Recording synth...help

[Boseafus]

Hi all,

I primarily play guitar but would like to record some background synth sounds with my Omni studio setup. I don't own a keyboard and really don't see myself learning to play it. But I believe there are software programs that allow me to create synth sounds all on the computer. I am a full on newbie in this area so sorry if this is common knowledge for most. Please point me in the right direction. Hopefully there is a cheap solution out there for me.

Thanks
B

 

[AlChuck]

There is a solution - software synthesizers (softsynths).

What software are you using to record with? There are basically two groups of general purpose software synths that can be used as plug-ins in the right host software -- VSTi (VST instruments) and DXi (DirectX instruments). Examples of VST hosts are Logic and Cubase. SONAR is the primary DXi host at present, and with a VST-to-DX adapter it's possible to run VSTi synths in SONAR too, or so I've heard. There are a lot of these available at various price points, from free up to several hundred dollars. SONAR comes with a couple of them, SONAR XL with a few extras... I suspect Cubase and Logic bundle some too.

There are also some others that do not run as plug-ins but can be accessed in other ways, with soundcards that have multiclient drivers (that is, they can be accessed by more than one application at the same time). SONAR 2.0 has just added Rewire support, which allows it to work more seamlessly with ReWire-capable softsynths too.

Note that softsynths require host resources to run and therefore will affect your total track count and how many effects plug-ins you can run too.