Midi-Controller for Software Instruments

[Chris Hein]

Since modern sample librarys and synths get more and more control features,
I would like to know, what kind of midi-controller do you use to get
advantage of all the nice control-features that all the new sample librarys have.

I often hear people say, "I don't wanna tweak too much..."
Is that a problem with "software" instruments?

When the first "virtual" analog hardware synths came out,
it was the fun part to tweak.

Would you use more midi-controllers if there would be a
perfect hardware-controller for your sample librarys?

Chris Hein

[loachm]

...I'm not sure about the purpose of your question, but regarding your products here's just a thought - I don't think that "I don't wanna tweak too much..." is right - in my view it's more about what kind of instrument one wouldn't like to tweak too much. With a synth, the more knobs and parameters the better, but when it comes to large samplesets with realistic instruments, I think people just want to able to play it without having to worry about too many controllers. It's a bit of an error in reasoning - The problem is that they might forget that just these natural articulations a guitar or a brass player would do don't come out of nowhere. So people might get surprised if they realise they have to do some extensive programming while a guitarist doesn't have to do that. Since everybody knows the sound of such instruments one can have a very detailed image of how this or that riff should sound very soon. But it takes some time and knowledge to program realistic riffs like that - I've experienced this with the Scarbee JS&F and the Prominy LPC and I guess, it's the same with your brass library (...and I know that it has a lot of controllers...).
I think it's more a question of how many controllers/articulations are used automatically while playing without actually 'tweaking' them. I talking about aftertouch, foot & sustain pedals, velocities and such (the LPC super performance player is a good example for that or the new Vienna Instrument - I also liked your demo of that trombone sound controlled via a ribbon controller). It all comes down to simplifying the process of programming and improving the playing performance. Regarding Kontakt, I think some scripting offering different 'playing styles' (perhaps talking in terms of 'soft' or 'aggressive') that would automatically use the neccessary controllers would be a solution. But as I said before it's just a thought and I don't know if this answers your question...

Grüße in die Domstadt.