Mac & Gary have it right!

The Ketron SD2 is just about the best for lots of sounds (orchestral and jazz/pop).

It has the only decent Breathy Tenor Sax
Best jazz Clarinet in the upper range
Best Violin and Viola
Best Trumpet (Golden Trumpet)
Excellent Flute

When I say best I mean of all of the many hardware synths I have ever played or listened to whenever solo samples were available on websites, over the last 15 years.

Furthermore I am talking about playing brass and wind on a wind controller live which has more demands than if you play with a keyboard or play back from notation program with keyswitching.

Although the Garritan libraries sound great when painstakingly written out and tweaked note by note -they are often disappointing when you try to play them live on a wind controller.

Now if you want the absolute best Trumpet and Trombone sounds - there is nothing as good as the sounds from samplemodeling.com. It leaves everything in the dust as far as authenticity of sound, responsiveness and playability on a wind controller.
It's obviously great when played with a keyboard.

I have not had a chance to really test Wallander sounds which a number of people have said is very good.

In summary, for a hardware synth, especially one at such a bargain price there is nothing that compares to the Ketron SD2 as far as acoustic sounds are concerned.
On a number of the newer Roland synths including the SC-88 etc. I do like the Kawal patch quite a bit and sadly there is nothing quite like it on the SD2.Mac has it right.

The Ketron SD2 is just about the best for lots of sounds.

It has the only decent Breathy Tenor Sax
Best jazz Clarinet in the upper range
Best Violin and Viola
Best Trumpet (Golden Trumpet)
Excellent Flute

When I say best I mean of all of the many hardware synths I have ever played or listened to whenever solo samples were available on websites.

Furthermore I am talking about playing brass and wind on a wind controller live which has more demands than if you play with a keyboard or play back from notation program with keyswitching.

Although the Garritan libraries sound great when painstakingly written out and tweaked note by note -they are often disappointing when you try to play them live on a wind controller.

Now if you want the absolute best Trumpet and Trombone sounds - there is nothing as good as the sounds from samplemodeling.com. It leaves everything in the dust as far as authenticity of sound, responsiveness and playability on a wind controller.
It's obviously great when played with a keyboard.

I have not had a chance to really test Wallander sounds which a number of people have said is very good.

In summary, for a hardware synth, especially one at such a bargain price there is nothing that compares to the Ketron SD2 as far as acoustic sounds are concerned.
On a number of the newer Roland synths including the SC-88 etc. I do like the Kawal patch quite a bit and sadly there is nothing quite like it on the SD2.v

Last edited by Dan Tong; 08/07/10 09:17 PM.
Dan

https://soundcloud.com/dstong