It's the best - ever!

[Manc Chris]

Yeah your totally spot on there.

In fact, I reckon that there should be a box to click onto at the top of the forums ..

"I have downladed EVERY vst and effect ever, courtesy of p2p. Please tell me which ones to use. And how."

[Stupid American Pig]

I think its the loss of humanity of the organization. The ass who makes the decisions is isolated from those who experience the consequences of those decisions. He is only answerable to the bean counters. And they don't care that the low-level employee can't provide for their own needs, much less those of his/her family. They don't give a shit about oil-soaked Nigerian land, and its cancer wracked inhabitants. They don't give to shits about the decreasing regenerative capabilities of our atmosphere.

That's where the "Big Evil Corporation" comes from.

I agree with everything else you said.

I guess that may be true, but neither does the Nigerian government, which is *way* more corrupt than even Enron could have aspired to be. Besides that isnt it the governments job to take care of its inhabitants and not a company that has been contracted to work there?

[Stupid American Pig]

back to xbruces post, I agree an dwould like to see more posts like- "how would I create this sound with x synth" or how could I do X? how can you duplicate this effect? and whatnot. X Vs Y posts are getting tired very quickly.

What I have never understood is why does it have to be x vs Y, when you could easily save your pennies and have both X AND Y?!?!?!?!

[bmanic]

There's even a sub-culture of, "you'll never get me to buy from the evil companies" of which all are evil as they have a profit motive.

Welll..... I'll put it this way. A corporation that puts profits ahead of all other concerns, tends to be very profitable, but very damaging to its surrounding world. Hence the classification as 'evil'.

Kinda like the treatment that the early union organizers got from the big corps. Or the paper industry's propensity to keep chopping trees down, even though hemp makes better paper and replentishes the soil, just because some rich old fart owns a lot of forest land, which would become worthless. Or the establishment of huge environmentally disastrous oil plants, simple because environmentally responsible plants are more expensive.

Money is not the root of all evil. Greed is.

I think its the loss of humanity of the organization. The ass who makes the decisions is isolated from those who experience the consequences of those decisions. He is only answerable to the bean counters. And they don't care that the low-level employee can't provide for their own needs, much less those of his/her family. They don't give a shit about oil-soaked Nigerian land, and its cancer wracked inhabitants. They don't give to shits about the decreasing regenerative capabilities of our atmosphere.

That's where the "Big Evil Corporation" comes from.

I agree with everything else you said.

Very good points mate! Totally agree here.. not that it has to do anything with VSTi's (..yet).

Cheers!
bManic

[1-2-Many]

Just mjones jumping to broad conclusions again, and by his response implying that that's what xbruce meant, where xbruce was quite clear in framing a context around his remarks.

He's quite good at doing that

[nuffink]

Just mjones jumping to broad conclusions again, and by his response implying that that's what xbruce meant, where xbruce was quite clear in framing a context around his remarks.

He's quite good at doing that

Don't worry about it. The geezer's a well known nutter. Every forum has them.

[CypherOne]

Just mjones jumping to broad conclusions again, and by his response implying that that's what xbruce meant, where xbruce was quite clear in framing a context around his remarks.

He's quite good at doing that

Don't worry about it. The geezer's a well known nutter. Every forum has them.

but he makes some damn good music/tracks/beats...

[x_bruce]

That's good to know, now, if anyone wants to stay on topic that would be fine.

btw, if I felt I was being misquoted to any degree, if it wasn't obvious by now, know I would have pounced on it.

otoh, one problem I see here a lot is the socialism vs capitalism type thread which is even worse than vst vs vst threads.

The irrationality that one person can do has been pointed out to me in a recent thread that I'm not going to mentioned as I don't need a war on my hands. Suffice to say, it's nice to get opinions but sometimes experts use that opinion as "appeal to authority". If the person is famous, rich, a VST developer or artist you can bet some people won't challenge their word no matter how moronic it is.

My suggestion? Don't believe anything 100%. When in doubt, ask the developer, they'll give you the straight story, and maybe give you a new perspective on who's worth listening to.

It's because of laziness like this that the hardware industry became so screwed up. Sometimes I want to shake some people here who hunker down with a bunker mentality and say, "is that all you can do?" I'm positive there are people here that put less effort into a VSTi purchase than ordering a meal at a restaurant.

[C00kie]

It's funny, on the Latest Posts site what do I see but:
"SynthEdit vs SynthMaker"
"The Best free notiation editor/printer"

The day there is a "best" anything, I might have to shuffle of this mortal coil.

I totally agree... There is no "best", just like there is no absolute right or wrong. Those are relative and subjective terms.

However, if I read a subject "what is the best ..." or "x vs y" I translate that to myself as if the subject were "can you name me some ..." or "what makes x different from y". Well, I try anyway. And it helps a great deal, let them make up their own mind what fits their needs.

Thank God we're all different & unique!

[1-2-Many]

I interpret the 'which is best' question as, "I want something in category A, but have no idea where to begin looking so I'll ask those who've supposedly "been there", rather than doing ground zero research myself."

