Soft Synth???

[normthesamurai]

I keep hearing this soft synth thing being mentioned but what is it? As far as I can tell it is like a synthesisiser for your computer... I'm guessing this is so you can hookup a midi cintroller to your computer and use it as a synth right? If so then what are the disadvantages of using a Pc as synth?

[losmusicanos]

disadvantages...

less reliability and stability than a "hard synth" (hehe that's funny... lol)

less transportability for live application, though with a good software-based system, it can be better than to carry "hard synths" (since you can have plenty of different synths in one machine).

probably other disadvantages that someone will point out, I'm not an expert when it comes to soft synths.

[jeebustrain]

I think the biggest disadvantage that anyone will point out is the stability factor. But that can be resolved by several methods. The first involving a dedicated piece of hardware like the Muse Receptor (like what Jordan uses). The second is using your PC/mac as a dedicated music production device, and not to email, play games, surf for porn, etc. It's only as stable as you let it be. I use a laptop live for soft synths, sequence and sample playback, and as something to control patch changes on all my outboard gear.

Others may also say latency or loading delay, but that can all be remedied by using a proper audio interface and VST host. For each song of ours, it takes about 5-7 seconds for me to load the programs (and all associated soft synths) at the beginning, and from there on, sound changes are seamless within the song.

[normthesamurai]

cool ok Im guessing youd need a pretty good laptop to run a soft synth right?

[jeebustrain]

cool ok Im guessing youd need a pretty good laptop to run a soft synth right?


depends on the soft synth... look at what the minimum system requirements are. A friend of mine runs NI B4, Gmedia Mtron (mellotron), Arturia Minimoog, and NI FM7, all on a P3-800 w/ 384MB of ram. That's about as barebones as you can get, but it works for him. He also can only run one at a time.

I use an Athlon64 3000+ notebook with 1GB of ram and I can run 4-6 soft synths at one time (including a fairly proc intensive Edirol Piano VST), play back samples, and play sequences without having any problems

[pmarafio]

disadvantages...

less reliability and stability than a "hard synth" (hehe that's funny... lol)



I used to agree with that but it is no longer the case. I have been running MiniMoog V, Reason, and Pro53 on my Apple PowerBook for months and it is as stable or more stable than hardware synths at this point. My PowerBook is a 1.33 Ghz with 768MB RAM. I use an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile interface.

I've also been noticing more and more PowerBook / Softsynth setups on stages lately. I recently saw Porcupine Tree; Rich Barbieri was using his PowerBook to run Pro53 and Kontakt. Last weekend I saw Steve Weingart with Dave Weckl and he had a PowerBook running Logic with some great plug-ins.

I'll say this much - carrying around a PowerBook and an audio interface is an awfully nice way to take racks of great sounding synths to gigs and sessions!!

[Farren]

Yep, stability hasn't been an issue for years. I run a lot of different VSTs at once, including intensive stuff like a 2gb piano VST, and my 2.4ghz OC'd Athlon with 1gb ram has never crashed, never missed a note-off, never done anything bad. I also use IRC and P2P while I use VSTs. Never a problem in any way.

If you're still experiencing instability when using VSTs on your modern computer, please ensure you're using a real host (pretty much anything that isn't Cubase SX3). If you still have problems, format your horribly cluttered partition and look into cutting out all the services and drivers you don't use. If you still have problems, you probably don't have the technical skills to use a computer in any useful manner outside word processing and AIM.

I'm really tired of people parroting 'unstable, unstable!' when it just isn't the case at all. I think 90% of these people don't even use VSTs.

[ChrisMcCoy]

Pc's have come a long way, especially recently, and no doubt, you'd probably have no problem gigging with softsynths triggered from your laptop. Of course as another option, you could always go with the MUSE receptor http://www.museresearch.com/ as a rack mount hardware solution to store and manage your softsynths. The advantage here would be consolidation in an existing midi rack as opposed to having an outboard laptop.
Just my 2 c.
Chris

[jeebustrain]

Yep, stability hasn't been an issue for years. I run a lot of different VSTs at once, including intensive stuff like a 2gb piano VST, and my 2.4ghz OC'd Athlon with 1gb ram has never crashed, never missed a note-off, never done anything bad. I also use IRC and P2P while I use VSTs. Never a problem in any way.

