Quote:
Originally posted by Esh:
I agree with AJ... I'm anxiously waiting on Native Instrument's BANDSTAND program to come out (release date is November 7). So far for outright sound quality I've heard nothing that sounds better than East/West Colossus, which does have a GM soundbank but it doesn't recognize GM patches so you have to manually insert them in every SMF. Recordings I have made with Colossus simply blow away my Motif ES8 - I only the use the Motif as a controller now. Colossus is expensive and takes a beefy computer with a secondary fast hard drive to work best (it's a 32GB sound bank) and doesn't seem practical for stage use. If BANDSTAND at 2GB comes anywhere close to Colossus in terms of sound quality then it could signal a new era in softsynth arranger/SMF functionailty. We'll find out soon.

BTW: I think this may be why Yamaha is not releasing the actual size of the wav ROM for the Tyros 2. It's possible that NI's $200 BANDSTAND with it's 2GB of wave data could crush hardware keyboards/modules for sound quality, but we can't say for sure until it's released.

Stay tuned...



Esh

Agreed ! I don't see any practical way for me to use Colossus in a live setting either, but I too think that if "Bandstand" can even come close, then for me at least, there will no longer be any need for a hardware sound module.

I'll find out for sure when Bandstand is released because it's definitely going to become part of the arsenal here. Worse case scenario would be that it isn't everything I had hoped for.. which simply means some tedious work making a high end soundfont ( or module if I can get my programming skills up to snuff ) using the best samples and modules I can get access to.

BTW, other than the plug ins ( AN and VL ), my ES is also now relegated to duty almost exclusively as a controller, albeit a rather expensive one. The main reason is that there are no longer any sounds in any instrument group on the Motif that are comparable to what I have in my software machines.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-01-2005).]
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AJ