What is the ultimate sound module for realistic sounds????

QMinati

New member
the korg isnt all its cracked up to be as far as sounds go.

I want to try to find realistic strings/guitars/pianos etc.

what module or combination or module+expansions could i look for?

thanks
 
You might wanna try out a couple of separate boxes - as a general rule, more specialized a unit, the better (with some exceptions of course). Consider what you need the most, and find equipment to suit those needs - few "all-in-one" boxes are of the absolute best quality in everything.
 
i heard Roland srx expansions cards are great. what equipment do they expand? and how much does it cost?
 
Sound modules will give you very limited capabilities. You are forever stuck with what they have to offer.

You might want to look at a computer based sampler such as Kontakt by Native Instruments. It is very powerfull. You can sample your own stuff and manipulate it or use the loads of sample CD's out there. Plus you can play it with any midi keyboard. I own it, and while I don't do my own samples I will say it is powerfull.

The Roland SRX cards are almost 300.00 each and used only on compatible Roland products. I also own a Roland RD 700 which will accept these cards, but I actually use the keyboard to drive Kontakt when I have need for a sound not found in the keyboard.

If you are doing live work then a soft sampler may not be the right avenue.
 
354_ME1.jpg


Specifications

1/2 Rack Module: will fit into a regular rack with a standard 1/2 rack adapter

MIDI: Receives on all 16 channels, In and Thru jacks

Polyphony: 32 voices

Internal Voices: 256 programs include Grand Piano, Tine E. Piano, FM E. Piano, Ensemble Strings, Voices, Organ, Harpsichord, Clav, Vibes, Marimba, Electric Bass & Acoustic Bass (with and without layered Ride Cymbal), Acoustic Guitar, Drums, Percussion, Synth Pads.

Effects: 9 preset effects, featuring 8 different reverbs, plus chorus, with separate controllable wet/dry levels for reverb and chorus components.

Outputs: 2 Analog Outputs (1/4 in. jack Left/Mono and Right), Stereo headphone out.

Power:external power supply.

Suggested List Price: $439
 
Tim20 said:
Sound modules will give you very limited capabilities. You are forever stuck with what they have to offer.

You might want to look at a computer based sampler such as Kontakt by Native Instruments. It is very powerfull. You can sample your own stuff and manipulate it or use the loads of sample CD's out there. Plus you can play it with any midi keyboard. I own it, and while I don't do my own samples I will say it is powerfull.

The Roland SRX cards are almost 300.00 each and used only on compatible Roland products. I also own a Roland RD 700 which will accept these cards, but I actually use the keyboard to drive Kontakt when I have need for a sound not found in the keyboard.

If you are doing live work then a soft sampler may not be the right avenue.

so kontakt SOFTWARE sounds compete with the roland? i can always hook up a roland to my home studio and i have other equipment already i just want better sounds the rest is taken care of.

and traxx, where can i hear a demo of that?

thanks fellaz
 
QMinati said:



and traxx, where can i hear a demo of that?



one of the last great places that still display kurzweils for demo's is prolly rondo music. i dont know if they have an example of this particular model on display but aside from them i'd try sam ash or go straight to kurzweil's website and click the link to retailers to actually go and hear it live. i dont trust web sound.
 
Roland XV-series are great.

But still the best for réally realistic sounds is a quality sampler (let's say e.g. Yamaha A-series or AKAI Z-series) with 128 MB RAM and harddisk and external (or internal) SCSI CD-RW drive.
And high quality sample cd's of course !!!
 
Peace OMinati,

Well, I must say I have Korg Triton and the strings are great, plust I didn't stop there I have the Peter Siedlazchek Strings 32 meg that are real or as close to real as possible. Read up on him, he is a master of sound. His work is great and his CD's are great, very realistic. I have had people ask me who played the strings, and how many violinist, I just laugh and say, it's me, using Peter's 12 violins, it HOT!!! Now the Roland 3080 XV also which I have SRX Cards in them with Strings and Orchestral sounds with two old JV Cards in them, which I blend strings from TRiton and Roland and make them thick. Now that i have Cubase, Reasons, Ableton LIve which I am using now and getting to know, it makes your stuff sound much better. So Now I know the Ableton LIve good now it's time to step into the Reasons, but dont sleep on the Korg.
 
Kontakt is a software/computer based sampler.

I run my Roland midi into the computer and either play the sampler as a stand alone instrument or open it in Sonar and record.

There are thousands of samples available for it. You can place them in the sampler and manipulate them anyway you like. It does have a little bit of a learning curve, but most of the people at the Native Instruments/Kontakt forum are very helpfull.

I posted a short demo I did with Kontakt. It was done with the samples that were included with the sampler. Except for the drum beat everything was played via a keyboard.

The demo should start shortly after you visit this page. If you have a 56K conn be patient, while the file isn't too big it will take some time.

Demo of Kontakt
 
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I have and use both KONTAKT and an XV-3080

The XV's sounds are not bad, but I would never use them "dry" on a track... The main strength of the XV is that you can browse through a thousand instruments within a few minutes, not that the stuff soudns that realistic. I am sure the extension cards sound great, but I dont have any.

For stuff that needs to be more realistic, such as solo instruments, I load in instruments from CD-ROMs into KONTAKT.

KONTAKT by itself is not "realistic" sounding, it's just that you can load in new stuff... if you load in a bad soundfont, it will sound bad... if you load in stuff from $$$ cds such as Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL), you will get AMAZING instruments, etc.

What I dont like about software samplers is that I often dont like to wait for the computer to boot up, route the necessary tracks to the outputs, etc.. basically set it up... I want to play RIGHT AWAY.

If you dont care about clicking around the screen, by all means get yourslef the sweet KONTAKT and buy a few very nice libraries (VSL has a new "best of" CD-ROM at around $700).

Otherwise if you want instant results, get yourself a hardware sampler with a hard-disk (external or internal) and plenty of RAM, and dump instruments from a few CD-ROMs into the sampler's drive, and go to town... Just push that power button and you'll have YOUR library with the best sounding stuff you could find/buy.

I hope this helps.
 
thanks for all the replies, real helpful stuff!

lastly, where can i find the best quality sample CD's? do any particular ones stand out??? mostly wav files right?
 
i have the micro ensemble that j-traxx suggested. the only usable sounds are the pianos.. everything else is rather cheesy. if youre gonna go the kurzweil rout spend the money and get a good unit. unless of course youre only looking for good piano sounds. if thats the case then this is your machine. ;)
 
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