Hi,
> I've been saying all along that whether you use CSound, SAOL or any other
> *pure software* synthesizer, there are real limits to the kind of music
you
> can create even in the fastest PCs, especially if you want to perform in
> real time. In other words, it's best to think of even a GHz PC as a
control
> processor, and invest in some kind of offboard DSP hardware. I now own
three
> synthesizers: a Yamaha VL70-m, which uses physical modeling and is
> monophonic, and two Alesis NanoSynths, which use sample tables and are
> polyphonic. The beauty of an arrangement like this is:
I totally disagree with this statement...
> 1. Low cost -- the NanoSynths are about $150 street price (if you can find
> one :-) and the VL70-m is about $600. DSP-based synths like the Kyma run
> about $2500.
You can put together a K6-2 400 for about $250 these days or perhaps even
less? You don't need another monitor, keyboard, mouse, buy a monitor switch.
For that price, and with lots of free software, you get synth which will
outperform both nanosynths... especially if you add some software like
GigaSampler (which is a one time investment anyway).
I don't like the idea either, I invested in a lot of sound hardware, and
especially that JV-2080 will be outdated faster than I can get rid of it.
Why do you need this kind of outboard equipment if you can do it on cheap
PCs?
> The big win, though, is that I don't *have* to do any DSP programming. I
am
> certainly *capable* of doing DSP programming, but it is time-consuming and
> without a large library, like the one built into CSound, it's a thankless
well you don't have to do that with your PC either, if you buy Native
Instruments'
Reaktor... which is an excellent software synthesizer.
You could just get a whistle too, that way you won't have to do any midi
patching, right? :-)
> task. And since the synths are designed from the start to be musical
> instruments, with a human musician driving them from a keyboard or, in my
> case, a wind controller, they're already performance-ready!
I guess that's the only motivation for outboard equipment (IMHO). But that
will change too... musicians will learn how to install software and use
electronics eventually...
> The goal of my efforts is to produce microtonal and xentonal musical works
> that can be performed by a soloist and accompanied by a computer in a
> real-time performance setting. When the soloist is playing an electronic
> instrument, the computer, in addition to providing the accompaniment, is
> responsible for holding the solo instrument to the particular tuning
scheme
> desired. I can *code* all this in SAOL or CSound, but can the computer
keep
> up with me if it also has to generate the samples for the accompaniment in
> real time? Somehow, for *interesting* accompaniments (I'm not talking
> electric bass and a drum kit here :-) I rather doubt it.
If it can't keep up, get another PC...
> (Well, maybe a two-processor 1 GHz system running Linux, with one
processor
> handling the OS and the MIDI streams and the other one working out of
> locked-down memory generating the sample stream would have a shot at it.
But
> now we're talking $2000 right there for the server, plus many days of
> coding, debugging, version controlling, testing and other real-time
systems
> and applications software engineering tasks. If the end result doesn't
sound
> a *lot* better than the VL70-m and the NanoSynths, what then? :-)
It's not about a lot better sounding, it's about the fact that you have
control
over your instrument in any way; which is NOT the case with that VL70-m.
Besides, that VL70 got a tiny display which just totally does away with
all the advantages you can get from it. That's why I hate my Akai S2000
sampler... you can't edit on it!
Like I said, you don't need a $2000 system to do some acceptable software
synthesis. You can get a cheap PC (cheaper than any classic virtual analog
synth from the pro-audio store) and run cheap software on it. You CAN run
GigaSampler on a K6-2 400 and it'll do a nice job...
> As I mentioned before, I'm on another list devoted to microtonal and
> xentonal music. Those folks recognize the power of CSound and SAOL to
> generate the precise control of pitch and timbre this style of music
> requires. Many are mathematically inclined, many have the software
> engineering skill set to pull off a work of this nature. But a lot of them
> are musicians ... they don't want to code, they don't really even want to
> push buttons, mouse around on a GUI or twiddle knobs. They want to play a
> keyboard or a wind controller or wave a Buchla Lightning wand around on a
> stage in front of a live audience. I think for these folks, Extended
CSound,
> with a suitable wrapper for non-programmers would be just the ticket.,An
And what would that wrapper be?
> "Extended SAOL" wouldn't have any significant advantage, since they
wouldn't
> care about the underlying syntax or semantics. But ask them to spend weeks
> in a studio producing a seven-minute canned tape piece, with minutes or
> hours between a parameter change and hearing the music produced by that
> change, and you lose them.
I think there are enough respectable musicians throughout pop & rock history
(especially the 80ies) which spent weeks in a studio working on a record,
twiddling knobs and patching gear around......
bert schiettecatte.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 28 2002 - 11:46:41 EST