What is the story?

[Benjamyn S Witt]

O.K., two questions.....
1. I want a (i'm trying not to say keyboard) piece of sound equipment that I could use to create drum beats, basslines, piano parts, horns,stringswoodwindsblahblahblah. You get the picture.
HOWEVER........no one seems to know if I can create quality, realistic sounds via Sample Cards, and a floppy drive.
I.E. A (keyboard,synth,midi...WHATEVER) That I could just throw in a disk, scroll down the menu, select a certain drumkit, And WAHLAH!!!!! Each key on the board represents one of the afformentioned drum samples. Make no mistake, I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A TOY...I simply do not have the space to set up a trap kit, nor the funds to mic it. I am a drummer first and formost, but I have been playing guitar, and bass almost as long as drums. I want QUALITY sounds.
2. As far as digital audio interfaces.....
I thought about buying a Digi001, but it is 24/48. I would like to be able to sample at a higher rate. There is the M-AUDIO QUATTRO-- The upside seems to be that it will sample at 96k and connect via USB. The downside is the inputs are limited. I know a thing or two when it comes to recorded sound, but when it comes to computers, I'm at a loss. (try to imagine how long it took me to type this!) I'm not looking to use some crappy built in mic-pre, and expect to have qualitysound, I know how to do it right. My problem is getting the sound converted and into pro-tools. (by the way, anyone know the file of type that pro tools uses???NOT .wav...) Any suggestions. OH, I want something outboard to avoid the usuall rattle and hum that comes witm EMFs. Thanks a bunch!!!

 

[JimH]

Let me answer in reverse order. You'll probably get more responses for your question about the digital audio interface if you post it in the Computers & Soundcards forum. How many inputs/outputs do you need? There are several choices. Some to consider that have eight inputs are M-Audio Delta 1010, Echo Layla 24, and Mark of the Unicorn 1296. These are in the range $600 to about $1000. I was looking for the same thing as you. I just wanted good sound quality and I didn't want a bunch of frills like sub-par pre-amps or ADAT interfaces that jack up the price. I ended up with the Delta 1010. (A/D converters are outboard to avoid EMI )
There are a lot of interfaces that sample at 96K these days. It's hard to not be tempted to buy 96K even though you might not use it. I don't use it even though I have it. Keep in mind that 96K will require twice the power (CPU and disk performance) from your computer as 44.1K. And the improvement in sound quality from 44.1K to 96K is not that great compared to going from 16-bit recording to 24-bit recording. People notice the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit more than the difference between 44.1K and 96K. And 24-bit recording does not use significantly much more computer power than 16-bit. The samples you get, like drums and piano, are almost certainly going to be 44.1K anyway.

As for getting quality sounds, a good choice might be to get something like Nemesys Gigasampler or BitHeadz Unity. These are software samplers; they use samples as a sound source. They will give you quality sounds like drums and pianos and are less expensive than buying standalone drum machines and keyboards (but standalone machines have advantages, too). Actually, my Delta 1010 came bundled with "lite" versions of both of these software programs. I'm not sure exactly what you mean about getting realistic sounds from a Sample Card. But I think you mean loading up samples into a sound card's memory. This may be OK depending on the amount of memory in the card, and more so on simply the quality of the sample itself. A sound card may have 1 or 2 MB of memory (I'm guessing, I don't know) and someone somewhere might have created a bass sample that is really good and takes up the whole 1 MB of memory. But in general, you're better off with Gigasampler because the size of the sample is limited only by disk space. This is important for cymbals because they require a long decay otherwise they sound fake. So the quality is typically better and you can load up more sounds at once. Plus you are using the D/A converter of that great digital interface you bought instead of a cheap sound card.

When it comes to synthesized sounds, however, I have an opinion on that. There are software programs that act as synthesizers. But I don't think they match the sound quality of standalone keyboards. For example, I installed BitHeadz Retro Lite that I got in a software bundle. I listened to the preset sounds for 20 minutes and immediately uninstalled it. Same goes for other synth plug-ins that I've heard. They sound toy-like to me. Being a keyboard player I guess I'm fussier about that and I prefer the sound of my standalone keyboards.

I didn't mention standalone keyboards so much because you didn't talk about your price range. Of course you can forget about the computer software and go out and buy a Korg Triton. You can't go wrong with that, but it's going to be more expensive.

