Thanks for your insight, Bill. It's good to hear from someone actually 'walking the walk' on this issue, even if there are points I still find troubling...

It's in the qualifiers you use that leave me with the most doubt. And, while I know only too well that the ENGINES of most modern VSTi's are better optimized for live play, that doesn't mean that the samples themselves, and their balances especially, are, at least as far as what we expect from an arranger. Even you qualify that, and even add that some arrangers themselves leave you wanting (I agree here, the fluid seamless transitions of the old Sound Canvas days are long gone), so I would only ask you, is there ONE VSTi complete soundset (we won't even TOUCH the issue of what you do when you use multiple soundsets from multiple sources) that covers ALL the bases, that you could use as the single engine of an entire soft arranger that is as well balanced as a Tyros or Roland? To be able to switch, on a whim, from any sax sound to ANY clarinet sound and not have to move a fader, change your touch, or anything?

And yes, I understand that you CAN preset volume offsets, etc., but on a soundset with THOUSANDS of sounds, who really wants to do that, when the manufacturer really ought to have already done it? And, of course, we haven't even touched the issue of EQ and velocity curves, etc.. There's a reason I choose to work with arrangers live, even in live bands. That convenience of calling any sound up, and knowing you aren't going to have to grab the volume knob after you have scared some customer silly! So....

"Will they be as balanced as hardware arrangers? Yes and No" still sounds a lot more like a no than a yes... unless you do all the work.

And unfortunately, I guess, I am not really looking for the satisfaction of knowing it is all you when you play a style. All I'm really concerned about is whether THEY are satisfied, and whether that satisfaction costs me a week of effort, or a few minutes. Currently, they are pretty good with how things are. Could they be better? Of course. Am I willing to multiply the effort probably 100X to get that bit better? Probably not...

My audience would be hard pressed to tell the difference, live, and when in the studio, the arranger isn't really the tool I use for original work (although I'll use the sounds if appropriate), and the issues with sound balances don't apply, and I am as willing to use VSTi's as any other sound source. But live, improvisational arranger play puts tougher stresses on a soundset than any other form of playing, IMO. The day that creators of soundsets as expensive as Goliath etc. realize that sonic balance is as important as anything else (more, IMO), they hardly qualify as sound SETS, more just sound collections. Oh, and BTW, we haven't even TOUCHED the more complicated issue of drumset equivalency.

As with any issue that I disagree with others on, I am only TOO interested in hearing examples that disprove me. I would be fascinated to hear a style, for instance, being changed live from a rock set to a brush set, and hear how well it remains balanced. I'd also like to hear styles that you have converted to run entirely on VSTi's, or those you have created yourself from scratch using only VSTi's...

Sadly, 'trying before you buy' with a Wersi is an option very few ever get the chance to do, and even fewer on an instrument that has been 'tweaked' for full VSTi use. So hearing others' work is about all we can do.

The thing that puzzles me the most is, if a soft arranger CAN be made to be as good, no, FAR better than a closed one by the simple addition of a good VSTi and a bit of work balancing the sounds, why on EARTH doesn't the factory (with the personnel already trained to do such work) do the work, and convert the styles for it? Especially for Wersi's, the addition of a $500 VSTi is hardly going to put off anyone already prepared to pony up $8k+...

Or is the work a LOT harder than you make out? Something is missing from the picture.

AMEN
AMEN
AMEN
Talk about hitting the nail in the head.

Of the (few) soft synths I have, only Roland made ones have the balanced sound and consistency much sought after in the above post. But they are (and they sound) old. Their age is showing.

The others are much more polished and crisp if you look at their individual sounds one by one, but they don't present a coherent overall package.

I just could not stand the quality (or lack of it) of my arranger's sounds any more, so I send the accompaniment data to the Midi Out port, and let softsynths replace the original sound engine. This worked like an engine overhaul to an old car, and squeezed a few more years out of the Casio. But, should i make the decision to buy a new one, I doubt I will return to that setup any time soon, unless in the meantime I find a way to also substitute the styles in the Casio and use it like a midi keyboard only.

I personly use NI KOMPLETE in combination with KORE as the base of my softsynth and i must say that the different parts of KOMPLETE and the individuall samples are reasonably ballanced.
Basically this package gives me the all in one you'd want as a re-placement of a hardware synth or arranger.

New TCP Network Live-Arranger on OS 4.0 will coming soon...
Qranger still remain the primary DAW arranger, then you can choose the Live-styler module for the Yamaha styles OR the new Live-Arranger for Ketron styles ( native Audya styles too)

Just some days patience...we dont need months for complete this new features...

Is the big Red Button on the top left telling the player what to do? :lol:

only joking

You are derailing my topic, but playing native Audya audio styles as grand news I'll start a new topic for this.

http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/020831.html

[This message has been edited by Bachus (edited 02-14-2010).]

So, with this remote computer idea, you go to a gig, and set up both your arranger and your computer? and have to balance 2 different sound sources so that when you trigger the computer parts it isn't the wrong level?

I keep thinking that arrangers will finally get to the point where everything is integrated into the arranger itself, just with better components. Solid state harddrives are starting to become pretty impressive now. So in a few more years, arrangers will run on SSD's, with many gigs worth of audio loops, with some melodyne thrown in there for spontaneous chord inversion changes, and several more gigs worth of lead voices. Every manufacturer will still sample their own voices and make their own styles, so that their styles and soud sets will ball be in balance, and we won't have to try to juggle 100 different products from 100 different manufacturers to all play nice together in a self-cobbled attempt. Cloned styles just won't sound right using VST's. Because those styles were made with a specific soundset in mind, that has its own velocity curves, its own layer split points, its own special effects tied to certain keys or CC controls.

As many problems as Audya has had, I still like their idea better than these open-source software arrangers. There's just no way to make everything play nice and sound good without a lot of work. Running your VST's on a remote computer isn't going to fix that problem, and will make live play even more cumbersome.

The computer will not put out sound, it will put out sounddata over Ethernet, the soundsource of the keyboard will produce audio from this sound data.

So there is only 1 audio source... This is the keyboard. The computer should start as they call it totally scripted, and you would not even neet a screen on stage, just switch it on and controll it from your keyboard...

At home you use a computer screen to setup and edit your sounds on the computer. You should be able to controll the sound parameter during a performance on stage directly from the keyboard, i.e. use a knob on your keyboard to changen for example a filter setting real time.

It can also be done by putting extra computer power inside the keyboard like mediastation and Wersi do, but for those players that dont want, need VSt's it would be a huge throw away of resources and money.

This way you get the best of both worlds.