what kind of softsynth would produce these sounds????

[bhuether]

I have been wondering about something for a while. You know how with new
age/contemporary music (you know, the type of stuff that you listen to for
relaxing) there is often these dreamy sounding synth lines? I wish I could
describe the sound better. In GM MIDI, it is sort of like the Oohs and Aahs
sounds, and the string ensemble sounds, but not quite.

I have gigastudio and a bunch of sample cd\'s, but I don\'t think those will
allow me to emulate the types of sounds I am talking about. I think the
sounds I am talking about are truly synthetic (i.e. samples won\'t make sense
for emulating a synthetically generated sound).

I want to know if any of these softsynths can produce these types of sounds
I am talking about (i.e. RReason, Unity DS-1, etc). I also want to know the
technical name for these types of sounds. I know people tend to associate
softsynths with dance, hip-hop type of music, but the type of synth sounds I
am talking about are usually not found in that kind of music. They are
usually found in slow, melodic, contemporary music. Any ideas?!?!

-brian

[stmikkel]

Hi.

Well, the oohs and aahs could possibly be found in the Symphony of Voices sample cd-set.

Otherwise, I would recommend that you\'d check out the Creamware Pulsar2 soundcard.
It has 6 dps chips onboard for effects, softsynths etc...
IMO, the pulsar synths are way better than any cpu-based software synth out there.
They sound bigger, fatter and more authentic.
It can emulate just about any synth, with very good to excellent results.

Especially www.zargmusic.com (\"http://www.zargmusic.com\") makes some great pulsar-based synths. Among them are Ambient and Rotor48, which makes brilliant pad, strings etc.. sounds.

For me the combination of Pulsar and Gigastudio is great, especially since Pulsar doesn\'t draw power from the cpu.

[Chadwick]

Brian,

Stmikkel is right. Pulsar is pretty good for these kinds of ambients \'pad\' sounds.

Old synths like the wavestation and M1 used to do this pretty well. Basically they combined a couple of voice samples and string pads and put that through chorus/verb/delays to make it all washy and new age-ish. With enough processing you could do it to lots of different sounds which seem crap when you hear them dry. The old Oberheims had some nice detuned square wave pads like Genevieve which also did the job well - without samples.

[Simon Ravn]

Pulsar is awesome! My Pulsar 2 must be the most satisfying piece of computer equipment I ever bought. Its synths are so versatile, all from Jarre-ish strings to modern euro-dance leads and superfat basses are possible. My only problem is, I need more DSP power, so I\'ll have to get an extra board sometime http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif
But oh.. this is a GS forum so ehm... Yeah I am sure Pulsar works great with GS too http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[stmikkel]

I recently got myself a Pulsar SRB2.
That was definately an improvement.
One Pulsar2 card just isn\'t enough.
Now I feel like I have dsp-power enough to use it effectively.
This is certainly an expensive way to go, but the whole Pulsar concept is so incredibly practical and useful that it\'s worth every $ IMO.

Btw, I just got an athlon 1.33ghz and an a7m266 with 512 mb ddr ram.
...Talk about raw power.
Now I can use pulsar, gigastudio and logic audio (with the audio engine enabled) without any stuttering at all!
I\'m using PrcView though, not the sequencer priority function in Gigastudio. In my experience PrcView is much more effective. Just set GS priority to normal, and start making music.....

I notice a huge improvement over my previous A7V/t-bird 900mhz system.

[bhuether]

thanks for the replies

From other forums I have gathered that Reaktor and Reason can do the sounds I am interested in. That Pulsar and Wavestation sound good too, but for now I am going with a software solution.

[Chadwick]

Simon, Stmikkel -we should swap stories and see if we can\'t benefit from our similar experiences.

I\'ve got the Pulsar 2, Giga, LAP and a PIII866 and can\'t claim to be able to get audio running within Logic. I\'m seriously considering a second PC for Giga alone.

[Simon Ravn]

Chadwick, I\'ve heard of many problems regarding Pulsar and Logic. My first ever project with Pulsar and Cubase was a nightmare though, not because Pulsar didn\'t work fine with Cubase, but because Cubase crashes when the CPU gets overloaded - I think that happened 30 times in two days... and it is reboot each time.... So I am going to try out Logic very soon. I know people ARE using it with Pulsar without any problems, whereas other people have great probs. I am not going to run Gigastudio on the same machine as Pulsar/Logic though.. I think it might be pushing the envelope doing 160 voices + 32 tracks of audio on the same machine..... http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[Chadwick]

Simon - you make me feel better about the two pc option...

[stmikkel]

Well, I guess for 20 audio tracks + gigastudio 120 polyphony and more, two computers is the way to go. If you make mainly music using Gigastudio and audio instruments/effects in logic audio the way I do (B4, ESX24 etc..), a 1.33ghz ddr system is the way to go.

Though, an A7M266 1.33ghz system is much, much more powerful than a 866mhz Intel system. It may work for a more audio-based use too.
So, I say upgrade! :-)
With the A7M266 mainboard for athlons, there is just no good argument for staying with Intel anymore. A7M266 has great PCI bandwidth, which was a problem with earlier AMD motherboards, like A7V.