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The big name soft synths are also pretty good but require some knowledge to get set up properly and even though I have a lot of them, I've gravitated back to hardware. Other experienced users have talked about how they've come to that same conclusion too. <...>



I too prefer hardware synths to software synths for a few reasons.

  • Hardware synths do not go out of style or become obsolete when the computer operating system gets updated. Synth modules that I bought when I was using the Atari, PC-DOS, and Motorola Mac computers still work today as well as they did the first day I bought them. Although some sounds are dated, there are still some great sounds left in these synths that have never been duplicated in newer modules
  • Hardware synths do not tax the computer's CPU. Software synths have to 'manufacture' the voice for each note using the computer's resources. This limits the number of synths you can mix and match. With hardware synths you can use the best voices from at least 16 different synths at the same time (and probably over 100). Hardware synths have their voices stored in ROM so neither the computer nor the synth has to 'do the math' to create the voice for each note played.
  • Hardware synths will never create a conflict with other running software apps in your computer causing it to crash
  • Hardware synths all have about the same latency (5ms give or take a ms or two - or for all practical purposes, none. This makes it easier to use more than one. With soft synths the latency can be up to almost a half second, and no two have the same latency. That makes track shifitng a necessity when using voices from more than one synth. And for each tempo change, the amount of track shift is different.
  • Hardware synths, are extremely reliable. The pre General MIDI Roland MT32 and Korg DDD5 synths I bought in the 1980s have never crashed (with one exception, the DDD5 needed a $5 battery replacement)


And in the MIDI example I gave earlier, I replaced 3 notes in the bass line each turn-around to do something that BiaB cannot do because it requires a chord change on a beat and the upbeat directly before that same beat. But that turn-around is so standard, I could cite hundreds of blues, rock, and country songs that use it. Even if I could replace 3 notes in a RT bass line at the end of each progression, the tone of the bass I have would not be a perfect match to the RT's bass voice and it would stick out like a sore thumb.

And in addition, if I decided the Flat Wound String Fender Jazz Bass sound was not right for the song, and I wanted a different feel, with a couple of mouse clicks I could have changed it to a picked bass, synth bass, acoustic bass, pizzicato bass, tuba or anything else my sound modules can provide. Same for the brass parts, with a couple of mouse clicks they could be saxophones, guitars, clarinets, clavinets, or whatever my imagination and my sound modules can provide. That way I can create two completely different sounding songs with the same style.

And I've done this many times, changed the guitar to a clav, changed the piano to a jazz guitar, changed the horn section to a piano, and so on.

It's the magic of MIDI that gives you complete flexibility and creative potential that is infinitely greater than you can have with pre-recorded loops. True it's at the expense of a little tone, but if you have good sounding synth modules, that difference in tone is minimal, while the creative potential is virtually limitless.

That's why I like MIDI.

I've had my fling with loops, I've had my fling with software synths, but I found I cannot be as creative with either format as I can with MIDI. And I bought my tools to create music. I bought these tools to play with them and therefore play music. If I want to hear someone else play music, I'll pop a CD into my stereo system or my DVD player and listen. With MIDI I get to involve myself with the music, create something that never was before, and listen with the 'look what I did' satisfaction that a child has when doing something he/she never did before.

Of course, there is more than one right way to make music, so YMMV.

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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