Software vs Hardware

[terry]

Tweak and Underground_Wisdom

Hey thanks for the input. I guess like you said Tweak going through that unit will be about the same as going through a soft synth. I guess Ill wait until I update my PC using Nash's out standing PC recommendations. Ill get it any ways just for the sounds, tactile feel as well less drain on the PC CPU.

[Travis Coats]

I jumped on this one a little late....I never owned any hardward outside a cheap mic, tascam 4 track, keyboards, guitars and effects pedals.*(I would love to sell my Boss GT-8 if you're interested*)

I like software because of the price and upgradablilty of it. The compatability issues mentioned earlier with OS's are negligent if you buy a good OS----"MAC OS X." The more you push these companies to improve their standards for your dollar, the less crashes and interface issues you'll have. I have yet to have any identifiable problems, that are beyond minor, and I bought the Mac when no one supported UB apps----stupid me. Still, I have yet to see the err in going software.

I can see why some of the larger studios and more professional(with money)hobbyists desire it, but with advances in sound technology as well as computer performance these separations will become closer and closer.

[terry]

Travis Coats

Hey thanks just out of curiosity is it the floor model or rack model. Besides I was really just looking for the bread and butter rack gear. IE verbs and effects to add to each track as needed. But also like others here have stated it would be about the equivalent as using soft plug ins and fx

[Travis Coats]

The GT8 is the floor model, I just used it to jam out when I was in Korea....it has a Korean plug though Noting that can't be ordered through Boss/Roland.

I was looking at racks a while back and was dissuaded by the prices, but if you look at some of the respected soft fx/plug, they get up there too....WAVES etc.

[terry]

Travis Coats

Hey thanks for the reply. As far as plug ins go Ive got some pretty descent ones now. Ive started to finally wrap my head around kontakt 2 and 3 Its pretty awesome. I also just pick up GR-3 software version for 200.us (a steal). Plus I have cake walk dimension pro and Rapture I find to be pretty awesome too. Another thing I just got in the mail was Direct guitar 2.0 for the kontakt 2 and 3. Tinkering around as a keyboard guitarist. Is pretty slick! The only down side is I have to use a host to set up the kontakt>direct guitar 2.0>GR-3>sonar 7 pe. on Native instruments forum we are trying to get them to produce a mini host to at least load their own various software into kontakt.

[Chipster]

I think the optimum feature software gives over hardware is the total control thingy which gives you greater workflow when you can store EVERYTHING within your host from patches to effects applied.

Lets say you have a good sound going like a fat groove including bassline/ percussion etc, and you want to really stick with this for more productions/ tracks to come.
With software you can just do a ¨save as¨ and a new tune can be prepared for with the same structure, groove and sound as the first one.
This is really a hassle with most hardware and with hardware you really want to know how to arrange music if you're going to get professional results out of it!

All that being said, I'm a huge fan of Access and really love the flavour of these synthesizers.
So having a top notch synthesizer or drum module can't be anything but a really good thing!

I'll have to disagree with you on the first part of this one. I have a slug of hardware synths, and prefer them. Any setting I make during a production in my DAW to a synth can be done via midi even down to effects, and I can save them as so. When I'm working on a project I do it via midi, and then record the tracks as audio once I have them the way I want them. If there's a nice groove I like and think I'd like to use it in the future, it's just a matter of making a loop out of that portion of the sequence, and saving it.

Now I don't even try to suggest that I've tried every soft synth out there, but for the most part, they are totally unaccessable to a blind user, which I am. I can't tell you the number of soft synths and samplers I've loaded on to my machine just to find out that my screen reader can't access any of the app, not even the core sounds. So for me it's a no brainer.

Another point. Again I've not tried every one out there, but I've still not heard a soft synth reproduce the balls that a good hardwware synth has. I'll put my Kurzweil pianos, hell as far as that goes, even my Alesis QS series piano up against any of the soft synth pianos I've heard. Granted I've not heard the Ivory or Akoustik piano, which are rather large soft pianos, but I still wouldn't think it has the fullness of a dedicated synth. I wouldn't part with my old Juno60 for anything in the world. The arpegiator on it still rocks. Heck even my old Ensoniq EPS is still a work horse although these days I don't use the sequencer on it, but it is still a great sampler, and any tweaks I make to a sound can be save to disk. My DW6000 still has some of the best string sounds I've ever heard. And between all of them I can find more than enough basses, and what ever else I might need. and if that's not enough the harmonica on my old Poly61 and PA80 can't be beat. Of course I still have my old Rhondes suitcase, and yes even use it on tracks from time to time. Even though every machine I have has good electric pianos on them none of them have the meat of a good ole' Fender Rhodes.

I guess it comes down to what you cut your teeth on, but the soft synths just haven't caught up to hardware based ones not yet anyway. Then again I started out with a Fender Rhodes, a Yamaha CP80 electric grand, and a Hammond BC with a Lesley45. I don't miss the backaches moving them for sure, but they are classic sounds that even Yamaha hasn't gotten right in software.

Lastly, even though today's PCs and Macs are fast, there's still a drain on your resources when you use them. I'd rather save that processing power for recording audio and plug-in effects. although I wouldn't might a nice rack full of effects either. Just my $.02

[Chipster]

My 2p worth...

