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i begin to have some doubt regarding the usefulness of external hardware...

my system consist of Sonar 2.2 (well, honestly i'm currently waiting for it from the USA... for now i have cake9), 3 CW cards (11 DSP), mod3+flexor, sts4000, optimaster,psyQ, Pentium3 866, korg 03RW, fostex VC8 (AD/DA analog converter, for adding some inputs) behringer Vamp Pro and a tube preamp for mic.
i owned (but now i sold): alesis DM5, roland MT32, EMU proteus FX, Emu Ultra Proteus.

I plan to upgrade my PC to a p4 2.4 GHz before christmas, and i also plan to buy Garritan Personal Orchestra (that's the reason why i sold the ultra proteus, which had the samples from proteus 2 and was used for some orchestral arrangements).

with this new PC... does make sense to keep at home the korg and the VC8?
i mean: i could sell them (worth around 500 euro more or less i think) and buy some soft-synth... like NI kompakt or, better, athmosphere or some other i don't know...
the money is more or less the same (maybe it will remain some coins after this switch!), so i see this simply as an "sound upgrade"... i'll have more beautiful sounds at the same price.

what make me dubious about this choice is that, if i buy something like athmosphere (which is fantastic, according to me!) is that in the future i will not be able to sell it (read the FAQ on spectrasonic site!). so i simply throw 400$ out of the window: i know that i will never take back this money. instead, even if i buy a cheap and old hardware, i can lately sell it and regain some of my money.
take care of the fact that i'm just an hobbyst, and i don't make money from my music... so buying atmosphere is not an "investement", but for me it's like a "toy"...

i don't want to begin a flame about spectrasonic license, but just have some ideas about what would be good or not to do...
what do you think about this subject?

If I were you I wouldn't sell your external gear unless you badly need money. I did such step and now I feel sorry for that: I had an EA1 Korg synth and the sound is uncomparable to any of my soft synths and all the demos I tried. I just depends on converters used or algorhythms (or whatever) and even if the synth generated horrible noise (in comparison with no-noise soft synths) I remind it with a tear in my eyes You know, the EA1 is a more or less bass machine. I tried to reproduce its sound with rebirth (sound is great but different), three-0-three (again - great sound but the Korg was more fat) etc.


So, if you want to have your range of sounds wider and want your tracks sound fatter then stick to your external gear - both soft and hard synths sound great in symbiosis

_________________
Sir Sam Plaire Scopernicus

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2003-11-07 04:35 ]</font>

i won't sell my casio fz-10m or akai s612 samplers

j9k

Nah, don't get sentimental. Get rid of it. I still have some old hardware sitting around - even my old Ensoniq EPS (absolutely blindingly fantastic in its day), but there's nothing that software can't do as well.

Maybe in some subtle nuance hardware will be superior, but it's not worth the mess and bother in my opinion.

Only keep hardware if you want authentic looking studio decorations to impress people

keep the vc-8.

I sold my outboard gear (SY77, 01/W and more) to upgrade my pc and buy Pulsar. Although I could afford to keep the kit, it was a bit unfair on my wife to spend so much extra money.
I really regret selling the outboard gear.
The SY77 was a great master keyboard for feel and useability plus banks of really superb patches. The 01/W had loads of great sounds too. I have old tracks that I'd really like to improve, but I have none of the patches now to do it.
If you can afford it, hang onto them.
It's easy to filter out the noise that outboard synths can create and any latency can be easily worked around.

Yeah, keep the VC-8! Can always come in handy.
And if you ever get your hands on *real* analogue synths: stay sentimental (sentimenthal?) and keep them! I'm so glad now I resisted selling my gems at several occasions.

Well, I must be the only one with no regrets ! I sold a Jupiter-6, Korg Mono/Poly, two MS20s, Korg Poly800II, SCI Sixtrack, etc etc (But not at the same time!). I also gave away some gear to a young muso was very happy to have some "retro" gear

I really don't miss any of it. Well, maybe I do miss the Mono/Poly. But when I recently had a chance to buy another for about A$300 I didn't. I just knew it would take up space and be a dust-magnet.

It did make fantastic bleeps though with those four oscillatots running in sequence - brilliant ! And never emulated. Certainly no software comes close to the speed at which you could get some crazy things ahppening...

*I* hardly had any equipment to sell before I bought Pulsar. Pulsar was one of my first studio purchases.

Shayne

I owned the very Rodhes keyboard Gino Vanelli used to record one of his first albums. I bought it from a studio in France. It was fantastic, the 88 one I'm talking about. Is there a difference because it was used by Gino Vanelli? Yes! It's strings and pickups were tweaked to get this special funky sound used long ago by his brother. The sound of this electric piano imposible to reproduce.

It was hard to let it go... but you know, life changes all the time, and you need to adapt to those changes... If I would have got attached to this Rodhes piano, trully extremely heavy, I would have spend a crazy amount of money through the post.

Of course, I love my insltruments and if possible, I would like to never give them up, but this is imposible.

Bosone, if you do everything at home, I don't see the need for having external gear... if you just compose at home, well, it is perhaps good to invest in a powerful PC, or some VST synth plug-ins as you suggest.

About instruments:
I think no instrument can be replased by another. Emulations are very good, indeed, but they are not the real thing. They get better and better all the time, but...

If I get an emulation of a great all synth, I'm not trully interesting in the latter instrument, but in the emulation itself, cos I know there will be many differences. Some differences may be positive, but change the perspective of the real instrument. For instance, a MiniMoog is a one note instrument, if you do it an 8 not instrument, it has lost, in a sense, the genuine use of it, so it is not the same thing. If you had only one not to play, you will so invest all your time in producing leads, or basses, etc., while with 8 you will probably use it as a way for your chords, and the meaning and use of it has changed.

The other day Wavelengh said in a thread something like that: "Sometimes restrictions can be a good thing in music creation", refering to synths.

The same happens with guitar, basses, etc., If you like what you have, don't loose it, if you don't mind, get rid of it.

I think Spirit is right in the sense that you need to detach yourself a bit from things you own, to be able to progress to new fields. But in the other hand, you need to seat down for a while, and reflect carefully about the sound options YOU NEED and want. Nobody can tell you the correct answer here, cos your question is totally personal. For instance, what I would do myself, if I were you, is to get the Full Vectron from Creamware, but this is perhaps not YOUR need, this would be mine no doubt.

I don't understand why this tremendous instrument did not reach more people... I'm surprised about it... Well, I guess it's a matter of choice and likes...

I had also a Yamaha P15, got read of it. A Yamaha DX7, superb..., had to sell it. A fabulous Korg M1, too big, to heavy, had to leave it behind too.

Now I have a Korg X5, which is an old keyboard, but even if the whole world don't like it, I trully love its sounds, I use them all the time, I sample them and its a very powerful companion into my path to music, I always find new sounds... What an instrument! Nevertheless you'll find it for about 300$ new, a bargain. But well, this is what I need, love and want.

Don't sell something cos it is "old", or "cheap", sell if only if you don't need it, and you need something else. Good luck

just bought a Casio VZ8m for 76€ on eBay
obviously placed a little hidden as those are rather sought in Germany

I like the differences in sound character of external gear, and though Spirit is mostly right in his consequent attitude - I want to stay sentimental

cheers, Tom

last week I sold a Sony HR-MP5 effectsprocessor, from about '94.
I regret it now already.
But I did promiss to sell...

I guess the answer is 'do you need it/use it?'
I have a Kawai 5000 mostly used only as a MIDI keyboard and an analog mixing desk, nothing special but I prefer this to ADAT. And that's all apart from the mics and preamp.