Dear All --

FYI, there is another nice, free, stand-alone, software, synthesizer here...

http://www.audio-simulation.com/

...and it is called "DreamStation 1.0" and it is dirt simple to setup and sounds really nice (IMHO).

I just thought to mention it, in case anyone else is wondering.

It seems like this has very little, or no latency, at first check-- which may be due to its design, or the fact that I installed ASIO-4-All or something else, but it performs very nice, whatever the reason.

I may still go the hardware route, with something like the "PianoBox II" or similar.

HTH.

Thanks.

-- Mark Kamoski

What do you want for sound? I have a short list of favorite plugins and each fits a particular sound fancy. The minimogue VA is good for lead synths. For old school electric piano and organ sounds go to Soundfonts.it and pick up the donationware pack.

the latency issue is more related to your sound card on your laptop. Try decreasing the buffer size, if you go too far then you may get clicks and stutters. Try 256 - ish.

If the buffer is large then you get more latency.

Hi, ZeroZero (and all) -

Actually, you can use almost any VSTi as a standalone by loading it with SAVi-Host. It turns host-only-based VSTi's into a standalone VSTi.

Great tip there John, didn't know about that...thanks for posting.

Jeff

All --

FYI, I found 2 more nice, free, easy-to-setup, easy-to-use, standalone software synth apps...

Oxe FM Synth

http://www.OxeSoft.com

ZynAddSubFx

http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/


Regarding hardware-based synthesizers, my search continues.

My front-runner right now for a hardware-based synthesizers is the "PianoBox II" which can be found here...

http://www.miditech.de/219-produkte-pianobox_II

http://kellysmusicandcomputers.com/ProductInfo.asp?id=1482693219&TB=1#.UVmhApPCaSo

...which seems to be a simple blackbox hardward-based synthesizer for about $120.


So my question is...

What alternatives to the PianoBox II would you recommend, in the same price-range, and in the same functionality-class, for a hardware-based synthesizer?

Please advise.


HTH.

Thanks.

-- Mark Kamoski

Mark, I'm really not familiar with PianoBox but as its a general midi synth I'm not sure it will meet your original spec of having a "decent range of spacey synth sounds" and "a few organ sounds along the lines of the B3, plus I need some nice acoustic Grand Piano sounds". While it may have some of these, I'm not sure you would find better pianos than what's already on your Casio.

A route that you might want to investigate is SampleTank 2 XL. This is a software based sampler in your price range. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHIqLVnTHvM

.

>>>...Since I already have Band In A Box which has tons of sound patches, can I use those?...>>>

Actually Band in a Box does not come with any sounds of its own. It has to be provided with a synth to talk to, either hardware or software.

The latest version of Band-in-a-Box comes with a free version of Sampletank ready to be added on. I installed the add-on Sampletank, loaded all free sounds that IK Multimedia makes available for Sampletank, and then upgraded to Sampletank 2.5 XL for under 200US. Now I have more synth sounds than I will ever use. (Perhaps I should add that I use more acoustic-instrument sounds than electronic-instrument sounds).

mkamoski,

You are making some assumptions that could end up costing you alot of money.

1. BIAB does not have sound patches included. See Flatfoot's response above

2. You don't need to limit yourself to standalone soft-synths. BIAB is designed to use soft-synths, you just haven't figured out how to configure it correctly yet.

In fact, with all due respect to zero zero, I would suggest simply laying that suggestion aside for now, since what you really want to do, so it seems, is to use the sounds while using BIAB. Utilizing a standalone synth in that case makes things quite a bit more complicated.

But, perhaps you are looking to simply 'perform' using the digital piano as what would be called a 'controller' and the synth inside the computer responding in-kind. In this case, either looking for standalone versions of synths works, as does jford's suggestion of using SAVIhost from Hermann Seib, which simply 'wraps' the .dll of the VSTi into an executable miniature 'host' program.

There are loads of free VSTi that do what you are looking for. Some are better than others.

In my 'go to' list of soft synth providers are the following developers and downloads:

Minimouge VA - great lead mono synth emulation of a minimoog: http://home.no/gunnare/downloads.htm
Genuine Soundware's Donationware bundle - Organized Trio is a great B3 emulation, the various electric piano emulations are also great: http://www.genuinesoundware.com/?a=showproduct&b=37
Feldspar - great virtual analog synth with tons of modulation capability and FM between oscillators as well as ring modulation: http://www.contralogic.com/vst-plugins/feldspar/
sfz soundfont player - good for general midi and other acoustic sample based sounds: http://www.cakewalk.com/Download/sfz.aspx

With these alone, you can cover most of your needs. Cost: Free (with some mental elbow grease to get them loaded properly into BIAB)

Dear Folks --

Thank you all so much for the excellent replies.

