does do some other things very well and is no slouch in it's own right. The CS80V in particular sings to me like nothing I've ever had or ever played. The Moog Modular V does as well.

Ed, can I do some of the controlling via external midi CC functions? The Motif has assignable knobs, plus my breathe controller, which is also assignable, and assignable pedals, so I'm guessing I could control some functions with it in that manner. I would then simply make up a user voice with no samples assigned, and all of the controllers assigned as I want them. I made a voice like that in my PA80 to control a soundfont based soft synth and it worked very well, except that the PA80 doesn't have the controllers that the Motif does. If it works, I'd like to use the Mo as a controller with a laptop and hopefully a good low latency soundcard in a live or more portable setup.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-03-2004).]

Hi AJ,

I love that kind of music! I used to want a Korg Wavestation keyboard but there was no way I could afford one back in 1990-93 but last spring I found a good condition Wavestation EX keyboard and bought it for $400 and I LOVE it!!!!!

I wandered around on the Arturia website but I was unable to find a price. How much are the CS80 and Moog VSTi's?

Thanks,
Tom

------------------
Bigger is not always better

The CS80V is available for $199 USd on the Audio-midi. com site. The Moog Modular V is available for $229 USd. I think it's awesome that I can apply that much power to a computer synthesizer for that kind of money. I think the prices are slightly higher if you order directly from Arturia. Either way, at least to me, it's well worth it.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-05-2004).]