I assume the person asking this kind of question is aware they'll get a varied response (which is likely why they put it up for a poll in the first place), the results of which they can investigate further.

I'd also hope (and assume) they'd not think one person's preferences, or even a consensus, as representing "The Best"....but who knows

Better posted would be, "What are some good A's for doing B"

The VS threads however, IMO smack of laziness and a misguided appeal to popularity - just look em up yourself (website, specs, demo) and make a choice! Unless the person is legitimately trying to discover in what fundimental ways two things (especially those which appear to cover the same ground) differ.


.

[ianweb123]

However, whatever the 'Best' question relates to whether it be 'Leadline' or 'Pad' or whatever, the same 30,000 plug-ins will get a mention, some of which could never be construed as worthy of 'adequate for the role', let alone, 'best for the role'!!

[Steven West]

I likes what I know, and I knows what I likes.

If someones in a pinch and says "I've just been hired to do a song for a jazz singer, what VSTi's have good jazz instruments on them per say - I only play techno pop as a rule"... Yeah, I'll try to help them out.

But the ones that are "I just bought Cubase, Fairlight Merlin and all the Arturia and NI synths and never played a note in my life. How do I start?"
Those I do find amusing, and I bite my tongue from saying "Start with taking them all back, and go to Radio Shack and buy the cheapest Casio Portatone there is. If in 3-6 months you're not into collecting Star Wars figurines or taking a Real Estate course to get rich quick - then start to expand... A BIT!"

[x_bruce]

Regarding tutorials, musicFAQ http://www.musifaq.net will be featuring tutorials on several synths and tricks of the trade regarding programming sound.

The first tutorial, one of three, will be Symptohm:Melohman. I am responsible at this point to finish up my part of the tutorial. It's very close to complete.

If people would like to donate help to help peers, we would be happy to post your tutorials or articles regarding sound programming or specific synthesizer programming. In fact, we'd be greatful to anyone interested. It is something I'd hoped to be doing by now at the site and haven't been able to due to the huge success of our software review area.

[TVD]

Maybe it's me, but here are some of my "love to hate" phrases for topics:

"What's the best" - here, I'll answer that right now - nothing is the best. Best is what has the features you need combined with the ability to get them to work in a style you find intuitive

" 'X' vs 'Z' " - hey, I have a great idea, why not get some petroleum and a blow torch and see if we can have fun?

"I need a great, free Trance synth"....continued, that can do phat basses, screaming leads and mesmerizing pads, but I don't want to buy it. So where can I find some SE guy's synth? He's charging for it? Bastard!

I was once a teenager trying to record. Trust me, in 1972 recording was not a cheap hobby. Nor 1982, though Portastudios started cropping up which traded quality for accessability and price. The 90s were mostly a waste unless you waited till '95 or later and went DAW, but it wasn't cheap. Finally the '00s are here, you can buy a 8 track digital Portastudio for $400, you can put a DAW together for the cost of a decent sound card, $200 or so and some cheap to free music software.

But that doesn't make people happy. Now there has to be monster synths that do tremendous things, but heaven help the developer for charging $50. Still, some people create true greatness, Glenn's Crystal synth, UGO's Motion (and others), Rene's Triangle 1 and 2, Synth 1, polyibitblit, GalactiX and hundreds more. All free, all good.

There's even a sub-culture of, "you'll never get me to buy from the evil companies" of which all are evil as they have a profit motive.

While it may be fun to some, I'm starting to sense these discussions often go nowhere other than lame "my setup is better than you setup" whilest both are free setups.

Here's the awful truth. Native Instruments makes a FM synth that uses 3% CPU playing a triad on both my old Athlon XP1700 and current XP2400 processors. So does Pro-53 and B4. Waldorf (may they rise like a Phoenix) made Attack and PPG Wave 2.v bullet proof and also in the 3% CPU club.

G-Media's M-Tron, Oddity and impOSCar have slightly larger loads, 4%, 8% and 6%, still way below most synths today, and lots of people think impOSCar is one of the fattest, satisfying synths on the market, myself included.

Why should these synths be free or undervalued?

Here's the deal. If you hate buying software synths at a 1/10 the street price - don't, but shut up about their not being 100% what the originals are. I don't think anyone could replicate synths from the past, and the ones mentioned are at the pinnicle of development.

Anyone else care to contribute to the debate?

Btw, we can disagree on this, but let's do it in a civil way.

Next up!

Just as long as you can try to remember that Image-Line created FLS next time around , I say that you right about everything that you said in this essay.

And I respect you even today because you give a good report in all of your Intruments/Hosts reviews. Keep up the great work!

[x_bruce]

Thank you for your kind words.

I'm having some touble discussing ImageLine right now. It is shameful what has been going on in that thread. Rhino is one of the finest synths I use. To see it dragged through the treacle to support someone's ego is beyond comprehension to me.

I look at virtual synth developers and almost to a man admire their work. I even like Sytrus. But not the way it is being promoted here, nor the way a better synth is being picked apart by a developer from ImageLine. It destroys my faith in the company and the person that has more to say about another synth than his own.

As the used to say in my neighborhood, "truth will out".