SoftSynths and Connections

[St0rMl0rD]

Hi there!

I am getting kinda involwed into softsynths and now I want to know which are the best for PC and how should I connect my Kurz; through MIDI to PC?

tnx :wink:

[MoonDark]

You should check absynth , it is pretty impressive :)

[Axe2Grind]

Well the best way to connect your Kurz to Midi is by getting a USB Midi interface, M-Audio do a nice basic 1 in 1 out midi interface which will do the job. As far as Softsynths go, All Native Instruments synths are brilliant, but depends on what kind of sounds you're after, Also Propellerhead Reason 2.5 is a great all in one music studio which is what I use most of the time now. :)

[MoonDark]

Oh I use a USB fastlane (MOTU) midi interface, it is rock solid ..

[maJ estY]

Yup, that's good!
A Mac would be better, otherwise you need to have a very fast PC and a very good soundcard to lower the delay!

[Spacehog]

Any of the M-Audio delta cards are fine for either PC or Mac, they have very low latency so very fast response. I'd second the comments about the Native Instruments stuff, it's great. The Spectrasonics synths (Stylus, Atmosphere, Trilogy) are also pretty impressive, and if you've got a ton of memory, Garritan Personal Orchestra (which runs on a version of NI's Kompakt) is great... I've got 1.5Gb and that's about the right amount to get it to run well.

Martin

[MoonDark]

whats that orchesta that you are mentioning? :)

[Spacehog]

http://www.garritan.com/GPO.html

It's a couple of gigabytes in size (comes on 4 CDs) and has some really nice samples. You need a seriously powerful PC to run it in 24/96, but it will run quite happily at 16/44.1 on most recent PC's, although it likes a lot of memory, cos it loads the whole thing into memory. It *will* run on a lower spec PC than the page says, I ran it on a Duron 1.3GHz, but it runs a lot better on my 2.4GHz Athlon XP that I've got now :)

The pipe organs are beautiful, and I've yet to hear a bad sound on it, albeit there are certain songs I prefer from my E-MU Orchestral expansions. All the instruments are available dry or wet, and there are ready-made ensembles with different parts split to different MIDI channels ready to go. The Kontakt player it uses is quite discrete and easy to use, and it's available as a DXI, VSTI and standalone (there may be others, but I use Sonar so haven't come across them).

All in all, an affordable way of getting some very good quality sounds. It's not the Vienna Symphonic library, but then it's not $5000 and doesn't require a Gigastudio machine! :)

Martin

[St0rMl0rD]

um well...I own a DMX 6fire soundcard, which has a frontpanel with midi in and out already installed..so how do I do it with software??

tnx