What's the best way to achieve this?

[Steve Prince]

Hi Guys,
I'm not a keyboard player but I use Sampletank 2 XL in my studio set up. I'm also the music director for the church I attend and as such decide on musical equipment purchases.

Anyway, today one of our keyboard players came 'round to record a couple of her songs and I used the Sampletank 2 piano sound Acoustic Grand 3, which she loved. She said that it was so much richer than our churces piano sound and that our keyboard players generally mix in strings with this sound to compensate for what it lacks.

My question is: what would be the best option for using Sampletank live? Or, is there a keyboard we can get that has an equally rich piano sound? I've looked at the Roland Fantom X8 but I'm not sure if it's piano sound can compete with luxuriously large software sounds that we all use in Sampletank/Sonik Synth and the like.

I'm a guitarist so I would appreciate any advice you people could offer

Thanking you in anticipation

Steve

[SaviorNeeded]

The advantage of a softsynth setup is future upgradeability (better sounds, different, and so on)--the disadvantage is the keyboard player has to know computers unless someone is handling that end. There are a lot of good hardware synths now for not too much money, but let the keyboard player(s) in your church have a chance to audition them if possible before buying. (BTW, hardware synths can be upgraded too, but usually not in such debth as software)

I'm in the process of building a software/keyboard setup for my church. Two 88s and a two-octave Novation Remote 25 Audio. The two 88s will be a synth-action and a weighted, hammer action, brand names yet to be determined. ST2 and SS2, Cameleon 5000 and others will be the go-to sounds. Yes, we have fun

Tom

[Zoing]

jealous......

[Steve Prince]

I'm in the process of building a software/keyboard setup for my church. Two 88s and a two-octave Novation Remote 25 Audio. The two 88s will be a synth-action and a weighted, hammer action, brand names yet to be determined. ST2 and SS2, Cameleon 5000 and others will be the go-to sounds. Yes, we have fun

Tom

Thanks for the reply Tom

So I take it that you would have a laptop or desktop computer hooked up to these keyboards then? Or would it be one of those rack mount Reactors perhaps?

How would you configure your set up so that you could changes sounds rapidly?

Steve

[SaviorNeeded]

Hi Steve--just woke up here!

Because of our budget limits, this project will probably take several months and is therefore subject to change. Right now, I use a laptop. But I'm for sure going to "hardwire" a desktop into this project so that the system is never unplugged, taken down, moved, etc. The computer will have tons of memory and a fast hard disk so I can have all instruments open and ready to go for each song. This will be Tracktion 2 which is dead simple to do this on. I would have the options of changing sounds between songs either by using the VST gui's or by loading a complete new song--ready to go--in Tracktion. As it is, most of our songs don't require complete instrument changes--most have an organ and piano for example, so I might just click a preset on one instrument and that's all. Major changes would require a new song set-up and probably some "filler" from the leader's mic while everything is changed.

BTW, one advantage of this setup is I can pre-record the CD that contains the song we want onto one of the tracks in Tracktion--that way, we can easily listen to one or more sections over and over.

Tom

[Squids]

I use Sonik Synth 2 and SampleTank 2 live with both my laptop and also a Muse Research Receptor (just so happen to own this here KVR too ). That's not a bad way to go!

[Steve Prince]

Thanks Tom and Squids for your advice

I will look at these options seriously. My only concerns are relying on the stability of a PC rather than a hardware device and the fact that our keyboard players are not fully computer savvy. I suppose the setup could be even more straight forward when Sampletank 2 works in stand alone mode.

I think this is going to rock pretty hard

Steve