Buying a new synth, would really appreciate your help KSS.

So basically I am looking to buy a synthesizer which has interesting, exciting, modern sounds.

I loved both of the songs/videos

It's probably accurate to say that both of these were done "in the box" (aka ITB), meaning using a software multi-track program (usually known as DAW - Digital Audio Interface) and software synths and plugins. Sorry if I'm spelling everything out, but since you're new here and you seem to be wanting to learn, I thought I wouldn't just throw acronyms at you. Apologies if you know all this already!

So, instead of a hardware synth, you could easily do all of what you're hearing here with a DAW like FL Studio 9 (Producer Edition costs 199 and it's what I'd recommend because it has audio tracks and an audio editor they call Edison, and a few other little things like envelope automation). If you buy it from their site you get the "lifetime upgrade" meaning everytime a new version comes out, you can download it for free, for life. I would add a good software synth to it - I don't actually use soft synths, but I've heard good things about Sylenth1 and ACE - and they aren't very expensive. Just with this, you should be able to do all you hear in those videos. But beware, soon you'll see deals like Komplete7 and you'll hear software like Omnisphere and you'll end up spending a lot more money than you originally thought you would

By the way, the reason I recommended FL Studio rather than other DAWs is because for those types of drum and bass arrangements, its interface is so much better than the linear sequencers found in other DAWs. FL Studio 9 now also has a linear sequencer apparently, but it's not going to be as good as other DAWs - yet its grid sequencer/piano roll kick total ass for electronic music!

Of course, you could go hardware as well. The advantages of hardware are not necessarily that your sound will be inherently better, unless you go for analog synths - but to be quite honest with you, if you go that route, you'll be also spending a lot of money - it's the "pay 100% more money for 5% better sound" rule from there upwards. And remember that a digital synth in the right hands will fit the song much better than an analog synth in the hands of someone who doesn't know quite what they're doing.

What digital hardware can do for you is to make you learn quicker because of the interface, and they also can provide a huge value, especially if you go to the used market. You don't seem to have a problem with that, so that's a plus.

So, in your budget, the first synth I would be looking at would be a Virus TI keyboard. The first version is probably close to your budget if you are lucky (there's a new TI2 that's more expensive). More realistically you'll probably spend something like 1500, even though one sold for 1350 on Ebay recently. The flexibility of the TI series is very hard to beat - wavetables make it much better than earlier Virus synths to create soundscapes and ambient, and there's more oscillators and filter options, and routings, etc. Its interface is also very good (there's menu diving involved, but you do have a lot of knobs and hands-on control). Plus its effects are top notch!

The Ion's not a bad synth but the reason you ended up with the list you did, is because most people who come in here asking for advice for a first synth, have half your budget or even less. Still, the Ion's probably the best one in the list you have, although the JP-8000 would also give you a lot of programming options.

There's also the Radias, which you might still find in stores brand new, being heavily discounted, and also in the used market, it's very much in your price range. Also very knobby, very deep programming options, effects, step sequencer, etc.

A personal favorite of mine is the Alesis Fusion. It's not as knobby as the others mentioned, but it does have pretty much the same synth engine as the Ion, yet it's considerably more powerful. What you trade in interface, you gain in features. The 8-poly VA found in the Ion turns into a 144-poly in the Fusion. It also has good effects (for my taste at least), and an 6-op FM engine, and a ROM-based synth, and it's also a sampler. It's got a sequencer but you probably won't use that, and it's not that great anyway. It shines as a synth, not as a workstation.

As for the others:

MS2000 - good interface, only 4-note poly. I don't know if I'd go for that.

Micron - great little synth but pretty much no interface. I wouldn't recommend it as a first synth.

X-Station - I never thought it sounded that great but some people like it. Good interface and it works well to control your software synths, too!

