Everyone has their own preference, but I tried Blue 3, and was not as impressed as I thought I would be. It used slightly more CPU than VB3 and the settings are much the same. I particularly did not like the Drive of Blue 3, as it increased the overall gain, as you increased the drive. I remember Hammonds as actually losing a little gain as it got dirtier. I am also referring to older Hammonds, and I started on an M100 at home as a teen (bought by saving paper route money). Oiling the generator and all. Turning it off and on to get a pitchbend.
I have to say Blue 3 is very pretty, and seems to sound brighter. Plus, I don’t think it is sample based either. It is a great organ if you don’t have VB3 already, but as a VB3 user, it doesn’t warrant the $100 worth of improvement over VB3. This is my opinion, and as a narcissist, it is the right opinion. Never mind that I am not a professional.
Layering a little Blue3 under VB3 can yield a ferocious sound… though I don’t know that I’d personally lay out the $$ for Blue3 just to do that. My solution to VB3 being a bit dull is Headcrusher by Audio Assault. It’s $50 now but there’s still a free version about you can find by Googling that does the job fine…
I can understand the move from VB3 since it is becoming more problematic on WIN 10. Guido is still cranking out more hardware and leaving his VST’s to rot. VB3 is still my goto, and I am staying with WIN 7 as long as I possibly can. Rumors of Windows becoming a pay-for-play monthly fee thing scares the out of me.
@Corky I also heard about the subscription scare. That concerns me, as well. I think if windows goes subscription many that were on the fence about Mac will capitulate.
@FredProgGH That is funny! But really…how many wavetable, additive, subtractive, FM, acoustic piano, rhodes vsts are out there? Lots, with their respective devotees. Many vsts would pass for live and studio performance (depending on the skill of the keyboardist - no matter how good the vst, you still have to play well). A good keyboardist can even make Electric 88 sound good.
Hammond tonewheel organ? That is another story. You can’t just throw that vst out there with a GUI. I don’t like ProTools hammond, Halion 6 hammond sounds like crap, hardware synths like the Motif can’t do it (although Korg and Nord nail it pretty well), but the blue 3 sounds great, but not good enough to ditch my VB3. I don’t understand the jbridge thing with 64bit VB3 (you don’t need jbridge for that). VB3 works well with my windows 10 portable and studio set up. Bug free. It does not, however, work with ProTools, and I refuse to purchase Bluecat’s patchworks to make it work. That is where VB3 bums me out. I have to import the project into Cubase 9.5 Pro, lay down the organ, then back to PT for vocals.
Corky sounded great playing organ on a video he shared with me.
Updated virtual instruments buying list(I already have few of the below):
Acoustic pianos-
Pianoteq with addons, Garritan CFX, Ravenscroft 275, Galaxy Vintage D…
Electric pianos-
Spectrasonics Keyscape, Gospel Musicians FM Tines for the lovely Whitney Houston sound…
Tonewheel Organs-
GSI VB3…
Synth section-
Spectrasonics Omnisphere, U-He Zebra with the best patches packs, U-He Diva with the best patches pack
Orchestral-
East West Symphonic Orchestra(really comprehensive, sounds great, perfect for symphonic metal, good velocity response), I’m adding Session Strings Pro(for rather pop\funk\jazz\rap oriented strings sound)
Horns-
Chris Hein Horns Compact
Harpsichord-
Pianoteq Hans Ruckers II addon is awesome IMO.
Clavichord- Pianoteq free one is nice IMO, but I’m not expert in clavichords, not sure about that yet.
Pipe organs-Aria Sounds seems great and it’s affordable.
Accordion-Best Service Accordions 2(with expression pedal like a real accordion).
Harmonica- Chris Hein Harmonica.
Choir- Now I know that Omnisphere covers me, but I’ll add East West Symphonic Choir because I need it anyway for things that are not live performance.
Music Box-Soundiron Musique Box.
Do you think I’m covered for any gig?
Like as I could be covered if I had Mainstage(I heard Mainstage has all the sounds you need in its stock library but I don’t want to get into Macintosh, I’m a PC guy).
Also I remember that some of you suggested me to use mostly cheap old sounds like Korg M1, and to get the high end VIs only when I really need spectacular sounds, so I’ll tell you what I think about that:
For me music is a profession, but it is also my hobby, and the better my equipment and my sounds, the more fun I have.
I’d say you’re covered quite well but I don’t know the total range of genres you want to cover live. You gave a good idea from the list and the only that might be missing is a good bass guitar vst for the times when you might have to cover that. As far as the Mainstage question, I think the tonal quality of and playability enhancements available with your Windows approach make it superior.
Just my 2 cents and I hope your rig turns out great!
Here the genres I’m willing to play if I’ll have the opportunity:
pop, rock, symphonic metal, jazz, R&B, funk, jazz fusion.
