Hi All,
I know HyperSonic is great if you just want one single instrument to provide a wide range of sounds, just like having a Korg Triton, Yamaha Motif and the like... although it's too expensive for me.. (I'd rather buy a real Triton! )

Isn't there a valid alternative?

thanks,
Guido

Guido,

You could checkout a variety of sound sets from companies such as sonicreality/esoundz.com, their sampletank le based products provide a wide palette of sounds which you can access through one piece of software. SonicSynth/Omnisoundz (GM) has a wide variety of nice sounds in it. There should be some new and interesting products in this category from SR soon (but I'm not sure if you'll be able to afford them). Then again there are a variety of new products out there which make use of Kontakt technology (Native Instruments), but there doesn't seem to much that's *diverse* in terms of general sounds. There's such a great emphasis on specialist libraries at the moment, like bass, guitars, grooves, strings and drums (just how many multi gig drum kits does one person need????).

If you're looking for basic soundsets there are apparently some sample cd's which have samples from Roland JV series sound modules, but I'm not sure how good any of those really are. Of course you don't get any extra effects or anything with those either (which you do get if you buy a sound collection which comes with the sampletank2 software).

Conextant used to do a giga gm library, no idea how good that is, think I have it somewhere around here actually, never bothered installing it (can't remember what it came with).

No idea why there isn't an ultra huge gm bank for gigasampler either (other than it's difficult to do I guess).

Not sure if you're looking for 'real instruments' (e.g. real violins) or synthetic/hybrid from your posting either.

Spratman

Ravity

Thank you spratman,

I don't need any particular sound out of such an instrument.. I mean.. if I want a Rhodes I use a Rhodes specific VSTi, same thing for analog synths, hammonds, clavinets, pads... etc..

An istrument like Hypersonic has a huge variety of sounds to choose from, instead. So, using it live, it would be like having a GM keyboard, with all kinds of timbres I wish... (the GM mappings doesn't matter) without loading/unloading specific vsti's.

It would be easier and quicker for me to pickup a sound from the list and start playing, mainly during the rehearsals with my band.

Guido.

Ravity is a great alternative. It's not a huge rompler and kicks ass.

Mush

Ravity. Read my review over at www.traxmusic.org for it.

Devon

sonik synth 2 or ravity: check them out. I was blown away from sonik synth and may soon ebay my roland jv280 and get one of the two afore mentioned babies.