Diki,

I would agree with you that it would not make sense to have an expensive high-end arranger playing cheap sounds that do not sound good. I also agree that buying high quality VST's can cost hundreds and even thousands.

However, since the X-88 & X-76 Pro both come already loaded with the Native Instruments B4 Organ Simulation and the Bosendorfer 290 Giga Piano and my favorite, the Steinway B Giga piano, which by itself is almost 2 Gb in size, I would have to question the assumption that one "has" to load more vst's for a quality sound.

All of the sounds I just mentioned are among the better quality sounds that are available and now with the addition of the 4Gb gm/gs giga library, one could easily make the case that this may be all you would ever need. One could certainly make the case that this is more than any other arranger keyboard can offer, with the exception of maybe the Wersi. I say, "maybe" because I do not know if the wersi can load large Giga files. I know it can use Akai samples, which are quite different.

I can safely say that I do not "need" additional sounds, as the sample set included is very extensive. But I can also say that if I "want" additional sounds that none are beyond my reach with the Mediastation.

"Yamaha, Roland and all the rest of the big players have had decades to develop sounds for their keyboards", yet Lionstracs has used the better technology that is available to create a keyboard that plays higher quality sounds in only a few short years. You are right, however when you say that these established companies began sound development before ram was plentiful and they have done an excellent job, considering what they had to work with. I am very glad that we don’t have to just “make do” anymore as the technology is now available to do better.

Look at FM synthesis. There was a day when it dominated the market. Remember the Yamaha DX7? It was the new technology of the future, and for a while it shaped the industry. But that doesn’t mean that we should not have developed new technologies. Was it not to our benefit that there were people who could see past the present and develop a better future? I am not interested in seeing how many sounds some “well established” company can get into an itsy, bitsy chip of rom and then overcharge me for 10 year old “warmed over” technology. It is an insult! If it were the best they could do that would be different, but I am convinced that all of the big companies could develop the same type of technology as Lionstracs yet they do not! It is not as profitable as releasing a new keyboard every 3 years and including only a small amount of improvements and staying with a proprietary system that is not open. Making their money year after year from the same people upgrading to a new keyboard.

“The amount of RAM a sound takes up will help a sound get more realistic, no doubt about that.” We are in agreement on this point, but on the next, “but especially for live use (that’s what an arranger is all about, after all) it’s all about the QUANTITY of good enough sounds, not how stellar a few can be”, I would have to disagree. Those who are more experienced arranger players may actually use every one of the hundreds of sounds included on their keyboard. I however find that difficult to do as I lean toward certain favorites. This is true with every keyboard I have owned. Even with styles I find that many of the
hundreds that are on my past arrangers I don’t care for and will never use. A much smaller number ends up being my palate. So instead of the quantity of “good enough” sounds I prefer a smaller number of “stellar “sounds.

But with the Mediastation we can have both quantity and quality. Did anyone notice the info in Domeniks first sentence under the post entitled “ New GM/GS Soundbank 4300 Mb”? It stated that they were, “1317 GIG Instruments, Drumkits, drumparts, loops and much more.” Sounds like quantity as well. By the way that 4 Gb sound library does not include the very large Giga pianos as they would be about 4 Gb by themselves .

Is it worth the hassle….? It is for me, but everyone must make up their own mind. We are fortunate to live in a day where there are no “bad arrangers,” only really good ones and even better ones and I certainly respect your choices.

Richard

Diki,

Out of curiosity have you played a Wersi OAS instrument in person? I suspect not. Wersi's sounds in OAS 6 and OAS 7 are far superior to Yamaha, Roland, and Korg from what I've heard first hand. I own a Wersi Abacus Duo Pro, Lionstracs Mediastation, Korg Oasys, and numerous other keyboards and samplers so I can judge them side by side not from some online MP3 demos.

