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Is it me or are the Synths in S6 a little cheesy? I just upgraded to 6 from 3. I miss the bundled Edirol synth.
I only used the piano and flugle horn but they were important. The AC pianos seemed clearer and had more sustain than any of the ones I've found in VSampler. I've read that the TTS-1 and other synths bundled with S6 are the same as Edirol. I just wonder if anyone else thinks they are a bit cheesy. VSampler was such a great VST.
You'd think 3 revs later that they would at least stay the same; not regress to GM synthesis. After all, they're charging new customers 700 bucks. Everything else seems pretty great. Peace, everyone Terry. I never use Pentagon. I had a separate thread on 'Do you use the bundled stuff.'
I need to check out Session Drummer. Never even tried Cyclone (I am not sure what it does). Never liked the older stuff. TTS1 - I guess it has ok sounds. I have recently purchased Dimension Pro and love the sampled sounds from it, though it can do some odd things too. I always thought that the included VST stuff - particularly the synths - was Sonar's weakest link. Ditto for the competitive products.
I am all for great recording, great midi and great eq and leaving the rest up to us to fill in. Terry, I'm using S5 (S6 on the truck for today) and use mostly the Virtual Sound Canvas DXi, TTS-1, Dimension Pro and EZDrummer. Prior to purchasing DimPro & EZD, I was using the VSC Dxi for piano (actually, still my favorite all-purpose piano) and the TTS-1 for the drums (had more substance than the VSC). I thought that the synths from the earlier versions can still be loaded with S6.
(At least those are the sysnths that I'm using for basic sounds and satisfied with.) What caught my eye with your post was Glendale. Our youngest daughter now lives in Glendale.
Modbod - the way I see it, not everyone plays the same style of music. Therefore, some people might get use out of Triangle or Pentagon and others might not use it at all. Ditto for a multi-sampled grand piano or an orchestration pack.
Since not everyone is going to use the included soft synths, don't include them. Don't spend more money developing them.
Do develop commercial products that allow users to chose stuff that fits their genre. Then the effort would be optimized on the MIDI and Audio stuff. The cost might come down a bit. Probably leave the audio plugs in since most people have a use for a reverb or a compressor - probably a much greater percentage than those that might use say Dream Synth or whatever that thing was. If you want a ton of soft-synths - buy P5. If you want application specific stuff, buy the ones you want. Me - I use PPG Wave 2.v a lot.
It is a nice compliment to my Waldorf Wave. I have been playing with Dimension Pro and Rapture some lately. The pocket orchestra stuff is nice when I want some strings that don't sound like synth strings.
Ditto for a decent Rhodes or Whirly. I love Cakewalk. I am not complaining. I only want to provide the feedback that makes this the most it can be. ORIGINAL: terrylittledad I just upgraded to 6 from 3. I miss the bundled Edirol synth. I only used the piano and flugle horn but they were important.
Terry The piano in the Edirol synth was quite a bit better than the one in TTS-1. It doesn't matter that it was a small file without velocity layers etc. It really sat in a mix nicely. I have some pretty good 1 gigbyte+ pianos but I still use the one in the Edirol VSC for some things. That alone is worth keeping the Edirol. You can reinstall it from the disk of the versions it came on.
ORIGINAL: stratman70 Cheesy was and is the Edirol VSC. Good for learning or puutinig something together but I sure wouldn't want anyone to hear it. Unless that's what your use to and looking for. The TTS-1 blows it outta the water. Sesssion Drummer 2 and VC64 are great. Cyclone, and the others are fine for what they do. Personaly I use LiveSynth Pro mostly with a 10 GB library of soundfonts and session drummer 2 with a 4GB library opf samples.
Frank The piano in the Edirol VSC is far superior to the one in the TTS-1 IMO. I use still use it on some things even though I have Gigapiano II and Bosendorf 290. I would imagine that including cyclone, physIIor,m the rxp thing whatever those synths are is a way of marketing where it looks like you get all this great stuff but 90% is useless in real world. This is a common practice, I amnot knocking CW, everyone does it. I enjoy and use TTS-1 for quick arrangements (not to record), sonitus plugs, session drummer 2, VC64, perfect whatever pulse reverb and lexicon verbs.
I rarely even open the other things. I am a guitar player and never much interested in synthesizers for me. But, for me, it all starts on a hill with my accoustic guitar, the electric crap comes after the idea has surfaced and is workable. Frank ORIGINAL: kilgoretrout Modbod - the way I see it, not everyone plays the same style of music. Therefore, some people might get use out of Triangle or Pentagon and others might not use it at all. Ditto for a multi-sampled grand piano or an orchestration pack. Since not everyone is going to use the included soft synths, don't include them.
Don't spend more money developing them. Do develop commercial products that allow users to chose stuff that fits their genre. Then the effort would be optimized on the MIDI and Audio stuff.
