What should I buy - synthesizer or soundcard

Currently have a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-170 digital piano and an Audigy 2 soundcard.
Am looking for much better quality and variety of sounds than either of these two can produce as am starting to record professionally.
No idea about synthesizers - is this the best way to go, plug my piano into synthesizer and get best sounds possible. Or is it best to get a top of the range soundcard to replace the audigy and that will produce as good quality as any synth.
Looking for professional results.
Thanks.

Hi!
I really don't know how to answer this question quickly without generating any confusion and a ton of questions answers to which you will undoubtably find by searching archives and posting more topics.

To make a long story short...
You do have to start somwhere. Since you seem to be after professional quality studio recording you will need a decent quality audio card.

Once you've got the card you will probably want to get a good digital audio/MIDI sequencer software. You might or might not need to upgrade your computer for that. It all depends on what you have. If it's processor speed, RAM and available hard drive space meet the system requirements of the software that you will decide to use then you should be okay. FOr a while. If not you wil need tto invest in either upgrading your existing computer or just throwing it away and geting a new one.

Getting an additional synthesizer workstation is not so much a necessity but an option that you might want to explore anyway. Given the power of software synthesizers having hardware synths is not really a necessity. Some get away with just using a keyboard controller with no sounds of it's own and a whole arsenal of software instruments. Some prefer mixing hardware synths with software. Some hate mouse clicking altogether and stick to using only hardware digital recorders and synthesizers. It is all a matter of preference.

So to summarise, I only have to say a few things. FIrst, explore and google everything that I've mentioned. Search this forum too. You will find that many questions that you might already have in mind have been answered by many wise ones.

Also, post in either The Bar or General Arranger keyboard sections of SZ. Traffic there is a bit better and you will get more answers. Most of us own professional recording studios so feel free to ask about anything (unless of coarse you first find the answer in archives).

Good luck.

-ED-





[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 08-23-2005).]

Thanks for that. I had a suspicion it was a bit of a minefield. I guess if I can get a soundcard and software synth that gives as good results as a hardware synth there's no real point in getting an additional keyboard. The Clavinova I have is perfect for actually playing on - it's just the range of sounds I need, eg some professional sounding strings / bass / drums / effects etc. My pc is top of the line Dell so there's no problem with what the pc can handle. I did see however that the new Yamaha S90ES looks like the kind of thing I'd love, all the top end effects of a synth plus a great piano sound. But you think I can get all that through the pc with new hardware and software? I'll continue with the quest!
Cheers.

ps meant to say I have the latest Cubase and Sonic so the actual editing is a breeze, it's just the quality and range of professional sounds I'm after.

[This message has been edited by BigMrC (edited 08-22-2005).]

Hi!
Yes, an S90 is indeed a great workstation. It is my second favorite keyboard of today. I own an ES8 (which is like a bigger brother of an S90( and it is fantastic to work with. I find that I use it more as a controller though. It's on board sounds come in handy on occasion when I'm jamming or just messing with ideas. However, I'd rather use Spectrasonics "Ivory" with it's gigs and gigs of piano sounds streaming directly from the hard drive than load a fraction of that on my Motif just to then deal with headaches of storing whatever I've loaded or setting up autoload functions so the MOtif will load the same sample next time I power it up. With software you get higher quality. You get more to mess with. It stores it all as a part of a song and there is no external devices to worry about or setup.

This kind of takes me back to a few "Software vs Hardware" discussions that happened in this forum. YOu might want to do a search on that.

-ED-

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 08-23-2005).]

I agree with Ed. I have the Motif ES6 and it functions more as a controller for my softsynths and a scratch pad for ideas with it's very nice internal sounds. Using it as a sampling device is pretty much a hassle, at least for me, and it is limited to 512 mb of samples ( mine is actually limited to 256 since that's all the memory I put in it ).

I subscribe to the thought that sampling is best done by using a dedicated device.
As far as software vs hardware, there is no right answer. Ed mentioned the preferences, and each are valid depending on what the user likes / prefers. I use hardware a bit, but lean more toward using software. As I explained on the GA forum, I like a modular approach. Using software isn't modular in the old analog hardware sense of course, but the approach with software is that it allows me to mix / match and tweak devices / soft modules of my choice.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-23-2005).]