Sure Yamaha, Korg, and Roland have a few nice sounds here and there but the Wersi's sounds are almost all really, really good. I'm not talking about VST's used in the Wersi either, merely the Wersi stock sound library. Once you factor in the VST support and additional sounds then the Wersi is in a league by itself. Only the Lionstracs and Korg Oasys can even come close.

Yamaha and Roland may have had decades to develop sounds but using sounds that have short sample size along with low sample rates does not yield the best sound. If that were true there would be no need for streaming file VST's like GigaStudio or Kontakt. What the compressed bit rate technology does do is allow the manufacturer to have more sounds in a small amount of ROM which isn't necessarily better. Yamaha is very smart in how they sell their keyboards, they make a few really good sounds, use those as the "smoke and mirrors", then occupy the rest of the sound ROM with mediocre sounds. That approach works for Yamaha but Wersi doesn't stoop to that level. Doing so would make it nearly impossible for Wersi to sell an instrument like the Louvre that costs upwards of $70,000.00 or an Abacus that costs around $7,500.00. Think if Bentley, Ferrari, or Lamborghini did that with their cars, I'm sure few would sell and you'd have some really pissed off customers.

The unfortunate reality is not everyone can afford these instruments that represent the pinnacle of what is available today. That is why manufacturers like Yamaha mass market lesser cost instruments. This is after all a business and the niche of high end instruments is quite small and little competition exists. Korg is trying to see if the high end market will work with the Oasys but so far the Oasys sales aren't spectacular. Is that because its a bad instrument or that it doesn't sound great? Nope! It's just so expensive most people can't afford it. In time the Oasys's that do sell will help cover R&D costs for lower end instruments that will share some of the same Oasys technology. Rest assured Yamaha, Roland, and others will follow the lead of Wersi, Lionstracs, and Korgs Oasys and come out with open ended instruments. In time prices will drop and these types of keyboards will be cheaper but there will always be new technology that will supersede it and cost more.

In regard to "an arranger lives or dies by its styles".... I agree and disagree. If you are mass marketing a cheaper instrument aimed at the low to mid range end user who is most likely going to know little about how to develop or edit their own styles, that may apply. For someone like myself who rarely uses canned styles and is willing to edit and make my own styles, sounds, etc., I prefer a system that allows me nearly infinite possibilities. I know that many people feel the Tyros is a professional instrument but in my opinion it is far from it. Sure I could use it to play a gig but for production and recording work like I do, I'd be ridiculed if I tried to use a Tyros and its weak sounds. The Tyros 1 and 2 to me didn't rival my 9000 Pro that was fully loaded. Even with all the sound options in the 9000 Pro it wasn't in the same league as the Wersi, Lionstracs, or Oasys.

Ensnareyou and Abacus
I know that you there have the Wesi keyb with the OAS6 and OAS7..

I like know only some technical stuff, just to know how the OAS is working, because I can't find online this info.
1) OAS6: how many VST you can run in realtime? I mean how many you can open and use?
2) OAS7: I know that give some new features and they are able now to open UP to 4 VST, it this true OR you are bale to open more than 4 VST at time?

3) Sounds samples: are you able to play GIGA Instruments or only AKAI sounds?

4) GIGA: IF you are able to play giga sounds, mean that you are able to open the VST Gigastudio or the new GVI ( Giga-Virtual-Instruments) ? I have Gigastudio here too, but is working only with GIS windows driver and not with ASIO, it mean a lot of audio card limitation, stil Fireware cards seem not working well under Gigastudiom a LT of latency, sometime more than 1.5 seconds.

5) If you are able to open Gigastudion, how you can browser the sounds? in the OAS you have a special UI for the soundpatch ( like we have on MS) or you have touch the display and select one new sounds under gigastudio?
Working in gigastudio UI without the Mouse, is really hard, because the all incons, field, controllers are so small and touch it with the finger is almost impossible.

I will not criticise and advertising nothing from my MS and others brands, I just like know some technical info how the others can manage the VST plugins.