The cost might come down a bit. Probably leave the audio plugs in since most people have a use for a reverb or a compressor - probably a much greater percentage than those that might use say Dream Synth or whatever that thing was. If you want a ton of soft-synths - buy P5. If you want application specific stuff, buy the ones you want. Me - I use PPG Wave 2.v a lot. It is a nice compliment to my Waldorf Wave.
I have been playing with Dimension Pro and Rapture some lately. The pocket orchestra stuff is nice when I want some strings that don't sound like synth strings. Ditto for a decent Rhodes or Whirly. I love Cakewalk. I am not complaining.
I only want to provide the feedback that makes this the most it can be. Personaly, I like RXP for the Thunder Kit, just because I like 'big drums'. I make heavy indrustral music, and I use Native Instruments most. So nothing that comes with Sonar is really for me. The tiny libary of samples that comes with Session Drummer 2 was a huge let down, or I might use it, but. I love Dimension, but I have the Dimension that came with Project 5 v2, so, I don't have a whole lot there either.
I think FL Studio has some nice synths, Sytrus being one, and Slayer 2 being another really good one (if you tweak it right). But, all in all, I agree, Sonar's synths are weak, but their effects make up for it, even though I think Sony has some better ones, Sonar has better ones than Sony. And the program itself of Sonar makes up for the weak synths IMO. I think these bundled apps are good for beginners, and as was said it's all a marketing thing anyways - just look at all you get, what great value for money! Advanced users know what they want to use and probably already have it. Next time I re-install, I'm probably clearing most everything out and only installing the bare minimum.
There are so many things I've never even opened in the past few years! What would be cool is to offer a stripped-down version without a bunch of bundled hooey for less money, and a more 'full featured' package for those that need it. But that'll never happen, so thank god for custom installations!;-). ORIGINAL: jamester I think these bundled apps are good for beginners, and as was said it's all a marketing thing anyways - just look at all you get, what great value for money! Advanced users know what they want to use and probably already have it.
Next time I re-install, I'm probably clearing most everything out and only installing the bare minimum. There are so many things I've never even opened in the past few years! What would be cool is to offer a stripped-down version without a bunch of bundled hooey for less money, and a more 'full featured' package for those that need it. But that'll never happen, so thank god for custom installations!;-) I would not want to give that impression to Cakewalk (or other vendors).
I'm pretty advanced and so are my productions, yet I still use a bunch of the included stuff. And I look forward to upgrades because I know they will include some new plug in that I can use in my productions.
Like I said, it takes layering and tweaking and using fx, but any of the included sounds can be made to sound 'advanced'. It all depends on how one works. I like the free stuff, I may use it once in a blue moon but I think it is a nice thing to have as a bonus on the purchase. I actually need the new included drum synth, I dont have BFD at least not more then a demo which is limited. I have my collection of purchased vsti synths that I usually use with Sonar. I am so looking forward to getting the new verson.
Vsampler is a great sampler. I think not including some of the greats came down to cost But what of some of the best of effects included in the past? Sonitus and many others. Those were not cheesy at all. They were right up there in capability and value. I guess I'm shaking my head a little here- How anyone could think Pentagon sounds cheesy is beyond me.
(My neighbors sure don't think so ) And RXP is not only useful, but can do some incredibly cool stuff, and quickly at that. I could understand how someone could think a GM sax is perhaps well on the cheesy side, but there is some good stuff if your productions call for certain kinds of sounds.
If you need higher quality bread and butter sounds, then that's where Dimension Pro comes in.as well as 3rd party synths. By all means, flesh out your sonic arsenal, but (depending on your music I guess) if you've creatively written off all of SONAR's stock synths then you are doing yourself (and your hard earned money) a disservice. And as others have mentioned.play with effects and layering. You can get quite a bit of love out of a patch if you know how to treat it.
It's all in how you program them. I have Sonar 5SE and Project-5 v2, and even though I have some really nice 3rd party synths (Cameleon5000, QuadraSID, z3ta+, Dimension Pro, etc.), I often find myself using the bundled stuff: VSC/TTS-1/GrooveSynth - these romplers always have something to offer, whether it's filler sounds (try using them to double the main melody or something), or drums/percussions, or just some weird fx here and there (try some sounds in the low or high registers and add some fx). They may sound cheesy and thin by themselves, but layering and effects can do wonders with them. PSYNII - This is a very decent substractive synth, with about 60% of the functionality of z3ta+. I don't particularly like its character in some sounds, but it has a ton of uses: pads, basses, fx, leads, etc.
I don't own Pentagon, but I've used Triangle II, and it has a powerful sound, not cheesy at all; I imagine Pentagon is sort of a polyphonic version of Triangle II, but better. Cyclone - This is where Cakewalk is losing ground, IMO.
The concept of Cyclone is great, but underdeveloped. I've used it a few times with good results, but always find its interface a bit misleading, and I hate that it doesn't automatically slice clips (when Cakewalk obviously knows how to do it). If Cyclone could do this, and automatically assign different hits to each pad, it would be great. Also, an audio preview in the Load WAV search box would be nice. I'm still waiting for Cyclone II to be released.
