It's a Neve....... ;)

But yeah, I know what you mean. The desk we are using at school (Euphonix CS2000) is a large desk (48 channels), but still small enough (2 channels per strip) to fit in a small to medium sized room. It is so damn cool....

that sure does look nice....

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I just sold many hardware synths away and I will mostly use software in the future. I still have some analog synths left. The computer is a PowerMac G5 DP1.8 running Logic Pro 7. Also 2x TC Powercore cards are running plugins like Virus Powercore, Sony Oxford Eq, TC Master X5... (V-Station coming).

How is that Andy6?

Yes, it is. A bit complex at first but I like it very much. :)

Nice photos FD5. Nice mp3's.....and welcome to the virus forum!

Im interested......you have an A6.....why do you want softsynths? What do they bring to your music/style?

DS

Thanx. Nice to hear that you liked the mp3's. :)

The reason why I want to use more software is that I like to work with them and it's great that when I open my earlier project, everything is up and running within seconds. I don't have to setup all my external gear, search for right patches and settings for every channel. Of course these settings could be sent via midi but I don't like to work that way. I always store my patches to the synths not to the sequencer with midi dumps.

I still don't use that many softsynths because they're not all good but I like the plugins which come with logic pro and a few others. Logic's plugins are of very high quality (most of the effects too). I specially use the ES2 for many sounds like basslines, some arps and secondary leads and effects. The most important sounds still come from hardware and from dsp powered synth plugins like Virus Powercore (I have the unlimited license) and Powercore01 synth. I'm also waiting for the V-Station Powercore. Basically it's a direct K-Station code with additional multi-mode filter. The K-Station uses the same standard motorola chips than the powercore so it's easy to import to powercore platform as was the Virus. TC Powercore has also been very important in my production. I can't live without those reverbs. There are also very many other high quality plugins available for it.

Virus is the most important digital synth for me. I use the leads and pads alot. I earlier had a Virus B and then a Virus KC. However I wanted to go on with the virus plugin and sold the KC (I still hate that I sold it :wink: ).

I have had many other digital and analog synths too but what is left in the rack are the Novation Super Bass-station and Waldorf Pulse. I like them both very much. Little beasts what come to the sound! I also miss many other synths which I have sold. I may have to buy a JP80x0 again and maybe a nord rack2 too. But I want to keep my setup as compact as possible and connect every synth directly to the computer's audio interface that I can use software effects for the external synths too.

And yes, I get very many good sounds out of andromeda and the others but I also get more multitimbrality with software. I can make many not that important sounds with software. Sometimes I also get very interesting results by using the logic's own effects without much thinking. :lol:

Virus TI sure is interesting but I want to see it in action before I'd buy it. :)

Well, I've had my sister-in-law in my house for the last two weeks and she took over my office/studio to work on her doctoral dissertation. She's leaving tomorrow morning at 4am and I've finally cleaned all of her crap off of my laptop and, to celebrate, I'm going to post studio pics.

I'm a bit self conscious because my gear isn't very exotic and I'm a rank hobbyist, and -- worse yet -- I have little flowers on my wallpaper, but here goes:

Nice looking setup there MC. How do you find the Z8 out of interest?

Well, it's a sampler. It can be switched to 96khz, but I don't bother. 64 voices, 512MB RAM, and a 60GB HD. The USB interface and their utility lets you (basically) drag-n-drop .WAV files to the device -- .WAV is its native format -- though it doesn't mount the hard drive directly.

Their PC utility allows for easy on-screen editing of multis, assignments of samples, effects, etc., but the front panel is tolerable. I use its front-panel USB jack to power my MDP16, and you can stuff a usb mass storage device inside and face it out the back (zip or jaz drive, etc.).

The stock Z8 effects are good, very clean. Not the slightest hint of grunge, which isn't for everyone. The filters are pretty strong. The faceplate detaches and the unit comes with a cable so you could remote-mount it. The controls don't feel very manly, but they haven't puked yet.

Other than a lot of capacity, it's a pretty utilitarian unit.

It's strengths are that it is an effective, durable outboard sample playback and (quite especially. with a 60GB HD) librarian device. Supposedly, streaming of samples from the HD is/was to come as an update, but the Akai organization in the states is a mess right now and it may not happen.

It has a sequencer, of sorts. It might as well not have.

The only thing that gets under my skin about it is that the midi-to-program assignments in multis are kind of a pest to adjust when you are trying to experiment a bunch with sequences running, etc.