Going soft synth(s), help please !!

[ryankraft]

Hi there, After years away from synths and music in general i decided to return and give it another shot a few months ago and purchased some V.A.s second hand off ebay as i was originally bought up on real analogues 25+ years ago. These are rather good (x station, Ms2000 and micron) but now my eyes and ears have been really opened up by the world of softsynths ! Seeing and hearing what they can do for the money is astounding, not just that but the bulk of the classics of what i lusted after are available in soft form ! I've read a bit into this and it's become very obvious that the bulk of soft synths are very hungry monkeys and i would have to invest in a new laptop (my dell is a basic 2 year old inpiron 1501). I have no problem with this but this is where i need help...... I would be playing live gigs (but not often) i would like to have my laptop to hold around 6 or 7 soft synths and use maybe 3 at once (ones from Gmedia and Arturia) ....what would the basic laptop have to include and what additions do i need (sound card etc.) for me to perform in a live situation ? I'm really not bothered about sequencing or hard disc recording (yet) this is mainly from a soft synth playing angle. Can anyone point me in the right direction for decent value for money laptop set up ? cheers.

[Elser]

I use Mainstage, it comes with the Logic Studio package. It's Mac only so you'd have to make that switch but you could always run Windows on it for your regular apps and then use the Mac side for live performance. I don't know of any other software programs that allow you to use your computer specifically for playing soft synths in a live situation.

You would need an audio interface to connect with the mixing board or onstage amp. I use a Motu Ultralite Mk3 because it's got a lot of outputs and I need flexible output options but you could easily get by with an interface that has just L and R outputs. Logic also includes some really good soft synths and effects.

[wakestyle]

yes, mac or pc based? You claim you had a dell, so I'll assume your pc.

Anyways it's not really clear what u want, do you want a new laptop or sound interface? or both?

If you want to use watch u got already for live setup, I'd first suggest clean install of XP or win7 (yes it's not out yet but I recommend). Do you want multiple out's so you can route each vsti to a separate channel and mix externally? If not just get a simple sound card i can't really recommend any for laptop but you could look at these firewire options:

m-audio
rme - probably has best latencies for live playing
yamaha n8 or n12 - is super for playing vsti's on each channel and with cubase is even easier and better!

use a good sequencer app like logic or cubase to host vst's.

I would also check out emu proteus free at E-MU Systems - Established 1971 - Emulator X3, Proteus X2, PCI & USB Audio/MIDI Interfaces/MIDI Controllers as I feel it's one of the best simulation of a hardware synth. It's also fairly light weight on the cpu.

I don't know waht the best deal out there is for a laptop but look for the best bang/buck... something with a quad cpu would be ideal.

gl...

[Screwdio]

There are a lot of soft synths out there that run in stand alone mode, which means they can run open and freely on your computer without a host app. like Protools, Logic, Reason, etc.....If you go this route it would require you to have only:

1.A computer
2.Midi contoller, preferably with a built-in USB midi interface
3.Audio cables to run out to your mixer, PA, etc...

[ryankraft]

thanks for the replies. I would intend using(buying) a pc laptop as my budget realisticly would not sretch to a mac.As you can probably tell from my first post i was bought up on analogue stuff and only used a pc for surfing the net ! I've read a fair amount on soft synths but it's still a mind field (please remember that they didn't even have computers when i was at school !!). I'm based in England. The laptops i've been looking at are from Dell with the dual core 2 processor T6400 and with 3 or 4 G ram. Some people have mentioned Acer ? The impression i get is i'm after something without the software (games etc.) already installed (although i could delete all that i'm still initially paying for it) and what is premium is speed and RAM...would i be correct ? so....... Yes i would like my laptop to contain a number of soft synths ,i would like to have access to using three at once or more and be fed through an external mixer along with my x station etc. What has confused me the most is talk of low latency sound cards etc. I don't want to buy a laptop that has not got the right speed, ram, in's and out's etc. I'm just asking politely to be put in the right direction. Any more info would be great !cheers.

[wakestyle]

Having a sound card with poor latency won't be any fun (or anything like playing a live synth) if there is 10ms delay from when u press key to hear sound. Get a fast computer and decent soundcard.