Vquestor & MonSound thanks very much for your kind comments. I am not trying to tease you with the excellent sound of my system. In fact, it is the software & sound developers who deserve all the credit. I am very reluctant to show how poorly I can play and therefore do not post any of it. However, you can always get an approximate idea of what the system sounds like by going to some of the developers sites:
http://www.samplebanks.com/ http://www.bardstownaudio.com/frames/home.html http://www.artvista.net/index.html http://www.garritan.com/ http://www.gigasamplers.com/gigasamplerpercussion.htm http://www.kirkhunterstudios.com/ http://www.scarbee.com/ http://www.projectsam.com/ http://vrsound.com/ http://www.swgames.com/westgate/

I have purchased many of these and other (QL Brass, Whole Lotta Country, Sonic Implants B3, etc.) sounds for use in my lead/melody voices utilizing Kontakt. You could check them out at their sites. These instruments, of course, sound a great deal better in real time - but it gives you an idea. There are other even higher quality sampled acoustic instruments (VSL and EW/QL Symphonic Orchestra) but at a much higher price (approx $3000 US).

With rare exceptions, I only use Soundfonts for my accompaniment. If it weren't for the drums, I would probably abandon Soundfonts altogether. There seems to be very little innovation happening with Soundfonts. That is not to say that there are not some very good quality Soundfonts around. The good news is most of them are free. Even I will use them occasionally to mess-up a pristine clinically clean Tenor Sax to make it bite, growl, smoke, out-of-tune and so on. If you play the blues you gotta do it!!!

The plus in the approach I have been advocating is that you can build your own system that meets your needs and your budget. Further, I maintain that at less than the cost of todays top of the line keyboards you can vastly improve your sound quality. The cost is - a slightly lower quality control surface - but it is worth it!!!


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-14-2003).]