Easy to use, good sounding softsynth

[Polaris20]

Hello all,

I am a guitar player (who can read music). I want to add more dimension to my music by getting a USB keyboard (probably an Oxygen 8) and a softsynth.

All I want to be able to do is play the synth in the computer, and record it in Acid, then mix it down to a stereo wav to import into CEP2.

I don't want to get really into sequencing and a lot of fancy shit. Just play it, record it, and mix it down.

For instance, judging by the Reason pages, that one looks way too complicated for what I want.

I want something with nice string sounds and nice piano sounds. Anything beyond that is just icing.

I might get Battery or something similar to start doing drum stuff too, instead of using Acid loops, which sounds sterile after awhile.

Anyone have any ideas? Halion looks good, too bad they don't sell a cheaper "lite" version for those of us that don't need one million sounds.

EDIT

Also, anyone have issues with USB controllers and Via chipsets in general?

I am running a KT400 chipset (Asus A7V8X) and hopefully I won't have any troubles with it in conjunction with the Oxy8.

 

[69ShadesofRed]

Polaris, if you like halion and all you're interested is in strings, there is a stripped down "player" version called, aptly enough "Halion String Edition" and for piano, there is "The Grand", but I haven't tried them. If you're looking for electric pianos you might want to check out Lounge Lizard.

Other then that, I'd say go with a full blown sampler like Halion or Kontakt, that way you'll not be limited to just one soundset, you can load samples from other libraries/formats, and be able to mangle them with the synthesis tools available in either sampler (even though Kontakt seems to be more flexible in this area).

 

[Polaris20]

Thanks. I saw Sam Ash has Halion for $199, that's not too bad. I might go for that.