Went OTB - and then ITB again

[EvilDragon]

Especially given the instruments you've listed. I had a K5000R and I didn't think much of it at all. It stands as one of the poorer hardware buying decisions I made.

Well, not everyone is gonna be the same or like the same things. Just because you don't think much of it, doesn't mean everyone else should think about it the same as you. K5000R was one of the best purchases I made. I love how it sounds and it's the sound I don't get from any software. There you go. Sure, there are other additive synths which sound great (one could say "better", I will say "different"), but it's not the same thing. So gotta have both, at least as I'm concerned.

[BONES]

Might it be easier to be creative OTB? Musically speaking.

Not in my experience. Yes, I am definitely at my most creative when playing a keyboard but that's exactly the same whether it's a softsynth or hardware. Actually, that may no longer be true, I've been finding the Roli Lightpad Blocks I have to be even more creatively inspiring than a keyboard. They work in a different way, which throws up different opportunities.

The other thing I find is that the magic fades pretty quickly. When you buy a new synth, it is full of possibilities but after a few weeks they are mostly tapped out. With softsynths, I can buy a new one every week if I feel like it but I can't really afford to buy too much hardware in any given year.

When I heard their Odyssey, I fell into love at first sight. This time sonic advantage was huge over plugins

No, it's not and it's crippled compared to the 8 voice union/poly and unlimited patch storage of Korg's software version. I was so excited about Korg's new Odyssey hardware that I almost bought one without even looking at it. Fortunately, the sales guy wanted to see it and asked if we could take it out of the box. As soon as I realised it had no patch memory, I went home empty handed. The VST is every bit as special as the hardware and a lot more useful.

I bought it, then I bought effect pedals because I can't 'do synth' without delay and reverb

Built into Korg's VSTi, plus distortion and an arpeggiator, as well as a chorus/flanger, EQ and phaser.

.. then I recognized that I actually like doing the physical rearrangements and connect the cables, and although things were going quite slow - I absolutely enjoyed myself

Dog, I f**king hate it! Connect it all up - where the f**k is that noise coming from!?!? Aaaarrrrgh!
Pull it all apart again, hook it up a different way - OK, that noise is gone but now I have mains hum! Aaarrrgh!!!
Then, finally - f**k this bullshit! Throw something against the wall, kick something else across the room and then go back to sit in front of my computer and actually enjoy making music.

Ok bit of an exaggeration but they all happen, often, partially my fault…but hardware almost no time booting up, the very odd firmware update, instant music. On a Saturday I boot up the whole rig and its fine, but when Ive only got a couple of hours at night Im dawless OTB every time.

Again, I call bullshit. You make those things happen on your computer. When there is a Studio One update available, you get a notification in the home screen but I usually don't notice until my bandmate asks me if I've installed it yet. None of my product managers send notifications so I only know if there are updates when I bother to check (once or twice a year, at most). I don't think I disabled notifications, although they are disabled globally for my Windows 10 install, so maybe that's all it takes.

Here's what happens when I sit down in front of my studio set-up. I switch on the laptop and while it's booting up I switch on my Uno Pro Desktop and my Roli Blocks. Then I reach behind the laptop and switch on the I/O device, before leaning across the table and switching on my monitors. If I don't switch the Uno Pro on first, I get a massive "thump!" through the speakers when I do. Same with turning it off - it has to be last. By the time I've done that, the PC is usually logged in (Windows hello) and ready for me to start Studio one or whatever I want to work on. But Uno Pro isn't ready yet, it's still calibrating its f**king oscillators. It's usually finished by the time Studio One is ready to go, though, so I'd call it a draw between hardware and software when it comes to how quickly you can be ready to go. Of course, that's a worst case scenario - 90% of the time my computer is already on when I decide to start doing some music, so I only need to wait for whatever I want to use to load.
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[BONES]

Sure, there are other additive synths which sound great (one could say "better", I will say "different"), but it's not the same thing. So gotta have both, at least as I'm concerned.

I never thought that it sounded that different from other synths but if I was asked to define what it's additive sound was like, I'd have said "thin, really thin", because that's when it sounded different to other synths. It's another good example of why I don't subscribe to the theory that you need this type of synth to make that type of sound.

[EvilDragon]

Ha I guess you could push it into "thin" territory, but to me it more often sounds chimey, glassy, shimmery, and other times it can be downright nasty (that filter has resonance from hell, you need to mind your speakers).

Anyways. Different strokes for different folks. It's a good synth IMO. Sleeper piece.

[BONES]

Good, maybe, but not special. Nothing you couldn't replace with half-a-dozen different softsynths.

Computers have a tendency to make you get distracted. Be it with updates, email, the interwebs, whatever.

Only if you allow yourself to be distracted. As I said, I have disabled all notifications on my laptop so I have to go looking for all that stuff. Focus Assist is also a good feature in Windows 10 to minimise distractions.

When I look at setups like Gregor for Presonus

But what is the one thing you notice about Gregor's set-up and 99% of the studios you see in YT videos? The centrepiece of the studio is always the computer. Everything else is spread out around it where it would be hugely inconvenient to actually use it. It's all there for decoration, to make you take the bozo in front of the camera more seriously. This guy got it right -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLOUoaq ... Multiplier

That's seriously the darkest side of making music in the box.

If that's true, then you are not doing it right. That has literally never happened to me.

There are a lot of hidden costs ITB compared to OTB. For example, updating your audio workstation PC over the years, especially if you're buying a powerful 1000$ PC every 4-5 years.