I should have specified more clearly that the my intended synth use is mainly for a performance setting (practice jam sessions and on-stage and etc).

I am using a few of the soft synths mentioned above and they work great.

So I take output from my keyboard via USB MIDI and connect to the laptop's soft synth, and as for the latency issue, I have eliminated concern by (1) turning off all other USB port activity, (2) and by tweaking the buffers, (3) and by using Asio4All, and so I output the synth sound from the headphone jack on my laptop to the mixer, and that gives me almost zero latency but not quite zero-- SO-- my final step was (4) to simply send the other stereo output from my keyboard to a local mixer which sends the on-board keyboard sounds (not soft synth sounds) to the mix, so I just pick one of the nice built-in tones (Piano or Organ or Strings or E-Piano or any combo of 2 of these) and send that sound to the mix-- which is never a latent sound-- so the initial attack that fills the latency gap is from the keyboard directly and the synth blends in milliseconds later, so this layering makes latency a non-issue for me, which makes playability a joy, and the sound is awesome IMHO.

If I go the hardware-synth route, then I would probably jump up to something full-blown, like the Casio Privia PX-5s or the Yamaha MM8.

Thanks.

-- Mark Kamoski

JV 1010. Roland. It has a knob that lets you set the patch. You simply play through the box. Lots of patches there. Check on line for a demo.

I have one but don't really want to part with it. Don't know why, "there's no sun up in the sky, stormy....." (Oh never mind)

Being in the same general area I see why that tune comes to mind.
I started watching TV again so I could see what a sunny day looks like.

To riff on John's recommendation a bit - Roland have a new synth hardware module out that got pretty high marks from Keyboard magazine - basically all of their synth engines in one box - but limited to 128 note polyphony. It's called the Integra 7. http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1245/462 Price is a steep 2k$ street.

You should be able to get latency down to under 5 or 6 mS, which would be very hard to detect, however perhaps not with the laptop built-in sound card.

All --

I ended up trading in my old keyboard for one with more sounds.

I now have a Casio Privia PX 5S, which a ton of control and sound and zero latency, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Casio-PX5S-Privia-...io+privia+px+5s

Really nice touch, 256-note polyphony, plenty of support for layering, splits, custom patches, etc, etc. It is really fun to play. It is a great board and the price is excellent. IMHO. There are plenty of YouTube and other reviews out there, Keyboard Mag said good things about it, etc.

So, I have set aside soft-synths. Even though my solution noted above in this thread (to use a built-in patch to cover the latency) did work quite well even in live performance, a soft-syth is nothing like having a full-blown synth with weighted keys all in one, etc.

Thanks.

-- Mark Kamoski

Glad you got what you need Mark. I was going to suggest something like this but everybody always starts with free, free, or almost free and as you found out, it's just not good enough or it's too much hassle or both. Having a good self contained keyboard is the only way to go imho but they're not free.

If you have pro ears and know what you want just spend some cash and go get it.

Bob

You can still use soft synths with this as a controller - just so that you know, and John mentioned Savi-Host way back in the thread which allows any VSTi to be used standalone.

For me, I don't like weighted keys for when I'm doing synths and organs, but to each his own. I know there are some folks on the forums here who say that it's just a matter of practicing to get good B3 performance out of a weighted keyboard. I don't agree but that's just my opinion/experience. Same for synth leads, although I can do fine if I have a modwheel and pitch bend wheel under my left hand, but that's pretty rare with weighted keyboards.

-Scott

This one cleverly changes the electronic weighting when you switch over to organ or synth, Scott.

A very good choice IMO.


--Mac

So the force feedback is electronic like some Yamaha digital pianos? Cool! I just looked up the keyboard and it has the hex layers of my new XW-P1 which are way cooler than I expected when I bought the axe. I wonder if it also has the the drawbar simulation of the XW-P1?

in depth look at the Casio Privia PX-5s
including discussion of drawbars

XW-P1 Clinic

While they have simulated a drawbar organ in this video with the hex layers, it doesn't appear to be the drawbar engine that's in the XW-P1. However, they do have a much better distortion in the DSP than what is in the XW-P1.