New Gear and Samples/VSTi's, etc.

[dawman]

Can't speak highly enough about MIDI Solutions programmable hardware boxes.
USB is cool at the crib but not very reliable live unless it is powered some way like the KMI MIDI Expander for the QuNexus which is another toy I added to the rig.

Recent software purchased was the Neo Soul Keys that has replaced my boring Scarbee samples.
Scarbee's samples were excellent for Gigastudio but the Rhodes, D6 and Wurlitzer were converted to Kontakt and lost it's sound and feel.
The Neo Soul Suitcase models and Wurlitzer 200A are excellent, best I have evr had, even better than old Gigastudio.
And last but not least the GSI VB3, which has crappy demos, and even sounds like crap in it's default download is really a great addition to the Soniccore B2003.
The B2003 is the overall best for Deep Purple heavily distorted tones with the Rotary Cabinet Brake on, hands down the sound cuts, but the drawbars 16 / 8 and 5 1/4 are key. The full drawbar sound never really kicked my butt but I made it worked by swelling the drawbars at the same time I changed rotary speeds and had C3 Scanner vibrato maxxed out.
The recent VB3 though sounds like Hammond though and I can swell the drawbars using SpaceF cc2x2's with excellent control using MIDI CC's. The tones are my favorite now, even without a real Leslie Cabinet this 68 Dollar instrument is perfect for my needs.

XITE-1s RULE THE STAGE........PERIOD.

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[kensuguro]

neo soul better than scarbee eh. that's surprising to hear.

[dawman]

Scarbee's stuff was fine in GS. But in Kontakt is was weak and I was lazy, as I fear change.
But this instrument from New Soul is so much better.
His MK20/TX816 stuff looks to be right up my alley too.
Good to see ya' brotha' man Ken.
Tell wifey thanks again for the vocal tape I scored a great gig using what I learned from yuze guys.

Cheerz

[jhulk]

they sound even better on mach 5 version 3

[dawman]

I nailed the Hancock, Corea and Zawinul sound effortlessly with full pans, excess belly tines and bright choppy phasered strikes.
On the 200A I got the ZZ top cheap sunglasses, mama told me not to cum (3 dog night), credence, steely dan, pink floys, and supertramp.
A whole freakin' day of fun............

Ankyu

[Bud Weiser]

they sound even better on mach 5 version 3

Unfortunately, that means buying one more sample player.
In theory, it loads a s##tload of sample - (player) - formats, but you don´t have p.ex. Kontakt when replacing Kontakt by Mach 5.
UNFORTUNATELY (I repeat that here !).

My experience is, NOTHING software sounds like the hardware (or other software) just because it loads the sample/program files,- may it be EMU, AKAI or whatever format out there.
EII format sounds best in a EMU EII (or Oberheim DPX-1), EIII and EOS sounds best in EMU III and EMU EOS samplers, AKAI S series sounds best in the hardware samplers S-1000/ 1100 and the 2000/3000 series.

What do you have when you have the sample/program data ?
Nothing more than THIS.
The machine reproducing the sound is missing and as a result, it sounds significantly different in a software sample player accessing the ASIO soundcard.

Doesn´t mean you cannot make music w/ it, but then, it doesn´t matter what you use,- may it be Scarbie in Kontakt or Mach 5, or the Wizoo "Magnetica" sample CD in a EMU E64 or AKAI S-1000,- or some hardware instrument like Casio PX5-S, Kurz PC3, Roland RD-800, Yamaha CP-4, Kawai MP7 or 11, and, and ...
They all do cool Rhodes, Wurli, Clav & CP70/80 sounds and they are ALL tweakable.

When the composition and the arrangement is great,- it works w/ almost every sound.
But since some time, the sound counts more than the music.

Sad, isn´t it ?

Bud

[dante]

Supercramp's 'Dreamer' sounds great on Neo Suitcase, its the best for those Rick Davies sycopated rhodes accents that was on all thier songs from that era.

