I wasn't doubting the word of others in the thread that have both instruments, and I know that online demos MAY not reflect the reality of the instrument

But if you're after conventionnal instruments like guitars and pianos, I see no interest in Triton-like instruments because: a) synths suck at recreating those....

But a Triton Piano? In these days? When there are free alternatives that sound better?

ORIGINAL: mosspa

Without getting into what Korg calls its latest ROMpler technology, what are the differences between a Triton and an M1? Also, I'm not talking about user interfaces, LCD screens or slider counts.

ORIGINAL: WhyBe

D. Triny, I am with you all the way.

Earlier in the thread, I refered to the musicality of synths. Perhaps this is a foreign concept to many. It's refreshing for someone else to understand that some people are looking for GREAT patches. The Triton's, Motifs, and Fantoms, excel at making those great sounding, inspirational patches that drive urban/hip hop music. Unfortunately many softsynths fail at these type of inspiring sounds. Are softsynths technically capable of these types of sounds?...perhaps. I just haven't heard many.

The realism of a softsynth instrument emulation does not mean it is a great patch. Like stated earlier, Perhaps Korg, Yamaha, Roland and others have the best patch programmers available to them whereas most softsynth manufacturers seem content a dolling out realistic, yet, mediocre patches with their products.

I think the urban/hiphop market will fully dive into the softsynth "thing" when the softsynth manufacturers start putting great, inspirational patches in these things instead of the bland stuff.

ORIGINAL: Skyline In The Office

ORIGINAL: Howdy
I was the only person to mention a Fantom, and I am hardly a Fantom fanboy.

No, I mentioned mine. And yes, I'm a fan..
The debate seems to have centred round quality or otherwise of sounds. I'm reasonably happy with the sounds I can get from softs. But my point was their poor design and sloppy programming that makes them far too annoying to set up, configure, etc. Plugin? Don't make me laugh. In my view they're usually rushed to the market in order to start generating income, with the makers sure in the knowledge we're all software suckers well-used to 'upates', 'new versions', etc. If hardware was launched like this the manufacturers would be castigated big time.

Sid Viscous is correct in principal -software supplied on a soft synth DVD and software on a PCB in a hardware synth - no real difference. But the BIG difference is that the fomer is invariably flaky and the latter stable. As I said before, Sonar and my Fantom X6 play very nicely together, Hypersonic 2... hopeless.

Mike,
This is the diametrically opposed view to yours! I guess that's why there are both soft and hardware synths!

I don't know. I'm a Yamaha user myself. But a Triton sounds much better

To me, 3 things make soft-synths stand out above hardware. I wish that designers would work on consistently nailing these areas and using them to greatest advantage:

I think the best solution would be for the big three to create a softsynth counterpart that goes hand in hand with the hardware. IOW, the hardware would not only be standalone, but also be a dedicated controller for it's own softsynth. Sort of like what Yamaha did with the 01x digital mixing system. That would be the best of both worlds.

Yep

...all of which would open up a market for somebody like M-Audio to produce a generic uber-controller that works with all of the soft-synths, while not being as fancy, as refined, a bulky, or as expensive as the full workstations/controllers.