And finally, you asked about the drums. As I said, it's much easier with a software DAW like FL Studio - it was just made to let you do that kinda stuff. Battery is a drum program that might be even more popular, especially around synth forums, and it would easily let you do these things as well. But you could also get that in hardware - you'll have less programming options and polyphony, but you'll also have more hands-on control. The Korg Electribe series would be the first one to come to mind. I've heard quite a few people that own very expensive synths say that their Electribes get more use than anything else in their studio. But these are mostly hardware-only people - once you start programming drums in your computer, it's apparently easier to keep doing that - I don't see that many people coming back to hardware boxes. But there's still a lot of grooveboxes being used out there!

So, I hope that helps you a bit.

All music in Unreal Tournament (the old version) was made using trackers. Trackers use samples.

As for the beat - get samples. Lots of samples. Look here - http://www.loopmasters.com/genre/show/15/Drum_and_Bass

You can either use an entire loop or cut out the snare drums/bass drums with a wave editor such as Audacity. Then you put these in a sampler again, and build up the rhythm.

Correction, the radias you can get either with or without keys. Meaning, you can buy the rack version, or the whole thing (with keys) but it's a couple hundred dollars more.

If you buy a Virus, I don't think you're going to need a soft synth. Virus has all the crazy sounds in the world. I mean like Trance, electronic, ambience....

yeah.. actually .. I'd say get a Virus module of some kind and go with samples like Yoozer said.

Go computer w/Virus. You're set.

So basically.. you really just have to pick a DAW software. You don't even need softsynths then. The virus is your synth and the DAW will be your recorder/sampler.

I personally suggest Ableton for starters.

If you go Ableton

Something like this

and this .. and your set

The hard part is learing how to sample well. and what workflow works best for you.

Sorry to confuse you..

Awesome music in both clips.

I will also suggest that, especially with your limited budget, software instruments are the best way to go. Many of them sound fantastic, are relatively inexpensive, and can produce a much wider range of sounds than most hardware instruments.

Software instruments generally run inside a DAW. I have no experience with FL Studio, but DAWs like Digital Performer (Mac), Logic (Mac), and Sonar (PC) come stocked with a bunch of software instruments right out of the box for $500 or so. The good news is that there are other free software instruments out there, and many of the other ones offer trial versions for download, so you can try before you buy.

There's a catch with using software instruments, and it's a big one. To run several of them simultaneously along with a DAW you need to have a relatively new computer - something with at least a dual core processor and 4 gigs of RAM, which is what I have. Running a software-only setup on an older computer can be a less than satisfactory experience.

I paid $999 for my first RADIAS (w/ keybed) and $500 for my 2nd RADIAS (w/ keybed). The first was new and the second was a (barely used) used. They are pretty decently priced on the used market and chances are, if it's being sold that it didn't get used much. Most people I talk to sell them because they can't figure them out.

-Mc

I'm a music lover too. I think I wouldn't mind whether its hardware or software thing as long as the sound is good. and that I can hear the music loud and clear. But of coarse when you purchase a thing you should go for the quality. sorry if I didn't sound good on my comment and if I'm not a big help to you.

The Virus C goes for about 600$ - ish used. Get an EMX1 to compliment the sound and use as a sequencer.

Soft synths can get complicated. Some PC's if not set up properly will have a very high latency. And by "Set up properly" that includes not paying enough money for memory, a fast processor, a good sound card, etc. They are also cumbersome for some people to use in a live situation. And even the best pros have had issues like PC's that crash during a live performance. Personally, I use a few in the studio but I wouldn't even consider them in a live situation. Others that I know use soft synths exclusively. Hardware synths are basically software synths on dedicated hardware when you think about it.

$999 is a great price for that synth + keys, in what store did you manage to get that? And also, if people can't figure them out, will I ?

At first, I was underwhelmed by the RADIAS and it's presets. I hardly used it at first. I eventually found a collection of patches on www.korgforums.com from a member called X-Trade who demonstrated some of the capabilities of the RADIAS and I was floored. It could do some awesome V/A - awesome enough I no longer yearn for analog. I bought a second (I mounted my first one to my M3) to use live once in a while. The 2nd one is the one I spent most of my time fiddling with and really fell in love with it.

