Looking for a quality all-purpose soft synth

F

flatrockrecordin

New member
First off, I'm not a keyboard player, but recently purchased a controller. What I'm lookin for is a good all around soft synth (vsti) with some good, usable presets as I'm not in to programming or tweaking sounds that much. I need strings, brasses, a variety of piano sounds (electric and acoustic), etc.
Does such an "all in one" exist? It seems that most developers try to make a single good sounding instrument which is great and will be used, but I'd like the general use option also.
Any Suggestions?
 
Only thing I can think of is the Edirol synth plugins that are basically the Roland sounds in dxi and vst form. I actually use the orchestral one as a quick and dirty orch mockup v-midied up to Sibelius before I get down and dirty with my Akai libs. I have a 3080 myself, and I personally think the Edirol general set doesn't sound quite as good...
 
I recently bought sonic synth for $200. It is a soft synth that uses sampletanks engine. (incl.) It has a wide variety of sounds that I think are very good. They require little or no tweaking.
Larrye
 
If you want realistic sounds, the best way to go is probably something that plays samples. There are a few soft-synths that come with their own sample sets (anything from Atmosphere to some of the Edirol stuff etc) however you can't add to their sample sets. Soooo, some type of software sampler is probably going to be your best bet. There are many... several by Native Instruments, Sample Tank etc etc. You may want to download some demos and see if you like them. One thing to consider is the samples that come with them (do you like them, will you want more etc) and the cost of new samples... if you want the ultimate in realism, it costs (some of the big orchestral libraries are thousands of dollars). An alternative while you get your feet wet is soundfonts. There is a free soundfont player here:

http://www.rgcaudio.com/

You can't edit the soundfont at all, which is a pain. For a few dollars, you can buy their version which permits basic editing. RGC makes very solid products and their stuff works well. I have their soundfont player and 2 of their other softsynths. The advantage of soundfonts is that there are many free ones on the net (of varying quality.... sometimes you get what you pay for) and many that are low cost.... or you can often just buy the one sound you need.

Good luck...have fun!

Take care
 
You can edit soundfonts with Vienna if you've got a creative card present. I used to keep my SB Live! in just so Vienna would recognize it.

I put it back in when I need to edit a soundfont


-Chris
 
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