1. IMO hardware usually sounds better. A dedicated DSP chip or analogue circuits being used to make audio will (usually [spit spit oberheim OB12]) sound better than a general purpose CPU trying to run an operating system, sequencer, email etc etc.
I havent ever heard of a hardware synth emulating a software synth yet alot of software synths all seem to want to emulate hardware synths.

2. The price of software synths are boardering on ridiculous.
How can manufacturers justify the cost of software emulation being 1/3 of the price of a good hardware rack ?
You can buy a used Virus B for about £250 , with that you get a control surface , a box and better sound quality. It will last you for as long as midi stays around but if you wish to sell it in a few years you wont lose much cash.. OR you can buy vanguard and some other flavour of the month software synth which will only last as long as it is compatible with the PC OS - at a good guess, unless you keep a whole PC to run your older synths, you will only have another 5 years general use before it's obselete and unsellable.

3. Control surfaces.. Pointing your mouse cursor at some tiny scroll bar to change sounds is a pain in the arse and time consuming. Programming your midi controller to do the job is also time consuming and usually doesnt have the same impact as having the legends written infront of you of what the knob actually changes.
Also I have a 24" 1920x1200 res monitor and trying to use some of the softsynths GUI is nearly impossible unless I sit right on top of the screen.

4. If my virus Ti were to crash it wouldnt wipe out everything Ive done that day on my sequencer, sampler, effects unit etc etc.. software has this nack of doing just that though.

5.Portability.... I can take a hardware synth to someplace comfy (my couch infront of the TV), chill with it with headphones on while reading the manual instead of sitting upright at my desk while paging through PDF files on my PC.

as you may guess , I dont like softsynths much. The sample playback synths like Hypersonic are great fun and I can see myself using them in the future. But if a hardware version is out there I believe the money is best spent going that route.
I can see the plus side of software, especially if you get free pirated versions as its an economical way to get professionally sounding noises for next to nothing. Other than that I would never spend £200-300 on a cd with a synth on when the same store probably sells a couple of decent hardware synths for that amount of cash (korg micros, walfdorf blofeld, Nord micro modular etc etc)

Amen

[_controlfreak]

The only hardware digital piano that holds a candle to Ivory is the grand piano patch on my 2002 Clavinova. I have a QS8 too, and the piano patch can take you far - but there isn't a motif/triton/etc in existence that I would take solely for its piano sounds over Ivory.

[Swami Digital]

5.Portability.... I can take a hardware synth to someplace comfy (my couch infront of the TV), chill with it with headphones on while reading the manual instead of sitting upright at my desk while paging through PDF files on my PC.

Um... if you have bunch of softsynths, a laptop + midi controller means you can take ALL your synths with you, anywhere. I've taken that setup on international trips where I had to travel light in my backpack, as well as when I just felt like sitting outside by the pool while making music. Don't get me wrong, I do prefer a mix of hardware and software. I own a few bits of inexpensive hardware. But there's no doubt in my mind for convenience and portability, a laptop based softsynth setup is where it's at. One of the other things I hate about hardware is all the [darn] wires running around. Not bad once you take the time to get them all sorted out, but every time you move, it's a pain.

-D

[Chipster]

You know, 11-12 years ago, if you wanted to record audio, you had to either sing it or play it on a real instrument. Mixologists had to mix on a real mixer. Producers had to know (and pay) all these people. I think the answer lies in how large of a role you want the computer to have. A piece has a different vibe if there is a bass player and drummer playing than having reason spit out some patterned drivel.

But on the opposing side what is a workstation? Its a dedicated computer running softsynths! Except the software is burned into a rom. All the analog VAs can be considered as "soft". The Oasys is probably the perfect case. The little fatty and the voyager and the coming Dave Smith Prophet have analog signal paths.

I hear what you're saying Tweak. I personally haven't ever used Reason, Acid or any of those pattern based apps, but I can tell you I like a real drummer, real bass player, and guitarist better. And your point about a workstation being a didicated computer running soft synths is well made and I agree with that. But there's still something about a hardware based system to me that sounds thicker. It could be a point that an ealier poster made in that a hardware synth doesn't have to do anything but process that sound. Its not running XP or OS10, and all the other things a computer os does no matter how you tweak it for audio. There's also the different engines that manufactures use to achieve that sound as well. For example, my Korg I40M may not have but 16mb of rom and 64 voices, but it does use AI2 synthisis, which flavors those sounds like a soft synth can't or just doesn't do. I think the same case can be made about each one of the sound engines in each synth I own. Oddly enough my thinnest sounding board is the Korg PA80, which uses the same engine as the Trinton. The pianos on it are very weak, but have their uses.

[Chipster]

The only hardware digital piano that holds a candle to Ivory is the grand piano patch on my 2002 Clavinova. I have a QS8 too, and the piano patch can take you far - but there isn't a motif/triton/etc in existence that I would take solely for its piano sounds over Ivory.

Do you know if there's a demo of Ivory available? Being blind, as I said, so many of the soft synths are not accessible, and I tired early on of buying a software package; not being able to use it, and not being able to return it becuase it is software. and how does Ivory stack up to the triple strike grand on the Kurzweil?