We make realy a BIG work for the KORE Linux VST, but now we can manage unlimited VST plugins and still use the MS patch selector, like a normally sounds, without use the mouse or finger.

More info I can have, more better we can edit in better our system too.

Hello Lionstracs
All OAS instruments as from November 2005 came as standard with OAS 7.
OAS 6 was introduced in early 2004.
I have included a link below where you can download a free magazine which shows the history of the OAS system, it also contains details of OAS 7. (Please remember the magazine is about 12 -18 months old and further updates to OAS 7 have become available)
In addition I have included a link where there are some screenshots of OAS 7.
OAS instruments up to OAS 6 used Cubase as the VST Host, where as OAS 7 has an integrated VST Host.
The sound system uses custom (All connections are internal) Creamware Pulsar/Pulsar 2 DSPs, which have 32 bit processing.
Due to being busy at present, I have not yet had the time to upgrade to OAS 7, but I will try and put together some more details of the differences between 6 & 7 when I get back from work.
Hope this helps

Bill
http://www.worldofoas.co.uk/sample.htm
http://www.yourhobby.nl/forumorgel/viewtopic.php?t=1195

Update
The magazine site seems to be down at the moment so I have uploaded a copy to Rapidshare.
http://rapidshare.com/files/3447870/World_of_OAS_1.pdf.html

Thanks abacus for the info.
I saw the link with the OAS7 Interface.
The picture 14th, seem probe that OAS7 still can drive only 4 VST .

In this link you can see that the MS is able to open much more: http://www.lionstracs.com/store/msos-update-pi-139.html http://www.lionstracs.com/data/gui/vst.png


Strange that Wersi wil use the Cubase for hosting the VST and not another open host that will be able to open much more VST at time. Maybe if they will change, they have to rewrire a lot of code of the Midiserver, that allow the OAS to swtich in realtime the Audio+Midi VST connections trough Host and keyboard.

We use Jack connection and this toll make all automatically under a script code.
For sure they will upgrade this features too.
Thanks again

The Mediastation does support far more VST's at once than the Wersi but the major advantages the Wersi has out of the box are the great factory sounds and more intuitive user interface. The Wersi comes standard with over 700 fantastic sounds ranging from Piano, Organ, Strings, Guitars, Flutes, Brass, Drums, and much more. In fact, if one purchases the additional Wersi OAS Piano, Organ, and Synthesizer sound banks the number of stock sounds increases to over 1300 sounds (this does not include any VST sounds). The Wersi factory sounds are high quality multisampled, multilayered sounds with incredible detail that only GIGA or Kontakt files can compete with. Then take into fact the Wersi does support four VST's as well as analog modeling, FM, and wavetable synthesis and you can get an understanding of what a powerhouse this keyboard truly is.

Don't get me wrong... The Mediastation is a great instrument and I'm by no means knocking it. Wersi has just devised a much simpler interface and has more and better factory sounds than any arranger/workstation I've heard to date. Even the Korg Oasys doesn't have acoustic sounds that match the Wersi. Only the Oasys synth sounds are better which is what makes the Oasys unique, its synth and KARMA capabilities. The Oasys seriously lacks in the sequencer, audio recorder, and it does not currently support any VST's.

Over the last year I've seen the Mediastation improve dramatically with each OS update and the newest 1.2 ISO makes the Mediastation so much easier to use but it can still be better. Lionstracs is definitely moving in the right direction by adding new GIGA sounds and improving the GUI. I'm sure you know this already but look and listen to what the competition has to offer and strive to exceed what they do. Sometimes less is more and the phrase "keep it simple stupid" definitely applies.

Lionstracs already has the most open ended platform of any software based keyboard available today. All you need to do now is fine tune it, add some more sounds, and then watch out World! If Lionstracs gets it done fast enough you'll have such a major jump on Roland, Yamaha, and others who will certainly be coming out with an open ended keyboard soon they'll never catch up. That's what Wersi has done by having OAS out almost 7 years ago!

