When i only played arrangers many many years ago, i allways tried to recreate the exact sounds i heard. Today when in my little home studio, i try to create sounds of immagaination. Sounds that touch your soul. Now this is where current generation of Synth workstations falls short compared to the software (exception maybe the KRONOS). And where arrangers so far have no real use, as they are by nature meant to recreate the songs we hear on the radio or nowedays the interwebs.

There are 2 Softsynths that i use a lot these days because of their possibilities in creating new sounds.

First is Camel Audio Alchemy, its so much fun Morphing from one sound to another using the X-Y pads. These video's show how the Synth works and whats possible.





This guy is a bit strange, and the video last a bit long, but it could have been me getting all enthousiast with my created sounds.




Next up is Spectrasonic Omnisphere, widely known as the most impressive and versatile VST avaialble. The basic soundset is just incredible and the edditing possibilities are endless.






And finally Jordan Rudess demonstrating both Omnisphere and my newest VST that i just got this week Trilian.







Trilian is used to recreate authentic bases with everything and all in it... (tough its stil possible to create very authentic basssounds with it) Just have a look at this video on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/11237741


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So why do i still hang around on this website, first there is the great community. But Arrangers are still the best when you want to try something really quick. Just select a style hit the chords and play. Or when you want to be really flexible on stage playing contemparary, country, schlager and popular music.


But the soundquallity of these VST's is unrivalled, even by KRONOS/MOTIF and JUPITER 80.

Thanks for sharing these videos with us, Bachus. I know "zilch" about softsynths and VSTs but certainly can appreciate the expressiveness and creativity of this technology. Were you an "Arranger" user first and then migrated to VSTs or was it the other way around?

I've asked this question here at "The Zone" before but can stringed instruments be "morphed" into things like Dobros or Flat-top Resonators?

(via VSTs... and could the "product" created then be ported into a "file-type" that can be used as a style or a Pad on a PSR Arranger?)

Dave Rice

or just do what I am planning with Korg Micro Arranger triggering the soft snths,

by the way I own all the above mentioned softsyths and NI Komplete 7 as well,
I just absolutely love Omnisphere sometimes even better than my Korg KRONOS

Now that is interesting, there's a big difference in price around £2300, can you tell us more?

Tony

Tony, it all depends upon your needs, I don't play live, I use all my instruments in home studio environment,

so for me softsynths are very manageable on my desktop, I use Sonar X1, Reason 6 along with Live as Host for all my VST's

Omnisphere has huge preset sound library not regular bread and butter sounds but more towards film scores, motion synths,

dance and club sort of genre and in that department preset sounds better than KRONOS presets (check out you tube with Omnisphere and you would know)

I am sure with little effort you can do great sounds with KRONOS using the existing synths I am only reffering to presets.

omnisphere is a complete synthesizer with endless creative possibilities it all depends what kind of music you do and how portable you want your system to be

if you have Tyros 4 and looking for KRONOS then you would have best of both worlds top notch arranger and the best workstation at the moment with 9 synth engines, KARMA and much more...

Hi,

Sounds like you really enjoy working with it, the demos are good, thanks for sharing.

Tony

Same here, i use them all at home, but i think i would dare to use a small selection of them live... NI Komplete, Omnisphere, Trilian, Alchemy, Nexus, Hypersonic should do the trick and give enough diversity while being rock stable combined with Sonar and a KRONOS.



All the Spectrasonic products just blow your mind away, just like for example the EWQL stuff, but Omnisphere for example is much more accessible then EWQL instruments.



I have allways said this is a match made in heaven if you want to go the all hardware route. Only to be topped by a combination of KRONOS/ Jupiter 80/ Audya4 for those people that love the more lively sound of the Audya styles and the Roland Supernatural sounds.



But the only way to have it all in one box is going for a full software setup (and praying that KARMA will be avaialble as a VST plugin one of these days) or just use a KRONOS as masterkeyboard when they finally release the edditing and ciontroll software..

I can easily use them in a laptop in live setting if I want, however would require some homework before a performance,

that is why arrangers are perfect out of the box, and with powerful MIDI capabilities internal sounds can be muted and VST's can be used instead,

here is a short video in which I am only showcasing the HP laptop/ tablet for a friend, playing sucks because it was not intended to promote my music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfsKX4Yq1nU