On Saturday 01 December 2007 03:08, David Griffith
wrote:
Another thing that hardware synths have over
software is the user
interface. You just can't get the kind of flexibility that you
have when you reach out and grab cables and frob knobs.
Well, there are controllers out there with a lot of knobs and sliders.
I have one myself. But I haven't had time to get my sliders working
with Bristol as drawbars, for example, or to get my knobs working
with Zyn, and that's something I do see as a drawback.... but the
lack of controller standardization is really the fault of the
hardware makers, not the Linux synth authors.
I've played and owned a lot of hardware synths over the years, but
ever since I realized 10 years ago that I could get a recording of a
software synth with no analog hiss, I haven't played hardware synths
at all. Once I got my little Edirol controller, I put them all in
storage and will probably sell them someday if they still work,
though someone just gave me a CZ-101 and I may give in to nostalgia
for a while first. I was tempted by that Korg vocoder one that came
out a couple years ago, but.... no SPDIF, no deal.
Maybe someday it'd be possible through the existence of LASH to create
a standard control set (I assume LASH sessions include things like
MIDI control mapping) and write "drivers" for all our controllers to
map the physical controls to that control set. But I probably
wouldn't be able to contribute much to that aside from a
few "drivers", because LASH is magic to me.
Rob
I think you're also talking apples & oranges. I have two hardware
synths, which I mix with ZynAddSubFX. I've not used Csound, it's too
complicated for me :(
I would also think it depends on whether you are in a studio making a
recording or on a live gig. A hardware synth might be more convenient
played live (dunno, don't do live work myself) and would probably
impress the punters more than a tiny laptop. But I would think in a
studio setting a softsynth would win on performance every time.
--
Will J Godfrey