I don't know that CSC is necessarily better, but it certainly has a larger variety of sounds, and it can be expanded.
The patterns in SI can work together, if you select carefully from the drop down menu's. Note the descriptions, and match as you see fit.
This little tune was assembled rather quickly, using standard patterns in SI:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=5511094 One really cool thing with MIDI is it doesn't care what instrument is being played. For instance, you can drag a pattern from SI to a MIDI track, set the output of that track to a different instrument in, say, CSC, and play the same pattern with a completely different sound.
"how do you get them to relate to a chord arrangement? Do you have to have a midi track to trigger it? " Yes. You can trigger the patterns internally from SI, but to build a song, you must drag the patterns to a MIDI track.
Here, you can assemble the various patterns. If you go to the PRV (Piano Roll View), you can select notes, or groups of notes, and move them to follow your chord changes.
Also, you don't have to use the patterns. You can freely trigger SI from your keyboard, if you so desire.
I particularly like the way SI strings responds to keyboard input, and it plays a prominent part in this little number:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10285834 Hope that whets your pallette, and inspires you to use these synths to their fullest.
Try stuff. And have fun with it.
post edited by RobertB - 2012/11/14 21:05:44