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

Lol I have the Triton but I thirst for the Yamaha Motif ...I suppose thats why lots of people have both.

But several of you guys have touched on a point that has puzzled me greatly. How come all my hardware boxes, with extremely limited memory can sound so good, so often and many of my softsynths driving gigabytes of instruments frequently sound so...well...blah? Great programming springs to mind. Shame there hasn't been more of that in this bright new virtual world, eh?

exactly!!!! Because in many cases initial Soft Synth development was championed by programmers more focused on c++/delphi with only passive attention to sound design.

Impressive software specs prevailed over sound design. Couple that with an "anti-hardware" movement, anything loosely related to "hardware" became anathema...and the fact that the "hardware" vendors had the best sound designers was hopelessly clouded...temporarily :)

However I think for orchestral mockups, softsynth/sampler development was mostly on target....just too small a market.

Still the best days of soft synth development are now and beyond...it's getting gooder.

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:

agree 100%!!

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.

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.

I like this.. would the softsynth be able to function without the hardware?

ORIGINAL: D.Triny

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.

I like this.. would the softsynth be able to function without the hardware?

Yep

Yep

you got my vote

...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!

...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.

hmm that could be cool ...but M-Audio has to figure out how to get the world class keyboard action, or license it from Yamaha. I think at one point even Korg was licensing keyboard tchnology from Yamaha....maybe they still are.

...somebody ought to license keyboard technology from Bösendorfer.

OK....I know that a real acoustic piano action is totally different from the weighted key mechanisms used to imitate it. But it's still a nice thought.