soft synths live

You can do this but understand a few things.


1. you need to have a very low latency interface to play in real time.

2. Beware the computer glitches and crashes. This will take you out of the show quickly. 


If I was planning to run a VST live, I would do it on a dedicated computer and a decent interface. 

Having said that, I have seen a few "bands" that used Cakewalk in a live show to play almost all the parts.  Everything seemed to go well for them. 

I use an HP Pavilion Dv6 notebook PC running Windows 7 32bit (w 3gb ram) and the Sonar X1 soft synths run great. It is also my primary desktop computer for work, play, and music. Generally speaking it's not a powerhouse by any means and I certainly have never needed an audio interface. But it performs great. I even playback up to 20 audio tracks live plus the instruments.

Although it depends on the synth. I use the Pentagon and Dimension Pro mostly. I'm using the on-board sound system too (despite the bus noise of which I have worked around). I've never had a problem live.

Hey -thanks to all you guys.  I understand the latency/ interface issue. @ deved- funny, I am looking at an HP Dv6 right now. There is a free upgrade to 8gig RAM. It has an i5 2.8g quad-core and 750 gig hard drive. $660! There are so many cool sounds in these soft synths I hate to go out and buy a new synth.  I've thought about controlling with my old M1 but it seems like it doesn't communicate well with the soft synth. (sustain, etc.) I may be better off to get a midi controller and just take my M1 along in case of crashes. BTW- I will be dedicating this laptop to this function and  I appreciate the heads up on the zT3a+.  Thanks again!
 
X1/i7 3.3g quadcore/12g RAM/ 3-1T HD/Fireface 800
 

One thing I would do if I was using the CAKE synths live..... Allowing that you might not be on a dedicated musical DAW computer...... at least consider the following. 

I would invest into a dedicated USB music interface that is running Native ASIO drivers and not trust the gig to ASIO4ALL  which is another layer of software that is basically a wrapper that fools the other software into thinking it's dealing with real ASIO drivers....and remember......all that is running in Windows...... 

A nice audio/midi interface would be a worthwhile investment if you planned on gigging in this manner more than a few times. 

what i do live is have audio tracks for rhythm sections.  then i layer sometimes maybe 7 or 8 instances of rapture, dim pro, z3ta+ and third party synths (mostly native instruments).  i the track inspector i assign a separate channel to each soft synth input.  all i have to do is change the channel on my midi controller and voila... brand new instrument.  the other thing i do is have midi loops assigned to matrix that i can trigger via the controller's pads.  so, say a little synth fill (extremely useful when there's a lot of midi controller automation that would be impossible to play without 8 hands) here or there while i'm playing a completely different part on a different synth.  works like a charm. running an m-audio fast track ultra. 

I know I'm a little late on this post, but I thought I would talk about my experience with this topic as it is something that I have slowly worked out many bugs in my attempt at making this work.  
Currently I have a pc rackmounted in a rolling rack case.  I use Sonar X1 as my host software, a m-audio Delta 44 for audio and a motu micro-lite as my midi interface.  I have numerous virtual synths in the arsenal including the Korg analog and digital legacy series, arturia V collection.  I use the Korg ms-20 controller, a 61 key m-audio controller and the Roland pk5 as a foot controller.

I play in a power trio similar to rush, tool, and the like.  my duties are bass and keys.  I have to be able to change sounds, trigger pre-recorded sounds, and sometimes just play keys.   I pretty much cover the gammit in dealing with the issues. 

Thanks for indulging on the background info, but now you know where I'm coming from with regards to this issue.

This is what I've learned in order of importance:

1)  Battery backup if you're running on a pc.  I use a rackmounted ups in my rack.  This saves your pc from spikes and the inevitable tripped breaker.  You can also play in stage power is out but FOH is still good. 

2)  Solid state hard drive as the boot drive.  This can take the abuse of road life much more than a spinning disk.  Plus it will improve boot time tremendously which can be huge for those 'you have 15 minutes to setup' gigs.

3) Make sure your controllers have midi out. If you use Cakewalk/Sonar you know that it will sometimes decide to re-order your synth's Id in the midi devices.  An absolute headache/show stopper.  Cakewalk has yet to address this and it seems they're not going to so....  Make sure your controllers are midi out so the order remains the same through your midi interface.  Otherwise you will go to play a sound on one controller and get a sound you did not expect.  Not cool.  I continue to have this issue with my ms-20 controller and it is going bye-bye because of that.  USB is too much trouble live.

4) Get a controller or controller that is versatile.  If you intend to anything more than just pull up a sound a play it then the versatility of your controller will be priceless.  I recently (within the year) upgraded my foot-pedals from the studiologic/fatar pedals to the Roland and I have freed myself from many headaches with regards to patch changing, triggering the interface, etc.  MMC control, knobs, sliders, assignable buttons.  All good things.

5) Try to get a 1/4 output for your audio.  this makes it much easier when dealing with direct boxes and the likes.  Plus it just gives the sound-person a much better feeling when you hand him/her a 1/4 regular cable for the directbox rather than a 3/8 or rca.  The latter two will get you a interesting look at best.

there are many other minor things I've learned while doing this, but those to me are absolutes.  I'm sure some will disagree and that's cool.  I just thought I would add my 2cents (or dollar based on the length of this post ;-)

good luck.

pj