I use an old Yamaha DX-27S in my studio. It doesn't have touch sensitive keys or weighted keys so that's the downside to it for me. But since I already own it, and have for 28 years or so, I use it when I need to play something manually.

I never use the sounds in it for recording it's audio, other than on occasion I turn the volume up with a piano default to hear what I'm doing. It's sounds are sub-par to the synths I have and they also are "dated" sounding.

99% of the time I use it simply for midi input. I exclusively use softsynths "in the box" to create the instrument sounds I need.

The quality of softsynths and sampled sound libraries these days is simply amazing.

To me, Coyote and TTS are good basic level synths on about the same bottom level as GM sounds but slightly better than the GM stuff that was built into soundcards along the lines of Wave Table synth.

If you're going to buy something for sounds..... buy Kontakt from Native Instruments. It is a professional level synth. The samples it comes with are realistic enough that you can use them on commercial projects without problems. In addition to the stuff that Kontakt comes with, there are literally hundreds of small companies making sound packs that are compatible with Kontakt for every conceivable musical instrument on the planet. Kontakt has a complete orchestra sampled instrument by instrument, guitars, basses, pianos and organs, brass instruments, and even vocal choirs. (I used the choirs in Give me a Chance in the part where the little girl is singing the chorus near the end) and a bunch of other things as well.... including percussion and timpani.

Another sampler synth I absolutely love is the Cakewalk Sound Center. It comes with just about all of their DAW's now including the little MC6T. They too are adding lots of expansion sound packs @ $20 each to expand form the 150 sounds included. (that's how many were with my CSC) I've added a Steinburg piano collection and world instruments to the lineup.

Those are my 2 "Go-To" synths when I need to play something and BB/RB won't fit the bill or do the job. As a good example....on the last song (Hard Way) in my version, the bass guitar when it first comes in on the held notes is played with the CSC using the Ricko bass until the groove starts and then it's RB. Since CSC had a sample that sounded close enough to the RB track's bass sound, I played the exact notes I wanted using CSC.

CSC can be had for around $40 or so with a purchase of MC6 from Cakewalk. Kontakt is a bit pricier so shop around to find the best price. Older versions can be had in the $300 price range. Well worth the cost for a synth at this professional level.


BTW: You can often find older copies of Komplete for sale on Ebay or Amazon at really nice prices. The synth you want is Kontakt BUT>>>>> if you can find KOMPLETE 6 (or up) at a good price, buy it. Komplete is a collection of several of the NI synths. I picked up K-6 several years back. The other synths in the package have some really nice pads and strings as well as all sorts of other sounds in their libraries. In the komplete package you also get a drum synth called Battery. It's a really good purchase that you will not regret.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 06/05/14 05:33 AM.
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