Same mother corporation I believe...

The action on the Motif ES is identical to the Korg 01/W.
If you're into synth action keys, you can just FLY on those keys!

ORIGINAL: Infinite5ths

...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.

It works for everybody!

I think a generic controller would not have the quick workflow of a dedicated controller. You already have generic controllers that have to be programmed and updated for any given plugin/application (hassle of no standardization). I'd rather have a dedicated controller for each plugin. For example: pull the Motif out of the box, hook it up to the computer, install the motif plugin on the computer....wah lah... Now you have an interactive magic that could only come from dedicated controller. This should be the future of synths.

An M-Audio trigger finger won't give the efficient workflow of a hardware MPC connected to an MPC plugin.

Of course this is all wishful thinking.

A lot of the "hardware" synths have effects like reverb and chorus pre-applied to the voices.
They sound great out of the box.

Add a touch of effects to the soft sampler/rompler/synth and they wake up nicely.
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My Yamaha EX-5 sounds real good, but runs out of processing power quickly.
128 polyphony is good, but load a couple different voices and you get "DSP Full" messages.

I still use the EX-5 as a controller and also to add a FEW choice voices to the mix.
Any off loading of voices from the CPU just makes the whole perform better.
I consider hardware synths as a "poor mans UAD". Off loads the CPU work.

My favorite drum voices come off of a Yamaha TG-100. Don't laugh. It's 12 bit sampling at it's best.
After all, why are we Retro-ing into TR-808 synths? Why are there Lo-Fi VST effects?

Might as well use my Lo-Fi, retro, hard synths and off load voices.

Ultimately, it's the music that counts, and your ears that decide which tools to use.
I wonder if the Ipod kiddies earbuds can tell the difference between a hard and soft Korg?

ORIGINAL: holderofthehorns

My Yamaha EX-5 sounds real good, but runs out of processing power quickly.
128 polyphony is good, but load a couple different voices and you get "DSP Full" messages.

I still use the EX-5 as a controller and also to add a FEW choice voices to the mix.
Any off loading of voices from the CPU just makes the whole perform better.
I consider hardware synths as a "poor mans UAD". Off loads the CPU work.

That's why I got two EX5's . The EX5 is actually a softsynth running on 2 underpowered CPU's. So I don't think the big three are sleeping on this whole softsynth thing.

ORIGINAL: WhyBe

I don't know. I'm a Yamaha user myself. But a Triton sounds much better than the M1 . Isn't that all that matters in the end?

Yes, but the point I think I am trying to make is that the M1 softsynth sounds much better than an M1 also, and potentially could be stacked to give Triton sound performance. The effects in the effects package are Triton effects, so I was just wondering why the Triton might sound better than the M1 softsynth. I've obviously never played with a Triton.

ORIGINAL: Skyline In The Office

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.

My question is what sofsynths have you played with? I have about 20 staples and I have yet to encounter any of the problems you allege plague softsynths. Don't get me going about copy protection, but except for portability hassles (computer to computer), I have had no problem with any softsynth I have ever tried.

ORIGINAL: Infinite5ths

I should add that many Dimension Pro demos sound pretty impressive. If the presets are as good as the demos make them sound, then Cakewalk has succeed here where many soft-synth designers fall short.

I thought Dimension Pro was a soft sampler, direct competition for Halion, GIGA, and the NI Kon products, hot a softsynth

ORIGINAL: D.Triny
I think at one point even Korg was licensing keyboard tchnology from Yamaha....maybe they still are.

Actually at one point Korg was part of Yamaha. The success of the M1 enabled them to become independent again.

Technically yes -- I think you are right. I've not used it myself.

What is the general term for all of the above? "Soft-instrument"? "Plug-in instrument"?

I guess I'm kinda lumping synths and samplers together for this discussion, since the big workstation boards seem to have both synth and sampler features (or ROMpler emulations that create similar results).

I would personally buy a Triton or Kurzweil soft synths in a heart beat.

I have a K2500, and have had it for about 7 years. Now when I bought it, it was still the best thing I had for things like drums, piano emulation, strings, etc. However, almost all of those functions have been replaced by bigger, faster and better sounds in soft synths.

There are still stock pads and some user created sample based patches I have that are very distinctive that i will always want to use. If I could use these if a soft synth with no loss of synthesis, that would be great.

I've always been interested in Korg, but I can't justify the cost of getting one. There are some signature Triton sounds I'd love to have though.