[disturb]

Originally Posted by dlmorley

I'd have to say that too much RAM is the killer

I was super productive on my Roland S-750 and it had 18mb of ram (even 2mb for the first year). I did quite some recordings and albums with just that. As a money earner, it was one of my best investments
For me part of the issue is when mega - multi samples came along. It is the old thing of do you want 61 samples pretending to be a piano or do you want to imply a piano, perhaps with a sound that is not realistic, but has character. My theory being that the closer you get to realism, the further you get in some ways. The ear is a complex thing and cannot be tricked easily. However, if you IMPLY a piano it can actually sound more piano like.
My favorite string sound is one I sampled from a JEN string machine. One sample, layered and detuned. Used it on countless recordings and it is to me one of the warmest sounds around. Realistic, no. It sounds little like the JEN thank god and just sounds lush and rich. It uses maybe 1/2 MB of sample Ram

very good point here