Question: with all these VST, software programs & such that are included......what about the licencing & registration for these programs....does the buyer have do it or is it included by Liontracks?

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 11-15-2006).]

Hello Lionstracs
The number of VSTs that could be loaded into the Cubase version supplied by Wersi, was 4.
Owners who required more usually purchased Steinbergs VSTACK which allowed up to 16 VSTs to be used.
The main problem with using VSTs is that (Depending on the type) they use up CPU power and Ram, and if you use too many at the same time you get note dropout or system stutters. (Those that are familiar with VSTs will understand this and will set up a balanced system accordingly)
With OAS 7 the host was integrated but the number of plug-ins remained the same, this was done deliberately by Wersi, as the players buying a Wersi would most likely be coming from hardware based arrangers/organs and so would most likely not be familiar with the above concept, therefore by limiting the number of VSTs that could be used simultaneously, it reduced the chance of players running into problems. (When Dual core CPUs drop in price and are fitted as standard, Wersi will increase the number of slots to suit)
You can load a large number of VSTs into a Wersi and then just select the ones you require for your performance. (I believe with OAS 7 they can also be stored in presets, so that you do not have to set them up individually)
A lot of OAS 7 details you will find in the links I sent you, and also by reading Ensnareyou’s postings. (I believe he actually uses OAS 7, whereas I am still running on OAS 6)
To sum up
The Wersi OAS system is designed to make it as easy as possible for the uses of hardware based boards to make the transition to a software based board.
Hope this helps and if you require any more specific information, just post again and I will try to help. (It would also probably be better to start another thread, as we are starting to get a bit OT)

Bill

Thanks Bill for the info.
The Wersi guys are my friends too, then don' worry that i'm here to talk bad about they products.
Is only that I dont have one Wersi here to compare and I'm really interesting on technical stuff how the others ( like Openlabs too) can setup and make working the windows XP with all this hardware added.

I tough that unser XP was all so easy to setup and the possibility to load the all software/features, but seem that this is not so easy too.

I agree with you, maybe is better open a new thread for this because I still waiting to understand if Wersi can straming sounds and how will handle the interface.
Loading Akai samples I have understand, but this mean tht you are limited from the Ram, streaming mean that you are allowed to BIG GIG files.
Untill you can open some VST, like kontackt or Gigastudio, then how you control the all sounds? by the Vst interface?

Perhaps, if Wersi were better represented in the US, it might be easier to get a grip on how useful one of these might be. Abacus, your keyboard lists in the US for $17,000, there is virtually no online information in English, few demos, and a web presence that is scary given how expensive they are.

Perhaps if they would just take the time to present themselves more professionally, I could take them more seriously. Wersi can't even be bothered to translate their own website fully to English. They may very well be the Bugattis of arrangers, but if I can't see one, touch one, play one, read about one, hear one or try one, what's the point?

Once again, I state my case..... An arranger's primary use is to be played LIVE....

OF COURSE a 2GB piano sounds better than a ROMpler one, BUT.... for live use, some of the ROMplers are more than adequate, my G70s piano is quite a joy to play. Is it as good as Ivory? Of course not. But in a mix, at a live show, it isn't $15k worse.... That's what I'm talking about when I say diminishing returns.

Yes, I already use VSTi's for studio work, but it's an expensive pill to swallow to be able to take it to the gig, especially as we all know that within a few years, ALL keyboards will be like OAS and Mediastation, and early adopters ALWAYS pay a hefty price premium. Remember when plasma TVs first came out. How would you like to have bought one of those at $10k, to see a better one at $1.5k a couple of years later?

Let's be honest, here. If all you want is a GIGA sized piano and B4, you can run B4 and Ivory on a laptop reliably for about $2500 and address it from your arranger. Use the remaining $10k plus for a car...... or the ashtray from a Bugatti!