One thing to point out, though. If you are going to be recording on the computer, do a little research to make sure your sampler software, recording software, and your audio interface driver will all work together. In some case they may not if the sampler and recording software fight over who gets to use the audio interface driver. Also, you may need a device like a keyboard or drum pad to trigger the sounds. Note that the typical Windows sound card driver will cause a time delay (latency) so that the sound occurs several hundred milliseconds after you trigger it. That's bad. So your digital audio interface needs to come with a driver¡Xsuch as an ASIO driver¡Xthat has a low latency. The above-mentioned interfaces do have ASIO drivers.

 

[Benjamyn S Witt]

I don't know anything about keyboards. Can I input new sounds into something like the triton? Why is there a disk drive on the N-364?

 

[JimH]

Yes, you can load samples into the Triton, from CD or floppy. There are lots of keyboards and rack modules that can do that. I just mentioned the Triton because it's one of the most popular high-end, new keyboards these days. I'm not really that familiar with the details of the Triton but a search will give lots of info.

The floppy on the Korg N364—or on any keyboard for that matter—is for saving the programs or sequences that you create. The N364 has room in its memory to store 200 programs that you create. If you ever want to create and keep more than that, you need to save some of them to the floppy.

 

[greggybud]

JimH said ..
"There are software programs that act as synthesizers. But I don't think they match the sound quality of standalone keyboards. For example, I installed BitHeadz Retro Lite that I got in a software bundle. I listened to the preset sounds for 20 minutes and immediately uninstalled it. Same goes for other synth plug-ins that I've heard. They sound toy-like to me. "

Wouldn't the "sound" of the software sythesizer depend on the type of auido card? Gee, I didn't know software synthesizers sound "toy-like." I didn't even know they had a "sound." What kind of code do you write to make your soft-synth sound "toy-like?" I know nothing about the Retro AS, but have you used Reaktor, Pro-52, Reality, or the Waldorf PPG? What about the B4? It sure doesn't sound "toy-like" to me.

I guess I should expect a lot of "toy-like" sounds in some upcoming major movie soundtracks becasuse this software is being put to work on a daily basis with very professional results.

 

[JimH]

The sound of a software synthesizer doesn't depend on your audio card primarily (unless you're using a really bad 8-bit card or something). It depends on how they wrote the synth program. For example, most any subtractive-type synthesizer—whether it's a Minimoog, Prophet 5, or the simplest software plug-in—can generate a sawtooth wave. This is a simple "ramp" wave and would seem to be very generic. If I wanted to write a computer program to digitally produce a sawtooth wave I could just output a sequence of increasing numbers until I got to the highest, then start back at zero again.
But now take a cheap software plug-in and setup an oscillator to produce a sawtooth wave. Open up the filter cutoff frequency so that you just hear the unfiltered wave. Now do the same on the Minimoog. The software plug-in will (may?) sound thin compared to the moog. All sawtooth waves are not equal.
You can also compare filters and other aspects. In general, the software synths I've heard sound thin and weak to me compared to a decent standalone keyboard. What makes up the software synth's sound is how well it was it was programmed.
Having said all that, I now need to qualify it by saying that, no, I haven't tried a lot of software synths. I haven't tried any of those you listed except for the B4. It could be that I'd change my mind if I heard a good one. I think the B4 is excellent. But I was referring more to the synths.

Synthesizers definitely have a "sound" even though they have the same basic architecture. A Roland Jupiter has a sound I think of as kind of "brassy". Listen to "Fooling Yourself" from Styx's Grand Illusion album and you'll hear an Oberheim Four-Voice synth which has a very characteristic sound. Listen to early Yes with Wakeman and you'll hear a typical Minimoog. These all have their own sound.

 

[greggybud]

Try the Reaktor demo. Look at all the different ensembles. Experient and explor the possibilities. If you dont have the patience to explore Reaktor, download the Pro5 demo from Native Instruments. I cant hear anything thin or toy-like in either instrument. I have always been impressed at how authentic sounding the Pro-5 is to the real thing. Of course the Pro-5 has a "sound" as it emulates Sequencial Circuits.

Of course all hardware synthesizers have a "sound." The reason I like Reaktor is that the archetecture has been left open to the user so there is no "Reaktor sound" unlike a hardware synth.