When it comes to comparing modeling synths with the analog synths they try to imitate, try they do because modeling is not an exact science and modeling synths will never sound exactly like the instruments they try to be though the modeling algorithms will become more refined over time. On the plus side they can still sound great in their own way and can come very close to the synth/piano they try to be.

But when you compare software and hardware DIGITAL synths then the way they work is EXACTLY the same ie. microprocessors crunching numbers. FM, wavetable, sampler, ROMpler and modeling synths can all be implemented just the same on computers or stand alone keyboards ( really just proprietary music computers ) and don't differ at all except those running on PCs are running under operating systems like Windows, MacOS or Linux. The only real difference is the D/A converter hardware that also has a big bearing on the quality of the final sound. That is true for software synths as it is for hardware synths.

To be fair to Pierry my original post that indicated that computers are more likely to crash in a live situation should have mentioned that this is unlikely to happen if the computer is used solely for running music applications. If you don't install other non musical apps and don't use it for email and web browsing etc then it will most probably be a solid musical tone source.

I guess for me a lot of it is also the user interface. I like to have sliders and buttons to use playing live. To have to add a control surface to a laptop starts to complicate things though that would be the way to go for live performance.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 07-26-2005).]