Hi Frank,
you've convinced me to put a bit more time & effort into the sound fonts.

I had been "checking" the reverb & chorus buttons in Live Synth pro and nothing much was happening. I'm happy that you you explained that doing that may not make a difference. ( thought it was just me not hearing a difference).

Looks like I better start reading the manuals. Forte obviously does a lot more than what I've been using it for, are you saying it has it's own set of effects?

I also purchased the Alive software a few days ago , but haven't had a great deal of time to spend on it ( again, I better get out the manual). I thought the purpose of it was to be able to import new fonts? ie to move them around and set them up as I want, does it also allow for me to change volumes ( for individual drum samples ) and do minor editing.

Might print out the manuals, might make for good bedtime reading ( haahaa )

Some of those other samplers you mentioned , Kontak, Giga etc with those I'd be back to needing extra memory?? ( I've got 512mb) and possibly a second hard drive? Not quite ready for that yet.

best wishes
Rikki


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 09-25-2004).]

Rikki, you just reminded me that I also adjusted the balance (volumes) within the styles to suit my needs. This you would need to do with any new or different wavetable that you choose to use. You would also need to change the balance if you change instruments within a wavetable, e.g., a different piano.
And you are right, in that, to make the software approach work for you, one needs to invest some time and understanding at the front end. If you just want to make music this approach is not for you!!!!!!! I nonetheless will keep recommending the software based approach and don't mind investing the time and money given the very high quality of the results. In other words I am willing to invest the time and money it takes to play pianos that sound like pianos, saxes that almost sound like saxes and so on.

In my previous post on effects, I should have added that it is not enough to check mark the effects in LiveSynth Pro. If the soundfonts do not have the reverb and chorus parameters set within each instrument you will end up with no effects. You could also end up with poor effects. As a result, I leave these effects boxes unchecked and use good quality effects within forte Ensemble, e.g., UltraFunk Sonitus Fx (Reverb, delays, chorus, equalizers, etc.).