MIDI (uh oh)

[ryangobie]

I tried doing a search. 1456 results if I remember correctly. A bit overwhelming and I'm sure a lot of it was completely irrelevant to me. I'm at a point where I've been messing around more and more with sample based music. Right now I'm using an Akai MPC2000XL. I'm getting pretty competent with it. I like sampling with it and cutting stuff down and making loops is not the problem I thought it might be, infact, I think I like doing it more on it than a computer. So here I am, wanting to expand. MIDI. The thing is a sequencer after all. Everyone seems to be talking about software sequencers and software synths. I had some experience with Reason recently. Had a little Maudio Oxygen keyboard for it. The synths were alright but I really hated working with the redrum program. If this is the way everything is headed should I be thinking about upgrading to a computer set up? I'd have to get a new computer first. Ideally I'd like to incorporate something into my MPC. Has anyone had any experiences with this? What are some good synths to look into? Anyone have any links explaining the pros and cons of different kinds of synthesis? I'd probably like to run a controller with some rack synths as I'm already out of space. Any controller recommendations? This is all sort of a jumbled mess in my head so I hope atleast part of this came out coherent.

[Mark Alan Miller]

FWIW I use almost entirely hardware synths and samplers.
Ensoniq EPS, Roland S330 for samplers, Roland D110, Oberheim Matrix 6 and Mztrix 1000, Kawai k3m, Sequential Circuits Multi-Trak, Yamaha TX81Z, Roland JX3P, Kork Wavestation EX for synths, Kawai XD-5, Alesis HR-16 and Kork DDD-5 for drum machines (also, a lot of samples on the EPS and S330 and a lot of drums in the D110).
That's the basic kit. A little subtractive synthesis, a little FM, some sample-based synths... all for different flavors.

I also use occasionally some soft synths along side of Studio Vison Pro (!) that I'm still running as my main sequencer, but the soft synth thing is really secondary...

I've played with Reason and like some aspects of it but the sequencer drives me batty. I've also played around with Abelton Live a bit, and like it a lot structurally, but I hate latency, and hardware MIDI has enough for me already - soft synth latency makes me even more batty.
As my available computer resources get faster I will continue to consider soft synth options more and more, but it's gonna be a long time before the hardware stops getting powered up.

Just some thoughts.

[ryangobie]

Mark,
Thanks for the quick reply. What are you using as a controller? What benefits do you see in having a software sequencer? Would you recommend any of those boxes as a good all around synth to start with? I'll figure this all out sooner or later.