A software synth is still an instrument. There are not a lot them around. In fact I think in reality a complete GM/GS synth is very old technology, and I see a few keyboards that are coming out with new sounds, but the basic GM synth built into it is not really all that great despite the price.

Kind of like buying a music book and hoping for a Yamaha Grand to come on the back page, you have to move furniture but geez Louise...

It seems, like it or not, that the direction is RealInstruments. Great advances have been made, and if we got to point b so far, imaging what a few years of better development might bring.

I use the Coyote 64 bit thing to fast render all realtracks songs. The way the software is built it needs that instrument for some reason.

I suggest if anyone is really looking for a 64 bit solution, try the TTS-1, which I think is available as part of a bundle here under software...

On the other hand, I have 2 very nice sounding synths in a JV1010 and a Ketron that I almost never use anymore. Before I actually hand the JV1010 to my kid I'm trying it and the Ketron with my EWI wind controller. I thought that I'd be able to use the EWI instead of a horn during radiation treatments to my neck. The oncologist told me that the actual healing process can take up to 18 months for deep burns the radiation did, and I have too much jaw pain many days to be able to play long stretches, but it's coming.

As to midi solutions, I don't think Notes Norton has a Ketron, he's blowing too much money on guitars, but he's sort of the resident guru, keeping closets full of them so he can render tracks one by one, knowing that a Selmar gold tenor sax with a bent bell from 1969 that was left in the sun sounds just like the patch on the Borgriffer9000 synth that was made by a North Korean factory for 10 minutes, or something....like....that.

Weird or what?

John Conley
Musica est vita