http://www.soundsonline.com

I just think this company samples great virtual instruments! They are soon coming out with some really interesting packages including DFH Superior Custom & Vintage(including high quality vintage drum sets), Colossus (including for instance B3 Organs) and Liquid Sax.

Listen to some nice demos:

Eastwest Colossus - Ascending

Eastwest DFH Superior Custom & Vintage

The bottom line is, this is better stuff than what they produce in the best keyboards today and keyboard manufacturers that don't take the software approach right now will have a really tuff time competing with these in the future! We have only seen the beginning of virtual instruments. VSL has packages of over 200 GB sounds already and the polyphony (EW Colossus has 256) is great!

Best regards,
YamahaAndy

So how exactly do you plan on using these great samples and libraries on stage?

For instance with a laptop, a PC firewire adapter and a RME Fireface 800 connected to a PA system. Would work excellent!

That's not what I asked - how do YOU plan on using these great samples? Anyone can do a "for instance...".

Oh yes.. the East West stuff I've heard is very good. I find in general a lot of the soft sounds I either have or have tried to be sonically better than what is on the best workstations and arrangers. That isn't a huge surprise, when one software instrument can contain more sample memory than my entire workstation has for every sound in it.

Using it all in a live setup is another story. It's very hard to do as a one man band, not quite so hard when working with a full band. When I do use soft sounds live, I generally have FL studio setup so that I can instantly recall saved setups and synths. Tobybear's minihost has also been useful when simplicity is called for.


I know this from experience. I can do it all live if I had to, but often it really isn't worth it to me, except for when I need a true "signature" analog sound that my Motif ES or PA80 can't do, or maybe a good acoustic guitar sound if I'm playing it out of a mix ( solo ), like Dasample's Electroacoustic. Granted, the piano on the Motif isn't what I want to use in the studio, but it's fine for live play and so much easier to use. Most if any of my audience isn't really going to notice.



I tend to disagree with that at least in part. Having done this for a while now, I think I'm kinda coming full circle all of it. I still love using soft synths / effects / hosts because they give me sounds and features I can't get or afford to get in hardware. That said, there is a tradeoff vs using hardware too, and most of it has to do with time needed to setup various modules / software and the cold feel of using a mouse as opposed to playing and working the controls of a real instrument. These for me can be creativity killers, but I'm glad for having the soft stuff and being able to use it when I need it.

A generic controller with sliders and knobs is great, but understand that for each soft synth you use, configurations will be different. That's why I reconfigure in FL and save the setups. It's a lot of work btw.

I will not, however, ever abandon hardware completely, not even in the home studio, where I still lean toward working with soft stuff. I really identify with a post on this that I recently read at Harmony Central. Pro, I bet you've seen it. I think that there will always be those who like to work in the middle ground ( me for instance ), and others still that will shun software entirely. I truly understand why too.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 03-12-2005).]

So you asked it because you knew I didn't have a laptop? That's really silly. I hope I don't get any more of these kinds of low quality responses in the future... And besides, I was not actually planning to use those live, I was planning on using them on records.

[This message has been edited by YamahaAndy (edited 03-12-2005).]

Interesting thoughts! I can understand that for live playing it is a little uncomfortable working with many different software synths on a gig. I do think though that it will be easier in the future when software synths become more of a standard.

I really think hardware synths will be like analog synths are today in the future, but as you pointed out the power behind software synths will make them popular. Korg has made the OASYS software based and they see a future building on this kind of a platform. I am glad this starts happening now because it is nice to have intelligent keyboards in a network connectable environment. I hope that we will have a new audio format soon. I miss the possibility of extracting sounds from records, something that would be possible with an audio format made of markup. Being able to take out your favorite sounds from your favorite records is something I wish I would be able to do!

One rule of thumb I have with companies like Korg and Yamaha in the software realm. I don't trust them.. at all. Too many times I've seen them start up a new software only to abandon it later.

XP will not last forever. I'm sure Mr Gates is already working on the next OS. Here are examples of the problem. I have the Yamaha SYxg 100 ( a collaboration with Sondius ). They never updated it past Windows 2000. It's useless on my XP based systems. They orphaned XG Works as well, although a while after xp became the standard they were kind enough to give us a patch so that we could use it with XP. No support for current arrangers though. The most "modern" arranger supported is the PSR740 or 9000.

Korg ? The Oasys card was very expensive in it's day, but it was a brilliant piece of work too, perhaps well ahead of it's time sonically vs what was out there. Unforunately, it too was abandoned quickly.

The smaller to medium sized developers and houses generally don't do that ( with Steinberg possibly being the notable exception with some of their soft synths .. but hey Yamaha now owns vst anyway ). Of course some of the less succesfull programs from very small developers ( Cute Loops for example ) do get abandoned pretty quickly as well.

Absynth and Pro 53 are good examples ( medium sized developer Native Instruments ). So is FL studio. RGC audio Pentagon and Z3ta are good examples from smaller devs.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 03-12-2005).]

It was a simple question as to how you plan on using this stuff since you brought it up - don't get offended. And no I'm not psychic and didn't know or care if you had a laptop or not. This is an ARRANGER forum so I thought maybe you had something to say that was on topic, like how you plan on using softsynths in an arranger setting. If you need a "high-quality response", I and many others here are quite experienced and capable of discussing synth topics extensively.

Good luck making those "records", especially if you don't intend to play live to support them.

Ok.. I gave you the long answer Andy, but the condensed version might even be more helpful.

My recommendation is to start small, a simple and inexpensive VST host and a few freeware or low cost Vst's. See how you like working with it. This is a bigger factor than you may realize.

I started that way, and I liked it enough to spend a ton of money on vst and computer stuff. I have no regrets, btw, but I also know well the advantages and shortcomings of both hardware and software.

BTW, depending on which forum you frequent, you will hear that Hardware is King ( Harmony Central for example ) or hardware stinks ( KVR Audio ). I take what I can from each with a grain of salt, but really in the end it only matters to me what I think works best. None of those guys / gals are gonna be working with my setup, and I won't be working with theirs.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 03-12-2005).]