synthguy wrote:You can argue that a powerful computer loaded to the last sector with softinstruments and effects is more powerful, but to say that it's better than having a studio full of instruments is opening up a door to a huge debate that will never end or satisfy either side, most likely.
I sincerely doubt Bruce would happily sell his Shigeru for thousands of software apps and hardware to host them. Amirite?
Are the thousands of software apps more powerful? Oh heck yes. Even the best piano in the galaxy is basically a one trick pony. But are they really
more desirable?
I think this is where everyone needs a good dose of "think" on this subject. Lord knows I can get cranky when one of my fave companies or instruments is being assaulted. But if you sift through my post history, you'll find that I'm generally pretty ecumenical in my love of instruments. And if you saw my - still slumbering - keyboard arsenal, you'd see I'm pretty gregarious when it comes to all synths and makers. And I will NEVER run out of polyphony!
11 years ago, I became a KORG convert when my newly purchased Fantom X failed to be the do-all synth I was hoping for. Mostly, it was because of the filters which I found thin and brittle sounding. I bought a Triton on a whim because I recalled that it sounded good in the store. Spending time with it, I was amazed that, in spite a yucky (to me) reverb, it had an amazing sound to it. The wealth of waveforms gave it the ability to craft powerful sounding textures which required sometimes twice as many layers on my landlord's S80, and the filters sounded rich and pretty darn analogish. Still, the Yamaha had some definite sonic advantages - all synths have some - so I decided when I could to buy a Motif module. This was also an age in which softsynths didn't sound great to me at all, and computers just weren't powerful enough to really let them shine anyway. DAWs either.
If I recall correctly, the Triton has
62 voice polyphony, for CPU and effects overhead, so playing it alone required some clever programming on my part. While the Motif module has double the polyphony, I could hear some voice stealing on rare occasions, but I didn't trust it anyway. Long ago, I learned to be frugal with patch layers when I only had an Ensoniq SD-1, originally with just
21 voices! I never lost that programming ethic, and if you're a serious programmer and sound designer as I am, you learn that having a lot of voices sounding at once tends to make a mix sound denser and more cluttered. In this digital age, fewer is better, and it also means you have to worry less about voice stealing.
While Kurzweil seems to be the king of maximizing polyphony, Yamaha is apparently a close second. It seems Yammy uses a variation on Kurzweil's method of grabbing layers which are quieter, not just voices, when max polyphony is threatened. This is a lesson everyone seems to be picking up on.
The Kronos has a huge advantage in that it has a number of
engines which allow you to tailor a combi or multitrack mix to a fantastic degree. With the high polyphony and great sound inherent in the MS-20 and Polysix engines, you can make wonderful sounding patches which cut very little into the overall polyphony count, and give the Kronos a theoretical polyphony well beyond 120 voices.
I'm gonna be all over this. With all the utterly amazing sounding instruments in the Kronos, I finally will have an instrument which can essentially do it all, which is something I still can't say about other instruments, including my recently purchased Kurzweil and Alesis, or computer hosted softsynths. Besides, outside of Omnisphere, I really don't care for softsynths other than vintage emulations.
But even then, The K won't completely satisfy me, which is why I'm not dumping my arsenal for one. Maybe I should, considering all it can do, but I just can't let go of these other synths, because everything offers up something unique which gives it value. Just look at Dan's arsenal and drool.
I think the lesson here is that everyone has their faves, everything does something cool, and that should be good enough. Even if the Kronos does pretty much smoke about everything on the market. Sorry, couldn't resist.
By the way, Roland is still my favorite company of all time.
