PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Best Soft Synth?

Roland VC-50? is that a sound module? I can't find anything on a SYNTH module called a VC-50 (there is a video field convertor but that's a differ animal). But if you have ANY Roland synth gear that has an RS-232 (serial) interface I'm sure it ALSO had 5 Pin DIN MIDI? So you can still trigger it over MIDI from any OS: DOS up to current Windows 10 and from most any (all) Mac's.

That aside, and I don't mean to be rude but your basic question (and it's been asked by almost every new person to computer music) is analogous to asking which is better a golf club or a cheese bagel to fly an airplane.


If you are saying you ONLY use real styles that have zero (zip, nada, zilch) MIDI in them (no MIDI drums, no MIDI guitars, no MIDI pianos, no MIDI strings, horns, reeds, organs, vibes, etc.) than it is immaterial if you have ANY MIDI synths whether virtual (software plug-ins Like the Coyote Forte ) or actual (like the SD-50) and irrespective of cost: free, cheap, expensive, or astronomical.


If you mean you ALMOST never use a MIDI instrument - then it's a matter of WHICH or what type/class (brass, strings, chromatic, etc.) of MIDI instrument you do use infrequently and need to sound "realistic." If only MIDI piano than you don’t need a full "spectrum" synth or even a GM synth you just need a really good dedicated piano plug-in or an external HW synth that has a really good piano. at least if narrowed to one or a class - folks can point you to a specific dedicated HW or SW solution that duplicates that one "class" of sounds really well.


If you mean you, and this is what I think you are really asking, use a lot of real styles but in reality you ALSO use more than a few BIAB styles that have more than one or two MIDI instruments, then it is a question of how much to you want to spend (see above discussion[s])? The sky is the limit on that one.

Coyote Forte is ~$40, or Music Creator 7 for just a few bucks more, $50, and you get the TTS-1, it is included with MC 7(TTS-1 is similar to, but different from, Coyote Forte - both are GM synths) on the other hand a Roland SD-50 (new, not used) is an order of magnitude more ($450). If you want only acoustic instruments a lot of folks here swear by the Ketron SD-2 (a little cheaper than the SD-50).

Note, you JUST missed a good one (holiday sales are over) if you have or have access to the FREE SampleTank 2.5 (the one that has both VSTi as well as DXi and also has a standalone .exe) then you can still get inexpensive libraries for that, that are actually pretty good for the price and in a lot of cases better than the Coyote or TTS-1 instruments. As matter of fact, Sonic Reality (eSoundz) has a GM lib called Omnisynth 2 that when not on sale is $26 and when on sale is $10 or $15.

https://www.esoundz.com/sounds/omnisynth-2-sampletank-expansion/4736.html


eSoundz also has the same lib for Kontakt (OmniSynth) but setting up GM libs is a P.I.T.A. in Kontakt and requires a lot of memory (not an issue for me with 32GB) and you need the NOT free version of Kontakt - but if you have the full Kontakt 4 or later then you have the factory lib and that already has a lot of good usable sounds (more than Coyote, TTS-1, or even SD-50 and I am a ROLAND "fan boy.").


Finally, you can start virtual fist fights over the question "what is best sounding piano (guitar, sax, solo violin, cello,...) ?" And that's without even considering best sounding piano (guitar, violin,...) for what use: solo [and is that solo for Jazz or solo for a piano concerto] or is that for comping and "sitting in the mix."

To compound that "which is best" piano (guitar, sax, violin...) you get the actual ivory-ponders (pickers, blowers, bowers) weighing in that that swear NONE of them sound real - because they can’t get sympathetic resonance coming out of wood into their finger tips (blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine, BS, BS, BS).


Good Luck and Welcome
Larry