Those the genres that jump to my mind immediately…
That’s a great list. I am also enjoying Viper (mentioned earlier and I had to check it out). I also love XIL-LABS PolyKobol and PolyM for something a little out of the ordinary.
I was also messing about with the demo of UH-E ACE last night, which sounds very good. I will be road testing it some more today…
TBH you should be more than covered - this is a pretty massive list
I would just caution you on the memory (and processor) demands of this range - most of these are sample-based; you are risking RAM overload. Just the piano range alone (Ravenscroft, Galaxy, Garritan - great stuff BTW; got all of them and more) is pretty hefty, add the orchestra stuff plus EW Symphonic Choir - probably no way you’re going to manage a pre-loaded setlist with all of those. And Keyscape is also a pretty greedy beast.
So, whilst all these libraries are great, I’d also look at some smaller-footprint stuff; not only on the RAM side, but also processor-wise (Diva, Zebra). It’s a matter of balance - not every synth pad needs to be run on Diva - sometimes a “cheap” rompler pad will do the trick as well, at 10% of the processor load.
And on the FM tines side: just give Dexed a try - no need for sampling FM synthesis if you can have the real thing…
I own about half of the stuff you mention in your list, and I use them frequently in production, but for live use, I’ve stripped down my arsenal to a mix of instruments that play nice with RAM and CPU, e.g.
Addictive Keys & Pianoteq for piano
Velvet for E-Piano
VB3 and Blue3 for organ
U-he Hive and VPS Avenger for subtractive synth sounds (a bit of legacy FabFilter Twin and OP-X still in my setups, but I’m in the process of replacing them - simplify, simplify…)
M-1, JV-1080 and XPand!2 for bread and butter
Session Horns for brass
a touch of Wavestation now and then
That’s pretty much it - plus of course some FabFilter and other processing plugins, Valhalla Reverb, etc.
+1 on Hive. I have been looking for something CPU lite to get some of my favourite Yamaha AN1x sounds into VST land, and Hive seems capable of doing that without a huge CPU load.
DEXED also looks good. Haven’t heard of that one before, but I have enough FM ala 6 OP DX. What I really want is for somebody to do a VST of the seminal SY series.
Yeah, it’s weird that Yamaha is totally ignoring the soft synth market still. No official CS80, CP70, DX7, SY, AN1x, CS1x… I’d buy the An1x in a freaking heartbeat.
I don’t get it either. Korg and Roland (not withstanding some poor software coding on the GUI) are doing it and seem to be doing well, so I don’t see why Yamaha are not. In fact they did do an AN emulation for their 40th anniversary, but stupidly embedded it in their “synthbook” only.
I’ve always been a huge Yamaha fan. I still have AN1x, SY99 (both studio use only) and now the Montage in keyboard format, and I have FS1r, TG77, EX5r and Motif Eack ES (with PLG150-AN and PLG150-VL installed). If Yamaha virtualised any of those, I’d have them in a flash. I’d like to see them d the CS80 and CP as well, but I already have (to be ears) good emulations of those.
That’s why I’m going to use(when the time will come) a laptop with the strongest CPU.
About RAM overload, that’s why I’m going to use SSD drive.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know Garritan CFX for example is too big to be loaded directly to RAM, but SSD is so fast that it is act like a RAM.
That’s why everyone who use Garritan CFX has an SSD drive and all the Garritan CFX samples on it.
So as far as I understand all those big samples could work fine with SSD.
But I’m not sure I’m understand correctly, so if SSD not really going to provide what we need for live situation, with big sample like East West Symphonic Orchestra\Choir and Garritan CFX, please correct me.
While SSDs are a lot faster than platter drives, they still can’t replace RAM. Also, the big sample based instruments still preload portions of the samples into RAM to keep latency down. RAM usage of a VST will not be reduced by using an SSD.
SSD and RAM are addressed very differently by software - RAM can be addressed directly by the CPU, whilst data on SSDs still needs to be loaded into RAM to be used by the processor.
Plus, from a pure technology perspective, RAM is still around 10 times faster than SSD.
But it seems to me that you are really intent on using these big monster libraries live, so you’ll have to find out yourself what works and what doesn’t.
There are definitely extremely good virtual versions of the CS80, electric grands and DX7 but it would be cool to see what an emulation was like that was done on the level Roland is doing. My main interest is also the An1x or the CS1x (which is what I had). It would also be really cool to have a CS-10.
I used to have a CS15 (my first ever synth in 1982)) but I sold it as I got fed up dusting/polishing it (black and all those knobs!) and when I could nail all of its sounds in my EX5 (with duophonic version of AN1x) I sold it. First thing I ever sold where I sold it for more than I paid for it! Paid £250 for it in 1982 and sold it in 2009 for £450. It was quite popular with the EDM community at the time.
And I agree. I would love to see what Yamaha would do with such emulations.
out of me.