Sfz - the best freeware soundfont player, period. Including the Dimension Piano was a nice touch. LiveSynth Pro? What is that? Dreamstation - ok, this is the worst of the bunch, but only because it's seriously outdated. I imagine that it was a nice addition in Sonar 1/2, but with stuff like PSYNII or Pentagon, I can't imagine why someone would even consider using Dreamstation.
Plus the presets are horrible. Still, I've managed to get some usable sounds out of it.
These are the Sonar synths (at least those included with the Studio Edition), but the P5 synths also have some juice in them. I use Velocity and nPulse regularly. If anything, I haven't played with DS864 much, but only because I have Dimension Pro, sfz, and Wusikstation to cover my sampling needs. I started with Sonar 2.2, and IIRC at one point the patcher programs told you they assumed or expected that you had installed all of the bundled instruments, MFX, etc. The bundled instruments in Sonar 5p are SO far ahead of what came with Sonar 2 it's not funny, and I do use TTS, RXP and GrooveSynth. If I was just starting out now with nothing but Sonar, its bundled instruments, and a few freebies, I could happily make a lot of music - Pentagon is no slouch, even though it's no longer state-of-the-art.
But since I've amassed an excessive collection of instruments, I'm probably going to be doing a purge in the near future. On the other hand, I bought P5V1 during the free upgrade window, specifically to get the bundled Dimension P5V2's no longer installed on this machine (I ended up sticking with FLS and Sonar) but it got me the upgrade to DimPro, yay! Indeed, this subject could go on for days. Probably will, and has before, on most of the DAW apps I'm around. It's still fun, and perhaps helpful for Cake to make future decisions from. I don't find them a waste of time for particularly this reason.
To be perfectly honest, I don't use the included synths in either Sonar or Project5 very much. In fact, just last night I broke out of my 'favorites' norm and went through the entire set. I figure, they're free, so I might as well see if I can use some of them. My conclusion is that I probably won't use many of them.
I was particularly interested in Pentagon, which is a decent synth (typical of Rene, if you'll pardon the incorrect final 'e' of that spelling). I can't say anything bad about it. I used to use Triangle quite a bit before getting Sonar 5PE. Nice sounds, lots of control.
However, I find the UI a bit busy to navigate, so until Sonar 6 comes and I can control it from an ACT controller, I won't use it much. After that, I'll probably use it quite a bit. I like Pentagon. Psyn II is alright for what I do as well, but I have a freeware synth that fills the same niche (sorry, can't remember the name right now), and I tend to migrate to it. Pretty much everything else is not along my lines, with a few probably more useful once I figure out how to use them efficiently. If they weren't there, I wouldn't notice, however, and I can't really imagine being hindered by their lacking. I don't mind them being there, and doubt there's a great deal of time 'wasted' figuring out how well Dreamstation works in this or that configuration.
You know, the only DAW with a ton of plugs that I actually use on a regular basis is Logic Pro. Perhaps it's just my personal style of music, but their plugs just rock.
Keep in mind, however, that the vast majority of the really good ones were actually commercial up until 6.4, so it's not exactly the same thing. Apple seems uninterested in developing separate instruments for shrink-wrapped sale anyway.
I felt sorry for all the guys/girls who bought Logic 6 Platinum a month before they brought out 6.4 for the same price. Typical Apple. But it was a good move, and if I were still in to Macs I'd probably use them with a few others almost entirely. Cubase, for once, has a decent LITTLE offering, and it's one of the reasons I nearly got Cubase 4. There aren't a ton of included plugs, but they seem very focused, and they carry the same UI look and feel as the app (actually, the Logic plugs carry much of the look and feel of the app as well).
It's one of the few things I actually think I like better about the 'extras' philosophy: Give me a drum synth, a rompler, and two 'true' synths. All of VERY good quality. I MUCH prefer this over the 'I'm giving you 15 things you'll barely ever use.' And, though maybe this is superficial and unimportant. I REALLY prefer it when included synths look like they're supposed to be there.
A skin that matches the parent, so to speak. This, of course, is just my opinion, and everybody has one of those. In the mean time, I'll use my favorites with Sonar and Project5, try to use the one's that are included as I learn them, and go on with my life. Now if only I could find the time to use some of the old hardware taking up space. That would be useful. Take care, - zevo.
Then either suck it up and learn/grind out the match-up with your lower tier character or pick a top tier and get over it. The game does not care about who you play, it isn't bound to some kind of honor or moral code. As far as it cares, you picked a character and are playing against another character. No top or even high level player anywhere feels bad or guilty for picking a top tier for bad match-ups or having a top tier character. They want to win, so does their opponent, and so they do what they feel is necessary and want to win more than their opponents. You will never get good with the mentality of feeling bad for your opponent because you have a top tier character for bad match-ups.