'Some' good sounds (even a majority) do NOT make a 'sound-set'...

That is the whole point of an arranger, in fact, the whole point of sound modules since the Sound Canvas came out. Every sound needs to work well with every other sound. Every drum kit needs to be balanced exactly the same as every other drum kit.

You will want to change drum kits for personal taste. You might want a tighter kit, you might want brushes, you might want an ambient, 'rock' kit. The whole point of a 'sound set' rather than a collection of disparate drum kits from different places is that, if the sound set is balanced, all you have to do is change the PC#, and it still sounds great! NOT that the hi-hats are louder in one kit, or the crashes too quiet, the snare drum's frequencies interfere with the toms. etc., etc.. Which is what you find, swapping between different VSTi's. They are NOT balanced against each other. Change kits, and you have a boatload of extra work to do before it sounds decent... hence you will be less inclined to do it.

Same for basses, guitars, horns, just about every sound there is. Unless a sound set is designed and built from the ground up to be consistent, kiss goodbye to easy tweaking of your styles. Although the Sound Canvas sounds were quite poor in comparison to modern GIGA sounds, what it had going for it, and what made it the de facto standard for well over a decade, was that every sound worked with every other sound. Out of the box. Change sax sounds, and you didn't have to tweak velocities, or volumes. Change one kit for another, and you didn't have to rework your sequence.

For an arranger, this is of PRIMARY importance. If you change a sax sound in the middle of a piece, you don't want to HAVE to immediately rush to the volume slider to turn it up or down. You don't want to have to change the EQ on a pick bass because you changed from an upright. Everything works together. This is what makes using disparate VSTi's, that are ALL completely different in EQ, velocity response, sonic 'weight' and panorama, SO difficult compared to one unified sound-set.

SURE... the results, AFTER you have spent months tweaking and refining, MIGHT possibly work together as well as a cheap Sound Canvas did OOTB, and sound great. But forget about near instant karma. It took Roland years to put together something as well balanced as the Sound Canvas, especially later models like the great SC880Pro (the MT-32 was nowhere NEAR as well balanced, but it was a start). Do you think you are going to be able to cobble something as interchangeable in a few weeks?

This is why I feel that a GREAT, unified, well balanced VSTi as the basis for ALL the styles is what the MS needs as a BASIC sound set. Add all you want, later, but don't be surprised at the amount of work you are going to have to do to make it blend in with all the other sounds...

Spontaneity is the watchword for arrangers. Far more than workstations, IMO. If I am in the middle of a piece, and suddenly decide 'I would like to play this on muted trumpet instead of harpsichord' (or whatever ) all I want to do is call the harpsichord up. And play. Not futz with volume and EQ before it can fit perfectly. Same with sounds INSIDE the style parts.

And that, my friends, is a LOT of work to prepare if you 'mix and match' your own VSTi's.

Food for thought...

Diki,
Very well said.
That's most of the reason I got out of the software arranger and am back at the hardware arrangers!

The software arrangers have some nice fetures and they do work, but the built in BALANCED content is missing. I got all the MIDI controls to work fine with upper, lower and pedals, but the musical content is missing. If your willing and have the talent to put all that together and get it balanced... great. I would rather play.

Lee

There is something so pure and so satisfying to just sit down, select a style and a favorite sound and just play...nothing to stop the flow of creativity, nothing to get in the way of the joy of playing.

Ian