[garyb]

that was a Wurlitzer, not a Rhodes, though...

[Bud Weiser]

that was a Wurlitzer, not a Rhodes, though...

Well, the ears ...

I remember the crowd discussed what was used for The Doors´ "Riders on the Storm",- and it was a Rhodes and not a Wurli.

Bud

[garyb]

correct!

[jhulk]

problem with kontakt is its locked to one vca per sample which makes it hard to do certain emulations

its also only poly or mono you cant do douphonic or paraphonic as you cant set the filters to be mono or the vca

as some synths have polyphonic voices but the final stage after the summing into a single filter and a vca with multi triggering or first note trigger meaning if you press the first note and consecutive notes dont trigger the filter or vca

meaning if the first key is still pressed and you have a long attack any other key pressed would not have a long attack but a short one as the envelopes attack portion was used by the first note and why its hard to emulate on samplers properly

also the chorus by switches you can have tremelo type or ensemble kontakts chorus does not do this

and sampling an instrument with the chorus is even worse as then every note sampled has the chorus so when you play them your actually getting more chorus that the instrument produces as the chorus works on a whole on all voices

also things like the korg delta done by steve porter and one of the reasons why he got a scope pro card is that thee are lots of things impossible to do on the kontakt pwm is one so he has to sample every position of the pwm knob and add them as groups so that the script when moved will switch the samples for that pwm rate but you cant do it in real time or by an lfo because of the switching and the clicks that can happen

its also impossible to use the same samples to get the string section because of the single vca per group limitation

mach 5 3 has a serious modular type engine so making instruments is easy

i would love to see a script engine for scope that could do the same where you can add your scope modular modules then create a gui all in the same program with out the sdk like reactor and mach 5 3

as the modular engine is massive and you can really do most anything hardware can as you can realise the same cicuits as they use in vca for modulation of frequency or audio or control data

which is not possible in kontakt but is in reaktor

[dante]

On the upside the neo suitcase uses seperate samples for the knock of the hammer, bark and the strike on the tines, so you can balance those how you like. The VCA limitations dont seem to diminish its usability that much, its more of a technical spec thing on paper. Mind you its been the 80's since I played a real one .... but neo seems to do a great job of sounding real especially velocity wise in a mix or even solo.

[jhulk]

for the suit case 1 vca per group is fine

as there are 7 sample sets each one has its own group and vca for that group

so the volume amount adjusted is the vca level and then the envelopes work to that level

its ok for that type of stuff as for the synthesis side of things with the suitcase is not very much

its just plays to velocity with the same vca per section in this case seven

most are only one shots

with 1 sustain layer this sustain layer sample is where it is at because its a every key with no loops so what you here is what the e-piano thats actually being sampled sounds like

as with most e-piano sample sets are looped and the problem is when you try to loop a stretched pitch sound its very hard as the sound might start in the correct key but it goes out of tune in the sustain portion and its hard to loop at the key you want

a real rhodes the keydown and key up layers dont come through the audio outs

but on the neo-suit case they also go through the fx section and there is no volume control for the up and down and pedal sustain sounds

on the neo-suitcase it is attenuated so you can drive it higher in volume and add the fx so the neo is an extended performance wise over the real thing

kontakt is great for this type of sample playback as multi gb of samples can be used it becomes a problem when trying to create a recreation like the prophet vs as the vca per group limitation makes it impossible to implement vector mixing as you need a vca per voice just for the vector mixer then its mixed to a filter and then a final vca per poly voice but you cant do this type of thing with kontakt

like you said about the korg delta because of the 1 vca per group its hard to do the circuit type because of the restriction

why do you think that gospel musicians have moved there neo over to the mach 5 3 and have released a load of new stuff only on that platform as the engine is better and its easier to script as the scripts are already there and you can just reskin them its also because they can key there work as with kontakt there is no key for samples and why as soon as released in a few weeks its all over the internet for free download