Software Synthesizers - The Future or Criminally Overrated? Somewhere inbetween perhaps?

New tools are always a good thing.

But they are often applied in horrid horrid ways

Well, sure.

New answers from people who actually utilize/have utilized software synthesizers please!

I suppose I want to tease out any analogue afficianados who regard digital emulations and digital synths in general with disdain and those who appreciate all approaches (eg VA) - and anyone who uses softsynths and loves/hates them.

Absynth is super cool. I get amazingly rich sounds from it. I played a loop for an industry friend and now that same bit is going to be in a short film of his(!). He said it sounds, wait for this, organic! ha!

Thank God for them. They've already been used by some bands in very interesting ways (Dismemberment Plan used a midi controller live--had a labtop on stage; they seem to use a lot of other impressive technology as well). I got to use some at my local Guitar Center, and while analog are cool to get some sounds they made that may not be reproducable, the ability to make even more sounds is nothing but a blessing.

I don't disdain softsynths but I prefer hardware. I find that I get distracted too easily when I am using Reason. This probably has more to do with the way my mind works, and not any shortcoming od the digital medium.

I agree Aaron, I usually set myself a time limit per task (eg, come up with strings for this part, etcc) or else my attention wanders like I'm going through old threads on ILX!

Thee main thing that appeals to me about an all-in-one solution isn't thee soft-synth side, but thee various software rekording tools, eg altiverb (uk price iirc is £449, as compared to prices of 2500 and up for sony & yamaha hardware equiv) and UAD card. Also, soft-samplers basikally rule compared to hardware equiv. The downside for me is cost. if i went teh PC route, the basick computer wouldn't necessarily cost too much, but i'd have to factor in the MIDI interface, d/a & A/d card, plua thee aktual cost ov the software itself. I could probably buy another Serge modular panel for that money - putting together a real analogue modular is ideal for me b/c I can do it piecemeal, i mean you can basikally start w/ 2 modules (like a filter & a ring modulator) an @ thee very least you have an interesting little sound prcessing device. Then you can build the thing up bit by bit until you have this amazing & inspiring instrument. that totally fukcing rules.
Another, probably the major problem for me is thee interface. It is undoubtedly quicker, for me at least, to use hardware, with dedicated controls than it is to use any software app, even with attached fader boxen etc - I have used "Reason" extensively in a commercial projekt, (well allegedly commercial, b/c I never got paid grumble grumble) and the tracks we made on the producers little set of drum m/c-s & synths, using "Cubase" basikally as a midi sequencer came together much, much more quickly. Yes, it is undoubtedly very k3wl to be able to recall all mixer, compressor etc settings, but still, using Reason took a lot longer, & more trax did not get completed satisfactorally. i don't think this is just down to reason's interface, I find that if you have a hardware mixer, or synthesiser with dedikated controls, you sort-of train yrself to use the controls intuitively, so you automatically reach for the correkt one. You work faster, & can concentrate on following a correkt musickal path, which leads to.....

....Thee issue ov getting lost in thee process, which does seem to happen to a *lot* of artistes, certainly there are plenty of talented artistes producing good work, er, virtually, but there are a lot, pos a lot more who have good ideas, but expend all their talent & artistry on dicking about trying to find thee perfect sound in reaktor or metasynth or whatever. I've seen it happen on more that a couple ov occasions. EG thiz DJ - a nice fellow - drawing in drum hits in "Logic" or "Cubase" w/thee paintbrush tool, whih took forever, so I showed him how to play the notes in & quantise them, but he complained b/c the notes weren't all the same length EVEN THO THE NOTES ARE TRIGGERS AND THE LENGTH DOESN'T makE ANY DIFFERENCE WHATSoEVer. Then he gets into filter disco loop musick, gawd 'elp 'im, and he's actually a bit ahead ov thee game on this, so he produces thiz track on Cubase, and uses a synthesiser plug in for the filter sweeping. He spends weeks dicking about w/the controller curve edit page and NEVER FINISHES THE TRACK. One week I take in my Frostwave Resonator, and bam, he's got the track down in an afternoon. The next week i see him, anhd he's back to using thee plug-in and it's like "oh, there was this bit where it came up too quickly, and I couldn't edit it" Another trance DJ has several releases, which do well, so he buys a mac, and he's never released anyhing since! he just sits there, dicking about with stuff until the in sound changes so he dishes thee old track & starts another, which also never gets finished. Using hardware, both these guys actually made money from their musick. There are more examples i can think ov as well. I don't trust myself not to wind up in this hole.