If you're still experiencing instability when using VSTs on your modern computer, please ensure you're using a real host (pretty much anything that isn't Cubase SX3). If you still have problems, format your horribly cluttered partition and look into cutting out all the services and drivers you don't use. If you still have problems, you probably don't have the technical skills to use a computer in any useful manner outside word processing and AIM.

I'm really tired of people parroting 'unstable, unstable!' when it just isn't the case at all. I think 90% of these people don't even use VSTs.


Amen brother. Just like with any other instrument, you have to know how to use it. If you half-ass learn how to use it, you're going to get half-ass results.

[Farren]

Yep. User error is always going to be a huge issue with computers considering everyone uses compuers now and most of 'everyone' is stupid :P

As for the Receptor, it's cool and I'd have one if I had more money than things to spend it on, but I view it mostly as a premanufactured computer: It's all there and ready to use out of the box, but it's also multitudes more expensive than buying the individual components. Personally, I'd rather put together an A64 box dedicated to music with more muscle than the Receptor for a fraction of the price.

[losmusicanos]

I'm really tired of people parroting 'unstable, unstable!' when it just isn't the case at all. I think 90% of these people don't even use VSTs.

I hope it wasn't aimed at me. But I don't even use VSTs indeed (I tried some demos but my soundcard was too old, so the latency was a big issue. :? :-? :???:

[losmusicanos]

most of 'everyone' is stupid :P

I sadly have to agree :D

By the way, when I pointed the stability, I was more thinking of the HDD fragility, for example. A more appropriate term would be reliability, or something like that.

It makes me think of reviewers saying "it doesn't seem solid, I wouldn't like to gig too much with it" about cheap keyboards which are still much more solid than a computer (I know, one can always answer: "if you take care of your gear...etc.. etc...", and I agree).

[Farren]

Nah it was aimed at no one in specific... It's just something people always say when VSTs come up. You can get a soundcard that supports ASIO for $50 (~4ms latency) and hdd fragility, well... No HDD lasts forever, but almost all mine have lasted at least 4 years. I wouldn't advise using typical laptop internal hds, though, as they're slow-as-fuck usually. I also try not to keep performance-oriented software on the same IDE channel as my OS. A 200gb 7200 RPM Seagate + external enclosure will run you about $150, will last several years with heavy use, and is large enough to hold virtually all VSTs in existence.

[jeebustrain]

Nah it was aimed at no one in specific... It's just something people always say when VSTs come up. You can get a soundcard that supports ASIO for $50 (~4ms latency) and hdd fragility, well... No HDD lasts forever, but almost all mine have lasted at least 4 years. I wouldn't advise using typical laptop internal hds, though, as they're slow-as-fuck usually. I also try not to keep performance-oriented software on the same IDE channel as my OS. A 200gb 7200 RPM Seagate + external enclosure will run you about $150, will last several years with heavy use, and is large enough to hold virtually all VSTs in existence.


I completely agree. I use an external M-Audio Firewire interface w/ my laptop w/ 8 analog outs (for external mixing and routing to vocoders). It's in my rack and I have a firewire cable connected to it that I snap an external 7200rpm HDD enclosure to whenever I set my rig up. All of my samples, VST instruments, and setups for Live are on this disk. I take that disk off my rig and connect it to my desktop computer and I back up the entire disk. I also have a 2nd HDD waiting in the wings, should this thing ever start to crap out. This is all besides an active backup that I keep on the (slower) internal laptop hard drive. Honestly, with my setup, even the laptop could also be swapped out in a matter of minutes with little issue.

But to your point, yes, hard drives WILL eventually break if they are constantly being schlepped around from gig to gig. That's why you should buy generic enclosures and keep backups. If my hard drive dies, I can have a new one up and alive in about 10 minutes (the time it takes to open the enclosure, swap the drive, quick format, and copy the data).

[ktriton]

Yep, I agree with the stability issue on all fronts. But I also just wanted to say that SX3 runs fine if you're sane about distributing resources. Like naturally if you put a gigantic reverb plugin on every single individual channel, it'll take up lots of space, but if you assign it to an aux send or something, you'll be fine. It really is just about not being stupid in these situations.

Also, as much as I love VSTs, using outboard gear is way more efficient in the end. At least in my opinion.

[Biospark]

Stablity has never been an issue for me at all, but softsynths for me have something missing. There is something lacking in the sounds when they try to emulate analog type synths. However, the FM7 was absolutely brilliant. I think if you're going to do something softsynth, make it digital. We have enough analog emulators to make the world go round, make something distinctive.