Have Modern VST Instruments Replaced Your Hardware Synths ?

[rod_zero]

I was doing a track today using my system 8, after two tracks i was tired of bouncing and recording automation, saving patches and recalling for another part. I just loaded my soft synths and I could work much faster.

I did like tweaking knobs, and I program the HW way more than my soft synths, but sometimes you just don't have the time and patience required to work with HW.

[zerocrossing]

I was doing a track today using my system 8, after two tracks i was tired of bouncing and recording automation, saving patches and recalling for another part. I just loaded my soft synths and I could work much faster.

I did like tweaking knobs, and I program the HW way more than my soft synths, but sometimes you just don't have the time and patience required to work with HW.

Oh you silly. That’s why you get a bunch of them.

[Shiek927]

I was doing a track today using my system 8, after two tracks i was tired of bouncing and recording automation, saving patches and recalling for another part. I just loaded my soft synths and I could work much faster.

I did like tweaking knobs, and I program the HW way more than my soft synths, but sometimes you just don't have the time and patience required to work with HW.

Same. There are some hardware synths that I adore for their character that has yet to be replicated in software -- and who truly knows if/when it will ever happen -- but the whole process of hardware from the size, weight, maintenance, not to mention hefty cost is just too much for all the advantages of software.

[BONES]

Rubbish! Software runs rings around any hardware you care to name and the thought that there might be one or two inconsequential things that a software synth can't do exactly the same as hardware is nothing more than an excuse, and a very poor one at that.

... really fun and hands on in a way that software isn't.

I don't get this attitude at all. If anything, I am the other way around - I find it much easier to engage with my softsynths than I ever have with hardware. It is so much more immediate and satisfying and has been since I first got a usable software set-up more than 20 years ago (Fruityloops 2.x, pre-VST support). And the character of my favourite softsynths also kraps all over that of any hardware I've ever owned. They speak to me in ways hardware just doesn't.

[excuse me please]

I have decided not to go into VST3. Joke's on them.

[AcrossTheSky]

ok.

IF I were to choose only two guitar vst plugins - what would you recommend me??
A good nr of articulations would allow for more variety..
Imo the ilyaefimov guitars sound really good.
Are there other developers you would say make better sounding instruments?
I listened to many ...and still cannot decide...

[ScrLk]

ok.

IF I were to choose only two guitar vst plugins - what would you recommend me??
A good nr of articulations would allow for more variety..
Imo the ilyaefimov guitars sound really good.
Are there other developers you would say make better sounding instruments?
I listened to many ...and still cannot decide...

Prominy

But I don't think VSTs usually replace hardware when it's guitars!

[FapFilter]

it's not even on topic, unless you actually want to compare hardware guitar “synths“ to software ones

[BONES]

I'm not a guitarist so my needs are probably quite different but I get great results from Ujam's Virtual Guitarists. I now have three of them - Sparkle, Iron and Carbon - and they sound great in a mix, even if it's just a mix of guitars, bass (also Ujam) and drums (Ujam again). They may lack some playing subtlety that I wouldn't notice (or care about) but they sound great. I reckon my version of Blitzkreig Bop, for example, sounds way better than the original and my version of Killing Joke's The Wait (also covered by Metallica) holds up pretty well, too.

[Tj Shredder]

... really fun and hands on in a way that software isn't.

I don't get this attitude at all.

Its not an attitude, its a personal experience. Though my own experience is maybe different and changing all the time, I would never question an experience of someone else...
When VST had not been available I had a personal experience with an ARP 2600 I never get in software, now I have a new, very different experience with an emulated ARP I would possibly never get with the hardware...
I love both, but I doubt that I would ever acquire a hardware ARP again... My experience with software is endless inspiration. And there is no software without hardware. If I had no controllers, I would need hardware. I consider my iPad mini being a hardware synthesizer, especially if I combine it with my Sensel or LinnStrument...

[BONES]

It's absolutely an attitude. The experience is the physical act, the way you feel about it is an attitude. In this case, the attitude is that software isn't hands on but I'd love to see you do anything in software without your hands.

The only hardware I need is a computer and a mouse. The rest is just window dressing. A bit of fun, nothing essential or even important, except on stage. But what's important on stage is about other people, the audience and its expectations, not about me.

For me, my laptop is just the latest iteration of my workstation which, realistically, started with a Yamaha QX7 in 1985. Back then it still required a tonne of outboard gear to make it all work. Over the years, new replacements became more and more self-contained and I was able to shed more and more of my other equipment until, in 1998, I bought a fully loaded Korg Trinity. With the MOSS board and sampling options, it was fully self-contained, the only thing I needed to have with me on stage. I eventually replaced it with a PC and that was that. My current laptop is just the latest in a long line of music sequencers and workstations and is far and away the most powerful and easiest to use of any that I have owned over 35 years.

So maybe it's a matter of perspective. If you just look at one synth, in isolation, maybe you can see something in it but, to me, one synth is just like one spanner - not much use on its own. I always see it all in context, the context of what gear I need to get up on stage and do a set. One hardware synth is as useless to me as a single VSTi so I can't put the blinkers on and see it on its own, I have to see it in context and, in context, the software experience is pretty much unbeatable. It certainly shits all over any previous iteration I had to endure.

[kvotchin]

Mostly, yeah.

There are situations and feelings that call for hardware synths, but otherwise, I’m happy using any of the few superb VSTi’s I’ve kept, after finally having culled the rest.

Other people have different perspectives, experiences, requirements. And that’s cool. What does it even matter, when making music and having fun is where it’s at anyway.

[kritikon]

S/w has replaced all of my h/w FX for sure. Can't ever see buying another FX unit ever again.
The DAW has definitely superceded anything I used to have in h/w for recording.
Synths - Nah. I probably use 50/50 nowadays. In fact I'm busy buying up more h/w synths. I just like using them. Souyndwise - not a lot of difference often, but some plugins can't do what some h/w synths do (wavestate for example), and then some plugins do more than the h/w. Won't ever stop me using both.

As Bones said - attitude is a feeling. Practically on the recording side of things, s/w definitely makes me feel like I can do so much more nowadays and I actually can, but I won't ever shake the feeling of enjoying physically playing on synths. FOr me it's quicker too. I grew up on black and white keys and I find it easy.

[chk071]

I was doing a track today using my system 8, after two tracks i was tired of bouncing and recording automation, saving patches and recalling for another part. I just loaded my soft synths and I could work much faster.

I did like tweaking knobs, and I program the HW way more than my soft synths, but sometimes you just don't have the time and patience required to work with HW.

Oh you silly. That’s why you get a bunch of them.

That's the problem.

[gentleclockdivider]

nothing beats a hardware sequencer with cherry mx buttons .