This sounds like this might be a good software rompler. The SOund design is from the lady that used to be the lead sound designer at Kurzweil.
My main complaint with software romplers is lack of good sound design and effects, so I guess SOnivox is getting the message.
Sonivox Soundstage ROmpler
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
I don't see how this would be better than SoniVox Muse? It's far smaller of a library, and no amount of sound design can replace multiple velocity layers and multiple articulations--and that always translates into a larger footprint.
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- KVRian
- 897 posts since 2 Aug, 2001 from norway
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 38 posts since 14 Dec, 2007
The Sound Design is what makes the Motif's and Fantom's sounds so good. Even though they are all less than a good.Lunatique wrote:I don't see how this would be better than SoniVox Muse? It's far smaller of a library, and no amount of sound design can replace multiple velocity layers and multiple articulations--and that always translates into a larger footprint.
I think I should have put this thread in "instruments"
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- something special
- 8627 posts since 16 Mar, 2002 from Birmingham, Alabama
indeed! +1kiksogue wrote: The Sound Design is what makes the Motif's and Fantom's sounds so good.
fixed that for you!I think I should have put this thread in "instruments"
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
I have never heard of a single recording made with the keyboard workstations that rival the high-end sample libraries on the market in terms of realism and expressiveness (I'm talking about real instrument presets). That's one of the main selling points of ROMPlers--that they contain both bread n' butter real instruments and electronic ones.kiksogue wrote:
The Sound Design is what makes the Motif's and Fantom's sounds so good. Even though they are all less than a good.
But to be fair, Soundstage is much cheaper than Muse as well, probably aiming at a different type of customer.
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- KVRAF
- 4340 posts since 8 Mar, 2005
Many top notch pro-composers use keyboard workstations for many main sounds. The "cleanest" sound doesnt mean the best sound.Lunatique wrote:I have never heard of a single recording made with the keyboard workstations that rival the high-end sample libraries on the market in terms of realism and expressiveness (I'm talking about real instrument presets). That's one of the main selling points of ROMPlers--that they contain both bread n' butter real instruments and electronic ones.kiksogue wrote:
The Sound Design is what makes the Motif's and Fantom's sounds so good. Even though they are all less than a good.
But to be fair, Soundstage is much cheaper than Muse as well, probably aiming at a different type of customer.
Check out the Slumdog Millionare soundtrack, many other albums by ARR. You'll hear fantom X all over the place. The guy has a studio people dream of.
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
Clean has nothing to do with it. It's all about extensive articulations and velocity layers. I have never seen a single keyboard workstation that allows for tons of keyswitches or other ways of mapping various articulations of an instrument using either crossfade velocity, modwheel, expression pedal...etc. Some of the recent workstations seems to try to emulate the kind of advances we have seen in the sample library world by adding a keyswitch or two, or crossfade a couple of velocity/modwheel articulations, but nothing that even comes close to dedicated high-end sample libraries. Show me a single workstation that has presets that rivals the amount of articulations and velocity layers found in sample libraries like the VSL, EWQL, SoniVox, Kirk Hunter, Ocean Way, BFD, Toontrack, Chris Hein...etc. They are just two completely different types of products aimed at different needs. Serious composers all use high-end sample libraries, and if they are using their keyboard workstation presets for anything, it's probably the kind of sounds that doesn't require maximum realism and expressiveness. I'm sure there are some presets here and there that sound quite good on keyboard workstations, but as a whole, any serious composer who tries to score an entire project with a Motif or Fantom probably just haven't discovered high-end sample libraries yet (he's probably living in a cave?).keyman_sam wrote:[
Many top notch pro-composers use keyboard workstations for many main sounds. The "cleanest" sound doesnt mean the best sound.
Keep in mind I'm not talking about electronic sounds. I'm only talking about real instrument sounds. Electronic sounds are so easy to get these days it's not even worth talking about.
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- KVRist
- 369 posts since 18 Sep, 2008
I'm downloading the trial version of soundstage now. Thanks for the heads-up, kiksogue!
On another note...
Bad sounding electronic sounds are *very* easy to get these days, though decent ones often carry a premium.
