So have we gone all soft?

[Rabid]

F*** my old hardware! Switching back would be like trading in my car for a horse.

And if that horse is Smarty Jones?

Robert

[Lady J]

Speak for yourself. I'm an electronic muso who does not at all miss the space taken up by a nord lead 2 rack, emu 6400 ultra sampler, novation supernova, 32 channel mixing desk, loads of effects, etc. the simple elegance of a software setup and the single controller keyboard and mackie control is so much more attractive to me than loads of cables and stuff using up loads of power. reading what you said i can't help but shake my head. i don't see the attraction to have loads of flashing lights, its all confusing. i guess it's a guy thing.

But....... I still remember the setup I used to have. Banks of keys, racks stuffed full of flashing lights and horizon-to-horizon mixer channels. I could walk into my old studio, sit down and feel pleasure before I'd even started - master over the field of technology kind of thing (in a sad geek way). I always had a lovely sense of anticipation every time. There's no way I get that now to the same degree. And it is a sad geek thing - us electronic musos tend to have that collector mindset....."mine's bigger than yours"........and with a h/w studio you can really wallow in it. Whereas a 15GHz HAL9000 looks just the same as a 200MHz Pentium II - where's the penis envy in that?

[geeseaplenty]

A few years ago my wife and I were in a financial pinch and had to sell almost all of our outboard gear. She had a loaded full size Trinity V3 and I had a Yammie CS6x (also loaded) and an AN1x. It FORCED us to begin messing with VSTi's, something we resisted before because we were ignorant, thinking them inferior. We soon learned that great songs could be made with only Synth 1 and Cubase's Jx16 and a few FX plug ins. After we got back on our feet, we acquired more and more VSTi's, till we got to the point where our lust for tangible gear wasn't there anymore. I still got nostalgic and re-bought an AN1x. It's a comfort knowing I have one good hardware synth, at least for live performance, but I honestly haven't used its onboard sounds in a long while.

I think if you need discipline, limit yourself to two softsynths. I had the problem of too many VSTi options slowing my workflow recently, until I just said, f**k it! I'm using two synths and a good drum sampler...that's it. The results are in the link below. I've been using this approach for a month now, and already I have a big enough repetoire to make a full length CD.

Keeping one decent hardware synth as a controller and using limited softsynths works for me.

[Improv]

i guess it's a guy thing.

It's an old guy thing. Remembering the 'good old days'. Please, just use what works.


Personally, hardware or software are just tools to realize your music. Imagine if carpenters got into flame wares over which brand of hammer was better?

[Gridlocked]

i guess it's a guy thing.

It's an old guy thing. Remembering the 'good old days'. Please, just use what works.


Personally, hardware or software are just tools to realize your music. Imagine if carpenters got into flame wares over which brand of hammer was better?

Are they going to release a Powercore version of that?

[Joxer the Mighty]

....is so much more attractive to me than loads of cables and stuff using up loads of power. reading what you said i can't help but shake my head. i don't see the attraction to have loads of flashing lights, its all confusing. i guess it's a guy thing.

Guy thing or not, I don't plan on dumping any of my HW. As a matter of fact I plan on adding a modular to the setup. As I wrote in another thread, tweaking knobs and sliders with a mouse is just not fun to me. There's just something about programming a real piece of gear. To each his own though, we all have different styles of working.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

i guess it's a guy thing.

It's an old guy thing. Remembering the 'good old days'. Please, just use what works.


Personally, hardware or software are just tools to realize your music. Imagine if carpenters got into flame wares over which brand of hammer was better?

Personally, I think my virHammer VSTi 1.13a has the best hammer sound of any industrial-music VSTi out there! As to physical hammers, they're so last millenium, all the cool carpenters use nailguns now

[Mr Arkadin]

Even though i have a largish CreamWare system which i adore i still have lots of hardware for three reasons:
1. i play live a lot
2. i'm from the 'old school' (apparently)
3. i'm a natural hoarder

I still have my first sytnh (a Roland SH-09, yes i'm that old), my second synth (Moog Rogue), my OSCar, JD-800/990. The only thing i managed to part with was my D-10 cos it didn't sound that great and i needed the space.

In point of fact i am going the other way, recently acquiring a Roland CR-78 and planning on getting a Roland Space Echo and a Lexicon reverb and valve Mic Preamp, as i still don't think any software quite emulates any of these that well. Best of old and new (but missing out that dodgy stuff from the 80s/90s).

i still even have my Sony DAT recorder even though it doesn't work (bloody waste of space that is now).

Mr A

[mystahr]

I only started a year ago now with a sampler/keyboard setup mixer and Cubase and wavelab, and didn't realize about the soft-synths untill then. I've most certainly explored the available free synths before even considering buying soft's untill I knew what I wanted. And I quite invested in a few soft-synths lately.

But besides that, diving into the SY85 at one point lead me to use the keyboard too, as the strings and pads are just great there. I have also turned to more hardware as I recently bought a Juno and Fizmo, which both fit me like a glove

So best of both worlds here I guess; and like said its more about finding the right tools for the sound you want to achieve.

[pough]

I had almost forgotten that there are hardware synths...

[AD80]

F*** my old hardware! Switching back would be like trading in my car for a horse.

And if that horse is Smarty Jones?

Robert

Ok you're right hahaha. I would keep that horse.

[Jaybez]

I just sold the last of my HW to fund Komplete, absolutely no regrets.
A good question to ask yourself is if you could use only either HW or SW which one could you do without? For me theres no competition

[Joxer the Mighty]

Right now hardware. As Mr. A said, there is still hardware that can't be emulated by software. Also, there's no way in hell I'd ever gig with a laptop.

A good question to ask yourself is if you could use only either HW or SW which one could you do without?

[GaryG]

I can get nostalgic for the times I sat there with a four-track, boss drum box, couple of delay boxes and my old sci-pro one and literally 'played' the gear (tweaking filters, pulling the feedback levels back so the delays didn't distort...) Came up with some great stuff imho, though all one-offs, had no chance i hell of ever repeating/fine tuning a performance.

Nowadays I have even more fun with just Tracktion and a whole hard disk full of free downloads... Not nearly as tactile but at least I can repeatable results. Big plus in my book.

My 'tip': forget control surfaces, the process of tying up the controls to an onscreen image is counter-productive; just buy a trackball, next best thing to hardware knobs.

.g

[Improv]

i guess it's a guy thing.

It's an old guy thing. Remembering the 'good old days'. Please, just use what works.


Personally, hardware or software are just tools to realize your music. Imagine if carpenters got into flame wares over which brand of hammer was better?

Are they going to release a Powercore version of that?

Don't you KNOW???
The PowerCore Hammer is at version 4.5, been out for 3 years now!