Meanwhile, in the last 12 months I reckon I've spent more than $200 on cables, I've bought a $200 line mixer, a $300 keyboard stand and spent another $100 or so on things like powerboards and shelving to house my hardware, etc. That's more than I've spent on plugins or updates.

Yes, I recently bought a new laptop but it only cost me $820 and I reckon I will be able to sell my old one for what I paid for it, which is $200 more than I paid for its replacement, so I will eventually be ahead. I also bought one new hardware synth this year and it cost more than I have spent on software in the last 5 years. IN fact, if I end up selling it, I will probably lose more than I've spent on softsynths this year.

Bottom line - any notion that hardware might be cheaper to run than software is laughably stupid.

Updating software (for example Arturia's V collection) can costs hundreds every cycle too. Also, as some others have pointed out, cost in time is considerable if you're constantly updating software to the latest versions, constantly updating drivers, and so on. Then there is Windows and its annoying updates and quirks that throws you off.

More absolute bullshit. When I started my laptop last night, I noticed in the System Tray that there was a restart pending because of a Windows update. I ignored it, worked all night until about1:30am
and let it restart while I got ready for bed. A minute or two later, after I'd taken off my shoes and socks, it was all done so I shut it down and went to bed. Total inconvenience - maybe 10 seconds. Hardly the end of the world, is it? As for updates, I reckon I spend less than one minute per week updating software, so maybe three-quarters of an hour per year. Again, hardly the end of the world, especially when you can do it whenever you feel like it, unlike when you need to replace a scratchy cable or a PSU for one of your hardware units dies on you. That will take up your whole 45 minutes in one fell swoop.

Your DAW will most likely update and present you with another change to workflow you're unfamiliar with that can sink time too.

That has literally never happened to me once, in 20 years of working ITB. OTOH, I've had plenty of firmware updates fail over the years and, on one occasion it bricked one of my hardware synths, which cost me $200 to have repaired.

Best advice I can give is to minimize your PC setup as much as possible to DAW, and the bare minimum of instrument and effect plugins necessary.

My advice would be to grow up and use a bit of self-discipline.

A couple things I like about OTB instruments. With hardware I can invite some friends over and each person can take an instrument and we can have fun together. ITB is intrinsically a solitary affair when all the instruments are on a computer which only one person can use at a time.

Pig's arse! I have a band and we rehearse every week. I take my stuff to his place, he brings his stuff to my place and it is about 10 times easier than it was when I needed a van to get my stuff from one place to another. Again, these things are simple choices you make, they are not intrinsic to ITB or OTB. In fact, in this case the reality is the total opposite of what he's saying.

OTB is flexible to just use one or a couple things this afternoon. I can take for example the Digitone and Analog Rytm and spend the afternoon making a composition on just the two of them with nothing else turned on. ITB it is kinda all or nothing.

More unadulterated bullshit. I can choose to fire up any of more than a dozen standalone synths I have and spend a whole evening with just one instrument. But what I am far more likely to do is to load the VST version into an empty project and muck about with it in that environment, just in case some magic happens and I want to preserve it and/or build upon it.

There is no real daw alternative in hardware imho…

I dunno, for a long time I thought my Trinity's sequencer was the second best I had ever used. That was in the days of Cubase 3.5 and Cakewalk but I wonder if Korg's workstations have kept up or not? The first ting we released as a band was done entirely inside my Trinity, vocals and all.

Those who are having issues with computers pestering/derailing you with updates need to get used to just keeping recording computers off the internet. Then nothing can phone home, find out there's an update and start hounding you about it.

Or, as I said, you can simply turn off notifications or use Focus Assist to keep them at bay.
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[AnX]

What do ppl do with all these boxes they are getting in and out of?

[DrGonzo]

I thought SSL bus compressors were in absolute abundance in the software market. Never been much into SSL to I can't comment on the quality of the software emulations, but they can't all be bad can they?

There are some great SSL plugins but the hardware is pretty special. Also, main buss compression is an area where having the physical knobs can sometimes make a big difference. I had a Drawmer 1973 multi-band compressor for a while and I got much better results with the hardware than the software.

Just thinking out loudly with nothing to back it up, but don't you think it can have something to do with gain-staging? In an external setup, I find it much much easier to control exactly how much of a signal goes where and in what way.

I did an experiment once when I was sampling a 909 with my samplers, and the difference between feeding the signal too hot at the input was quite different from adjusting the inputs on the samplers.

/C

[kcearl]

Coffee anyone?

[kcearl]

Oh and I call bullshit too, why not…everyones experiences except my own are bullshit

[Tj Shredder]

Oh and I call bullshit too, why not…everyones experiences except my own are bullshit

Yes, I totally agree what you say is bullshit…

[kcearl]

Thanks.

[elxsound]

Coffee anyone?

Seriously!!

[elxsound]

Bones WTF?!?! Slow down.

Yes, not needing a screen is a freeing feeling, but.... I still use a screen for most of what I do. I've got options.

[chk071]

Computers have a tendency to make you get distracted. Be it with updates, email, the interwebs, whatever.

It's actually the humans who have the tendency to get distracted.

[ThomasHelzle]

Bones WTF?!?! Slow down.

Just foe him and KVR is instantly a better place.
Logorrhea in combination with sitting inside a 100% (self-) reflecting sphere is a funny condition.
But not one anybody needs to share thankfully.