When it comes to acoustic instruments, It's not all about velocity layers and articulations, either. VSLs main advantages are the quality in which it was recorded, the fact that it was recorded dry, and the presence of real recorded legato and portamento slides for a number of instruments.
In fact, a number of instruments in the VSL appassionata and chamber strings have only two velocity layers - and the rest only go up to 4.
As far as pads go, so far, fantoms still give sample libraries a run for their money. They're certainly better sounding than the pads included with EWQL's colossus (now goliath), and sound as good if not better than those presets included in arturia's analog factory, Cubase 5's synthesizers, and Ableton Live Suite's presets.
Most patches on my M3 88 have two velocity layers, making them, by your standards of measurement, on par with the aformentioned VSL libraries' sustained strings -- a single articulation per each -- something which you couldn't be more wrong about. But its pads are far better than anything I've seen or heard from software. It also does some things with samples that none of the libraries or softsynths I've seen do quite as well.
Lunatique, do you happen to be a friend of Casalena's?
On another note...
Bad sounding electronic sounds are *very* easy to get these days, though decent ones often carry a premium.
When it comes to acoustic instruments, It's not all about velocity layers and articulations, either. VSLs main advantages are the quality in which it was recorded, the fact that it was recorded dry, and the presence of real recorded legato and portamento slides for a number of instruments.
In fact, a number of instruments in the VSL appassionata and chamber strings have only two velocity layers - and the rest only go up to 4.
As far as pads go, so far, fantoms still give sample libraries a run for their money. They're certainly better sounding than the pads included with EWQL's colossus (now goliath), and sound as good if not better than those presets included in arturia's analog factory, Cubase 5's synthesizers, and Ableton Live Suite's presets.
Most patches on my M3 88 have two velocity layers, making them, by your standards of measurement, on par with the aformentioned VSL libraries' sustained strings -- a single articulation per each -- something which you couldn't be more wrong about. But its pads are far better than anything I've seen or heard from software. It also does some things with samples that none of the libraries or softsynths I've seen do quite as well.
Lunatique, do you happen to be a friend of Casalena's?
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
Who's Casalena?Fidelity wrote:I'm downloading the trial version of soundstage now. Thanks for the heads-up, kiksogue!
On another note...
Bad sounding electronic sounds are *very* easy to get these days, though decent ones often carry a premium.
When it comes to acoustic instruments, It's not all about velocity layers and articulations, either. VSLs main advantages are the quality in which it was recorded, the fact that it was recorded dry, and the presence of real recorded legato and portamento slides for a number of instruments.
In fact, a number of instruments in the VSL appassionata and chamber strings have only two velocity layers - and the rest only go up to 4.
As far as pads go, so far, fantoms still give sample libraries a run for their money. They're certainly better sounding than the pads included with EWQL's colossus (now goliath), and sound as good if not better than those presets included in arturia's analog factory, Cubase 5's synthesizers, and Ableton Live Suite's presets.
Most patches on my M3 88 have two velocity layers, making them, by your standards of measurement, on par with the aformentioned VSL libraries' sustained strings -- a single articulation per each -- something which you couldn't be more wrong about. But its pads are far better than anything I've seen or heard from software. It also does some things with samples that none of the libraries or softsynths I've seen do quite as well.
Lunatique, do you happen to be a friend of Casalena's?
Even if you don't count velocity layers, you still can't ignore the articulations. When you need an expressive performance, there's just no way to get all the different playing techniques without various articulations. You can kind of fake it by tweaking the preset with parameters like attack, filter cutoff mapped to velocity...etc, but you can only take that so far before you really do need more articulations, especially if you don't want your performance of a real instrument patch to sound like it's been handicapped by lack of articulations.
Pads are electronic sounds, and I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about instrument patches like sax, trumpet, cello, acoustic guitar, skin percussions, electric guitar/bass, choir...etc.
As far as electronic sounds go, when we can actually get some nice ones from freeware synths, I'd say that's pretty easy, not to mention some of the best soft synths don't cost anywhere near what a good hardware synth would cost. I'm not going to get into the hardware vs. software argument since I really don't care--I have never listened to an electronic track and thought "That sounds so software! If only they used hardware synths it could be so much better."