The software that comes with it makes programming fairly easy. The reason most people don't learn the RADIAS (or anything for that matter) is they don't spend the time to learn it.

I got for $999 at AMS about a year and a half ago. I see them on Craigslist fairly regularly from $500 to $700 with keyboard.

I would recommend going some place with a LOT of gear and just play with it. Find a few you like then come back here and ask for comments on them. You'll get a full spectrum of opinions. Some people here love the X Station. I bought one as soon as it came out and absolutely hated it. The sounds sucked and the build quality was awful. I returned it after trying to love it for 29 days. I bought it as a controller first and a VA second. It failed at both - for me. Some people love the blofeld, some don't. Some people love the Prophet 08, some don't. But you'll get extreme pros and extreme cons on everything under the sun. You'll never have a problem finding someone that loves or someone that hates any piece of gear. And none of us on here are shy about it.

-Mc

There are a zillion reasons for this, ranging from pure ignorant ones to pretty valid ones like what you name - being able to just touch stuff.

There's no softsynth that's going to deliver you a package of "things that sound like Unreal Tournament"; you'll have to make those yourself.

What you choose depends on your budget. That $1300 has to be spent on an audio interface and a decent pair of monitor speakers, too.

What you choose depends on taste. Luckily, almost every software synthesizer out there has a demo version you can try for free.

My main problem with soft synths is that I would like the feeling of actually touching the hardware synth keys and playing + experimenting freely .

That's what controllers were invented for. Yes, it's sort of a crutch, but that Virus up there also doesn't have every option under a knob (it's a Virus C by the way, which is a lot cheaper to find secondhand than a Virus TI. I've got this one, but a Virus B is even cheaper again). You have to dive into menus to change some things, which is even more irritating than having to change stuff with a mouse.

With software there are fewer limits, because it doesn't cost anything to add them, except for hours for the programmer.

In a traditional analog synthesizer you might find one LFO. It requires a bunch of parts. Having the option to route it towards oscillator pitch or filter cutoff means you have to make two connections. More routings means more connections means more electrical problems; what if you want two LFOs? This costs virtually nothing in software, but puts realistic constraints on hardware. After all, you want to be able to control that LFO, so you need a button to switch between 'm or perhaps more knobs, etc.

Software synths won't do anything; not even Reaktor. Reaktor does a lot, but it also means you have to build the features you want in there; it's more a modular design/programming environment than a directly playable synthesizer (though it's possible to treat it as such).

Does your keyboard have a MIDI output? If it only has USB, you can probably hook it up to the Radias anyway; you'll just need a computer in between.

It also depends on how loud you set 'm.

Start with software; just the stuff that's included in FL Studio or Sonar is more than anyone in the early 90s had access to.

Hardware has a different spending curve. Chances are that even if you don't use the computer, you're still going to use it as a dumb tape recorder with infinite tape, so you'll need an audio interface for that. Hardware means sharing; when you put an effect on one synth you can't use it on the other, unless you rewire your setup; when you want a long dreamy reverb on one synth and a short echo on the other, you'll need 2 effects boxes or one that's powerful enough with enough inputs to do both. It imposes constraints; some of 'm irritating, others liberating, simply because you won't have to worry about some things.

V/A (or VA) = Virtual Analog = Analog modeling. The RADIAS does VA plus a few other types of synthesis

AMS = American Musical Supply. $999 was new price. The $500 was used from a friend price.

-Mc

A sequencer is a tape recorder for sheet music; instead of recording what it sounds like it records what you play. That's all there is to it.

Sequencers come in lots of shapes and sizes.

Step-sequencers have a row of buttons that can be lit up. An indicator flashes along the row - every time a button is lit, a sound is produced; if the sound takes a long time to fade away or not, that's not something the stepsquencer bothers with.

"Linear" sequencers go from left to right. What they do is very much like the rolls on player pianos; every time you see a bar a note plays, and the lenght of a bar denotes how long the note should be held.

Pattern sequencers (as found on grooveboxes) combine both, but they force everything to fit in a pattern, so you get 16 to 64 16th notes to play your melody or your rhythm, and then it loops again. You create songs by chaining patterns.

