Totally confused about soft synths

[spacemusicman]

I recorded music in my home studio about 8 years ago. Everything was hardware-'real' synths, a sound card using 'real' audio input (no MIDI), and just my recording software. After 8 years away I am back, but have no room for 'real' equipment and need to keep everything through the computer (if possible).

I am completely confused about how CD sample libraries and softsynths work. Do they run through the recording software? If so, how are the sounds selected? Do they run through MIDI? Can they be used without recording software?

In general, how are the sounds/samples in the software connected to the keys on the keyboard/controller? And do you need a sound card if everything is 'internal' like this?

Hope someone can shed some light on this or direct me to a place where I might understand software synths a little more.

Thanks in advance.

 

[spacemusicman]

BTW, I am specifically interested in 'Atmospheres' by Spectrasonics (if that info helps).

 

[danny.guitar]

Here's how it usually works.

The software instrument (VSTi) is either a synth or a sampler. There is a big difference.

Synths generate sounds on the fly.
Samplers usually just play back samples of real instruments that were actually recorded.

For example, a drum synth would generate the sounds on its own.
A drum sampler actually contains a bunch of audio samples, say, a few for each drum, recorded at different velocities, and the MIDI keyboard basically tells it which drum to play, how loud, etc.

Spectrasonics is labeled as a synth but I didn't read much into it, so it could possibly also have its own sample library for some of the sounds.

If you've never used a MIDI keyboard, all it does is, it works like a regular keyboard. Except it doesn't send audio. It sends messages. For example

Note ON (when you press a key) and also which note
Velocity (how hard the key was pressed)
Note OFF (when you release a key)

Your recording software will receive these MIDI messages and send them to the software instrument.

If it's a synth, it will generate that note on-the-fly. If it's a sampler, it will play the appropriate WAV sample for that note.

That's a very basic generalization, and there are tons of different MIDI messages, not only for playing instruments but for controlling software.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[spacemusicman]

That is a basic help. Samples are playbacks of pre-recorded wav files, and the synths are created on their own. That's what I figured, and makes sense.

But as far as assigning sounds to the MIDI controller keyboard...that is where I get lost. Does the software recognize the keyboard through MIDI, through a program like Sonar, etc?

And are samples 'streamed' from disc or loaded into the computer?

 

[danny.guitar]

That is a basic help. Samples are playbacks of pre-recorded wav files, and the synths are created on their own. That's what I figured, and makes sense.

But as far as assigning sounds to the MIDI controller keyboard...that is where I get lost. Does the software recognize the keyboard through MIDI, through a program like Sonar, etc?

Every software instrument will already have it setup on which keys play which sample. Some software instruments will also let you assign your own keys. For example, my drum sampler that I use, I had to memorize which key was for snare, which one for kick, hi hat, etc. So that kind of sucked...but other software will let you assign your own.

And are samples 'streamed' from disc or loaded into the computer?

Most samplers load their samples into RAM memory first.

Streaming directly from disk is usually too slow and doesn't perform nearly as well as when streaming from RAM.

This is why a lot of RAM is important when recording using MIDI and software samplers.