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- KVRist
- 369 posts since 18 Sep, 2008
Was j/k on the casalena thingLunatique wrote:Who's Casalena?Fidelity wrote:I'm downloading the trial version of soundstage now. Thanks for the heads-up, kiksogue!
On another note...
Bad sounding electronic sounds are *very* easy to get these days, though decent ones often carry a premium.
When it comes to acoustic instruments, It's not all about velocity layers and articulations, either. VSLs main advantages are the quality in which it was recorded, the fact that it was recorded dry, and the presence of real recorded legato and portamento slides for a number of instruments.
In fact, a number of instruments in the VSL appassionata and chamber strings have only two velocity layers - and the rest only go up to 4.
As far as pads go, so far, fantoms still give sample libraries a run for their money. They're certainly better sounding than the pads included with EWQL's colossus (now goliath), and sound as good if not better than those presets included in arturia's analog factory, Cubase 5's synthesizers, and Ableton Live Suite's presets.
Most patches on my M3 88 have two velocity layers, making them, by your standards of measurement, on par with the aformentioned VSL libraries' sustained strings -- a single articulation per each -- something which you couldn't be more wrong about. But its pads are far better than anything I've seen or heard from software. It also does some things with samples that none of the libraries or softsynths I've seen do quite as well.
Lunatique, do you happen to be a friend of Casalena's?
Even if you don't count velocity layers, you still can't ignore the articulations. When you need an expressive performance, there's just no way to get all the different playing techniques without various articulations. You can kind of fake it by tweaking the preset with parameters like attack, filter cutoff mapped to velocity...etc, but you can only take that so far before you really do need more articulations, especially if you don't want your performance of a real instrument patch to sound like it's been handicapped by lack of articulations.
Pads are electronic sounds, and I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about instrument patches like sax, trumpet, cello, acoustic guitar, skin percussions, electric guitar/bass, choir...etc.
As far as electronic sounds go, when we can actually get some nice ones from freeware synths, I'd say that's pretty easy, not to mention some of the best soft synths don't cost anywhere near what a good hardware synth would cost. I'm not going to get into the hardware vs. software argument since I really don't care--I have never listened to an electronic track and thought "That sounds so software! If only they used hardware synths it could be so much better."
Every time I hear Depeche Mode I think that -- though, unfortunately, they use mostly hardware. Perhaps it sounds too hardware?
As for saxaphones, if you discount some of the latest introductions (Mr. Sax T, WIVI saxaphones, VSL saxaphones), the VL70's do hold their own...though that's not exactly a full on workstation.
Don't count out roland's electric guitars 'till you've messed around with them on a fantom G - they might not sound entirely realistic, but they're lovely nonetheless.
One day all our acoustic sounds will be based on (good quality) physical modelling (e.g. WIVI, some of harm visser's patches for the Oasys PCI) - but 'till then, we're stuck with sample libraries
P.S. I heard a rumor that Wallander might be working on stringed instruments soon. Sooo excited
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
I sure hope so. I don't think this trend of massive gigabytes of sample libraries should continue--it's so clunky. Unfortunately that's what we need to use if we want the best quality today. I love the sample/physical modeling hybrid solutions like Synful, WIVI, Pianoteq...etc and I hope all developers will turn to that from now on. Disc streaming samples and piecing together articulations is just not good enough of a solution.Fidelity wrote:
One day all our acoustic sounds will be based on (good quality) physical modelling (e.g. WIVI, some of harm visser's patches for the Oasys PCI) - but 'till then, we're stuck with sample libraries
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
Why does it have to be about electronic music? Sample libraries of real instruments aren't supposed to be for electronic music only, and in fact they are designed for many other genres like orchestral, classical, jazz, rock...etc, and all would require different approaches to mixing/mastering.kiksogue wrote: Realism is cool. But if it sounds all thin and has no presence it's gonna sound weak in any sort of electronic music.
The reason why people think those keyboard workstations sound so good is because they've been pumped up with the internal suite of effects, so they are pretty much already "mastered" to sound great. The idea behind the sample libraries are usually quite different--they give you the sounds and you can mix/master them any way you want with the effects you own, in the style that you want.