The Radias has such a pattern sequencer but it's not meant to compose complete songs with. An Electribe has one too, but since it can chain patterns you can create entire tracks with it.

A sampler is a device that digitally records sound and plays it back; the difference with any other digital recording option is that the sampler starts playing when you hit a MIDI note, and that it speeds the sample up and down based on the position on the keyboard.

You can record anything, from dog barks to flatulence to a violin playing a single note. In the last case, if you'd have a violin player and you'd order them to play a C for a longer time, then a C# for a longer time, and so on, you could put each of these separate samples under a key on your keyboard - and then you could play the violin. Not in a realistic way, though, since a violin can play at several volumes and it sounds different at these volumes, too.

You could also record someone hitting drums and put the kick under the C, the snare under the D, etc. - see

Changing the settings until you have what you want. Yeah, it's kind of overrated that it's called "programming" but synths used to be operated by guys in lab coats.

The old name for a tracker denotes the combination of sampler and pattern-based sequencing. Nowadays, with http://www.renoise.com/ it's more a matter of user interface and principle.

1) Trackers work with patterns. You compose a short loop. You let the pattern repeat 3 times, and then you copy the pattern and change something. This results in what in composition theory you'd write down as A-A-A-A' (the last pattern is similar to the first, but with a small variation).

If you analyze pop songs you notice that (if you'd ignore vocals for a moment) you can easily chop up a verse or chorus in a set of these repeating patterns.

2) Trackers show the notes vertically; they scroll up. In Cubase, Logic, Live etc. the song goes from left to right.

For certain types of music trackers fit better.

So, Renoise is a tracker but it's a DAW on itself. FL Studio has some tracker-like features (most notably the patterns) but it's a DAW on itself. Cubase is not like a tracker at all.

Separate a synthesizer. You end up with:

- a surface with some knobs

- a keyboard

- a sound source.

Modules are sound sources without keyboards and fit in a rack.

Controllers are keyboards without sound sources. They're just remotes.

With the economy and your budget and some cleverness in picking what you buy used you could save a lot.

It makes a great combination because it allows the best of both worlds, but truth be told; a single synthesizer doesn't do that much on its own. Those that do - workstations - have other limitations. It's like assembling pieces of a puzzle; something like FL Studio already contains a mixer and a bunch of effects and a sampler and several synthesizers so you get a big chunk of what you need already - just by buying it.

Just FL and the synth.

If you'd get a synth - to get the most out of it you'd ideally pick something with several sliders and knobs on-board.

See

Thing is, if you'd have some of the FL Studio plugins and started programming them you could pretty much emulate all the sounds you hear there in that demo.

The reason people buy hardware synths is because despite the pretty damn good quality of the plugins some sounds can't be emulated properly or completely.

By default a patch on a (free) software synth might sound like this.

http://theheartcore.com/music/armin_communication_dull.mp3

With some effects and trickery it might sound like this:

http://theheartcore.com/music/armin_communication_shiny.mp3

Which is not that different from how it'd sound on an actual hardware synthesizer; it's just that these companies have preset designers and programmers that have lots of experience crafting sounds.

To be more specific, they tended to sample patches created on the digital synths that were commonly available at the time. I recall Roland's JV-1080 and D-20, as well as Korg's X5DR, being particularly popular.

Do keep in mind that most hardware synths use the same type of "emulation"* as you'd find in software versions. The primary difference is that in hardware synths, the sound-generation code is written to run on a special-purpose processor (like an ARM), as opposed to a general-purpose processor like you'd find in a PC or Mac. This specialized coding theoretically yields a more stable and reliable, if less versatile, setup -- ideal for gigging musicians for whom a computer crash would be especially disastrous. This isn't to say, though, that hardware synths never crash, they just do it far less often than your average PC or Mac.

If you want a synth without any sort of digital sound generation, then you're looking at analog, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.

