I cant understand why some many people these days still want hardware synths and fx units
if your one of them people like my self who writes dance music or looking to start writing dance music i would pass on the hardware gear and go totally pc based
as it much cheaper and your find that in some cases the sound is far greater than hardware gear hardware gear will be come a deading maket soon as people will start to understand that the software market is the way to go

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Many people on this forum are entertainers doing many shows (50-100) per year. It is just not realistic to have a mobile PC/Softsynth setup on the road. Plus, this setup does not lend itself to quick configurations, patch changes, etc.

I take a single Motif 6 keyboard to play live gigs. Now let me think, I could replace that with a controller keyboard, plus a laptop, plus an extra stand to put the laptop on, MIDI cables to connect them together, then hope the D/A circuitry on the laptop compares with the Yamaha Motif, hope that Windows doesn't crash ( which has happened to me on numerous occasions even when only running Microsoft software let alone 3rd party software ... my Motif has NEVER crashed ), plus the inconvenience of changing patches through MIDI. Hey don't get me wrong I think software synthesis is an awesome innovation and and can provide excellent value and performance but I much prefer to use hardware synths and FX on a live stage just for reliability. A project studio is another thing entirely and computer based synthesis and DSP processing can't be beaten. But I will still be buying dedicated synths for live playing.

I have been making my living programming computers for 20 years now and know what computers are capable of which is exactly why I don't rely on them on the road. Sure the day will come when I will use them at a live gig but not without having a hardware synth to fall back on when something goes wrong.

It depends a lot on your situation. Maybe if you are playing mainly preprocessed dance music you could get away with just a computer but even then I would think you would still need at least a control surface for live input plus a backup computer in case of problems.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 04-20-2005).]

So then, if you have everything software based. What happens if your computer break down bigtime?

This is what makes me mad and it is also why I still beleive in hardware.