I've been doing a lot of work programming sounds for our K-Station and CS1x in preparation for our upcoming live shows and I find it fascinating that I feel the need to drown them in effects to make them sound any good yet I use almost no effects at all in ORION. I think its that all the hardware presets are saturated with reverb, chorus, delay and a load of other things and removing them makes things sound weaker. In ORION I find that adding effects rarely improves a sound and generally muddies up my mixes so I mostly stick to a Platinum Reverb in Send 1 and X-Delay [or another delay that I can't tell you about] in Send 2. Beyond that, I only use Tube Distortion or 2 Band Distortion as inserts on bass and/or lead sounds [and on drums].
So I feel that it is generally better to start with a "raw" sound and not worry about effects until much later in the process which is probably why I don't rate on-board effects too highly. Trouble is, the K-Station has 5 or 6 simultaneous effects and the CS1x has three and there are just there all the freakin' time.

this is not an unusual subject. many VSTi's sound ok in their preset form, however, if you remove the preset effects (which will, eventually, probarly f*ck up your mix anyway), the raw signal given by the vsti (or hardware, whatsoever), will reveal its weakness. It is here you reveal the true quality of the instrument you are using.

In example, try out all Novation synths (both hard and soft). strip it of effects, and it is pure plastic. and i mean PLASTIC, as in sound. try the filters, again IT IS PLASTIC. when you here it you will know what i mean.

now, if you have the opportunity, play around with either a real moog or creamwares minimax. strip it of all effects (of course there isnt any on the real moog ) and compare it to arturias moog. again, you will be dissapointed.

lesson to be learned:
Most of the time, listening to the plugin stripped will dissapoint you.

but bear in mind, in a real mix, my guess is nobody will notice

piddi wrote:

try out all Novation synths (both hard and soft). strip it of effects, and it is pure plastic. and i mean PLASTIC

I agree completely. I could never imagine using K-Station for anything but big leads or pads. It's filter is bad but soooo much better than theone in the CS1x.

Quote:

now, if you have the opportunity, play around with either a real moog

I've never liked Moog filters' resonance much either. In fact, until Rich made WaspXT my favourite res filter sound was made using KORG's AI waveshapers in my old O1R/W.

BONES wrote:

piddi wrote: try out all Novation synths (both hard and soft). strip it of effects, and it is pure plastic. and i mean PLASTIC I agree completely. I could never imagine using K-Station for anything but big leads or pads. It's filter is bad but soooo much better than theone in the CS1x. Quote: now, if you have the opportunity, play around with either a real moog I've never liked Moog filters' resonance much either. In fact, until Rich made WaspXT my favourite res filter sound was made using KORG's AI waveshapers in my old O1R/W.

Whew!!
And I thought that I was the only one not liking the X-stations sound.

Man, I sold my A-station just months after I bought it...I don´t know what that "liquid analog" sound is supposed to be, but on all the novation synths that I have tried the sound is plastic...but not thin though.

To me the Novation is good for soft pads and smooth bass, but not cutting lead or up front parts. Novation effects are not very good. I can turn off the reverb on my KSR and run it through my Roland digital reverb and the change in sound is like someone removed a blanket that was covering the speakers.

Robert

Hmmm, I'm the opposite - I only use it for big leads and pads because there is nothing at all wrong with the oscillators. Some of the arpeggiated basses sound OK but still not brilliant. I like some of the effects and its great that you can apply them all simultaneously. With the CS1x you get a reverb, a dodgy chorus and a choice of one of a fantastic set of effects including 3 kinds of distortion, all manner of choruses and flangers, etc, etc. But only one at a time.

I use novation supernova2 for leads and I think it sounds great.