* I use emulation in quotes because, while many software synths do try to emulate analog hardware, there's no technical reason why analog-style (or "subtractive", to be proper) synthesis has to be done on analog equipment. Digital subtractive synthesis can be just as genuine -- it's all a matter of what you're looking for, and what your expectations are.

Here we go...

Here we go...

By "genuine", I didn't mean "sound the same as analog." I just meant that digital and analog are both valid routes to sound generation, so long as you adjust your expectations accordingly. Some people clearly prefer one type over the other, but they both produce useable results.

man, you're no fun. I wanted to see the thread take off on Digital vs. Analog. We haven't had one of those in days!

Great! Thank you, awesome info. Well, I would really prefer a brand new synth. And 49 keys + knobby sounds fine, although 61 would be nicer. So anything with 49 keys that's new and powerful come to mind?

Sorry about not seeing your earlier comment about preferring new gear.

As for 49 keys + knobby interface, you've got a few more options there, though to be honest, you'd have a lot more if you were shopping a couple of years ago.

Dave Smith's Mopho and Mono Evolver, as well as Moog's Little Phatty are eminently tweakable, highly desirable, and analog, to boot (analog/digital hybrid, in the Evolver's case). The only drawback -- and it's a significant one -- is that they're monophonic only. No chords (is it "cords," in Queen's English?), unless you multi-track. They also fall short of the 49-key range, but with monophonic playing, that isn't as much of a limitation.

Clavia's Nord Lead 2X, though a touch outside your price range, is also worth a serious look. It's very well-respected, with great sound and an pretty straightforward interface. Plus, it's polyphonic and has a full complement of 49 keys. The one potential drawback (which, to be fair, many users regard as an advantage) is that Clavia love to use non-standard performance controllers. Instead of the typical pair of pitch and modulation wheels, they give you a "pitch stick" (see the enlarged picture) and a modulation wheel.

Most of the growth in this category, though, has been in the GAIA's price segment (and below, with the MicroKorgs and such). Korg have the R3, which sacrifices some of the GAIA's knobs (and a few of the keys) for what many feel is a superior sound engine. And there's more than a little bit of interest in just how faithful the upcoming UltraNova will be to the sound of Novation's beloved SuperNova.

To the OP, why did you remove the audio samples (in videos) of what you were looking for?

Be aware that not only are the Dave Smith and Little Phatty instruments mentioned mono, but they have no onboard effects. As I recall, the Nord Lead doesn't have effects either. Not particularly good choices for a single instrument for someone looking to make music such as was contained in the audio samples that were initially posted.

Also - to the OP - do you have DAW software for your computer? If not, would the ~$500 needed for one of these come out of your $1300 budget? What about a stereo USB audio interface to record your synth (~$150)? If you need to buy these, you only have $650 left for a synthesizer.

A Moog Little Phatty is nearly $1300 new by itself. One note at a time and no effects.

A Dave Smith Mopho keyboard is about $800 new by itself. One note at a time and no effects.

A Roland GAIA is about $700 new. Polyphonic with effects.

From what I recall of the music posted, IMHO a used Virus would be better suited than a Mopho or Little Phatty, and even a Gaia.

A FireWire interface is not a problem.

Based upon those clips you posted, if I was going to try and make music like that with a $1300 budget I would look at soft synths.

If someone is only going to have one synth, I wouldn't suggest a monophonic one.

I have purchased several synths via eBay from established sellers with good feedback. I have had no problems.

To the OP: You said you do have a DAW now, but what is it? Maybe there's some kind of pattern sequencer that you can use with it already, so you wouldn't have to use FL Studio? Or, maybe you could use FL Studio rewired into your DAW, or as a plugin to your DAW. I know, for example, that quite a few people use FL Studio within Reaper - that's a very cost effective solution because Reaper and FL Studio both give you huge bang for the buck (if you're not making a lot of money with music, Reaper will only cost you 40 dollars!). These people start the track in FL Studio and finish it in Reaper (meaning, FL Studio is good for creating the drum patterns and all the sounds, but Reaper is supposedly much better for mixing and handling audio tracks, so the track gets finished there). That would be a lot of stuff to learn though!