Anyway. If I were to build a musick PC & retire my atari ST (which i suppose i will have to @ some point) then I'll be focussing it on multitrack recording & mixdown tools, tho' I'll certainly install a soft-sampler as well, but probably not softsynths. I can track up on my analogue modular and record it more quickly.

http://www.wiard.com
http://www.modcan.com
http://www.cyndustries.com
http://www.synthtech.com
http://www.blacet.com
http://www.frostwave.com
http://www.cyndustries.com/cases.php

oops last url shd read:

http://www.scampers.com/EGRES

Software synthizers are the future, if only because they're free to steal from Kazaa etc, and if the means of production become cheap & widely available something good should emerge (hopefully). Perhaps they're not as good as the hardware synths (I don't know), but they're good enough. I agree with the tendency to endlessly dick about with every knob and button, though.

hey chris, which controller did you buy?

I got an Oxygen 8 for christmas! Yay!

I got the midiman radium. I did a little research and was all set to get the 61 key evolution one but the radium has 61 keys, 8 knobs and 8 faders, so I figured you could have more realtime control by eg pushing three faders with one hand and twiddling a knob/playing on the keyboard with another. The keyboard action is really crap but it is velocity sensitive.

Softsynth all the way!

After using analog synths, hardware sequencers and then cubase for around 10 years, i stopped making music and got rid of all my gear..

When i started afresh 2 years later, the softsynth technology had developed so much that i could replace practically every synth i owned (plus a lot more) with software...

Some purists complain that the sound quality is not comparable to original hardware, but most people probably wouldn't be able to tell...

Quite a few major artists are using softsynths... parts of the last depeche mode album was software, IDM artists have been using software for years, and recently Kraftwerk made an announcement that they would be using software synths and cubase for their live setup...

Cool. That settles it then.

Caught me! Yeah, i disdain a lot of stuff in the prosumer audio world... When it comes to digital synths, tho, i only disdain the ones that make claims like "just like a m0og" or some such balderdash. i think the argument there is more of an 'analog' vs. 'digital' than 'software' vs. 'hardware', though. If anyone says "i loathe digital synths" but then stands up to defend HW digis vs. SW digis, i would think they're just trying to be fashionably luddite...

as for hybrid approaches like "VA"/"emulation"/"modeling"(/"buzzword"), i think they're great as long as long as you keep your expectations in line with what they ARE vs. what they are trying to be. i have tried to 'model' simple moog patches on a few digital synths (HW and SW) but the results were never as tasty as the original. (likewise if i tried to 'model' complex digital timbres on my moog, i'd surely be disappointed)... an eminently simple joke from my studio goes something like this (with infinite variations): Engineer 1: "What's the best way to get a phat Moog tone?" Engineer 2: "Hook up a Moog!"

now on to the HW vs SW argument... basically i feel: In a 'live' situation, hardware still has its purposes. In the studio, though, "The Age of Software Synths" has irreversibly begun...

Some eclectics will always demand certain pieces of hardware make an appearance on their records (wesley willis?), but for the massive majority of 'music makers' (pro and amateur), soft synths are more than capable of filling the bill.

I haven't been to the music store lately but i expect soon (if not already) the 'traditional' keyboards will be sharing their display space with brand-name, audio-specialized rack PCs. Geared towards musical careers, they'd list features like: hi-quality audio output hardware (stock), increased durability for the road, uncompromising expandability (in a rack PC? hey i'm speculating here!), dedicated midi connections, etc... envision the Roland SC-300 Sound Crapper - 3GHz Intel, 1GB RAM, 200GB HD, etc. - stylish brushed chrome exterior - comes stock with 'Jupiter', 'Juno', and 'D-series' soft synth modules (more available). Buy now and we'll throw in the MC-series groove box module for no extra charge! (a $199 value!!!)

ok that's it for now - sorry about the book.

geared towards multi tracking, not synths though

Well, it seems this thread has never been revived, and as I am now getting into Cubase SE3, and just discovering the world of softsynths, they seem very much like the future for me.

Not as good as the old ones? Well, I still have my old Ensoniq workstation, and you sure need a proper keyboard to be able to play properly. But as long as the keyboard is in place, I feel softsynths tend to improve on the originals rather than the opposite. I mean, just the fact that some of the best ones out there add a considerably amount of polyphony, making them capable of playing more notes at a time than the original was able to (and this is important in the age of multitimbral synths, while it was less important back when synths weren't multitimbral and you were only able to play once preset at a time).

Btw. even if a lot of stuff out there is easily.. umm... stealable :) .. there are also lots of great freebies out there. Lots of crap too, of course, but at least I have found a lot of pleasures in using Superwave2, which sounds very much like a Roland JP-8000, only this one costs nada and may be freely downloaded by anyone.

Btw. Once I update my soundcard and get to record audio properly there will probably be more Hongroe stuff coming up ;)

although there is some love and/or debate about software synth versions of digital synths, the issues have more to do with comparing software to old analogs...not anything like your Ensoniq.

Well, I know, but even though software doesn't completely emulate the old analogs, it still does so better than VA synths do.