I always tend to buy software instruments that have a standalone version and not just vst/au. But some big instruments don't have it- like Omnisphere and Zebra.

Yet smaller companies such as Loomer and FAW manage it. Why can't Spectrasonics and U-he? Have they done market research and found out nobody is bothered about having a standalone version?

I just really like being able to play an instrument without opening a DAW, and it matters to me. Should I get over it?

I just use Minihost; SAVIhost does much the same thing. Can't see much need for an .exe version myself.

I also really appreciate having a standalone version included, particularly when you just want to fiddle and design sounds. I've also had some really flaky experiences with a couple of big-name standalones, so it's not necessarily a dealmaker for me. Loomer Aspect and Fab Twin are the most solid standalones I've encountered so far, and Saurus seemed solid too when I demoed it. I really wish u-he would consider standalones of their stuff, you could run them on a dedicated laptop to ease some CPU strain.

I'm with you on this. I like to open just the synth without all the fuss associated with running a plugin, for sound design and such. But it's a convenience, nothing more and certainly not a factor in purchasing.

Typically I hate the bundled .exe and get rid of it after installation, but there are some synths that spring to mind (diva, omnisphere) which are big/enjoyable enough on their own (and resource hogs!).
In those cases I'd want a standalone, but for most, I would prefer not, if I needed them alone, I'd use the previous suggestion.

It requires knowledge of many things doing a standalone - like interfacing an audio interface and midi interface on the computer with a lot of variations and different hardware and accessing the drivers directly and control panel for those.

You need to handle all variations of bitdepth and sample rates and enumerate what is to choose from.

A VST host handle all those things.

Internal handling of hosts are usually 32/64 bit float and you handle an event for each sample.

So I understand that some don't bother. But once they made this for one product they could easily make standalone for everything obviously.

I totally hate when I have to install a stand-alone alongside the VSTi. I never use stand-alone versions anyways and as such find them waste of space. When I need to just program sounds I prefer SAVIhost.

Extremely important.

Fundamental, I'd say.

I have no interest in standalone versions... never use em... waste of developer time to have to deal with all the audio interface stuff and add functionality to the synth just to use it separately. I prefer the developer to be able to focus on the synth and not a bunch of audio and midi protocols. Leave that to the daw makers.

And it is absurdly easy if I just want to program sounds to open the daw and drop a particular synth on a track (or save it as a template project.)

A split then! Stange to be actively against standalone though- it can't do any harm

I don't care if it's there or not... I never use it... only time ever that I fire up standalones is when I'm beta testing a synth that's got it. Apart from that, never.

Yep. Agreed 100%

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