Synth recommendation for an Amiga sys... Newbie

[larsef]

I can tell you what I have:

It all started with my Apple PowerBook and GarageBand. I wanted to use GarageBand so I bought a midi-keyboard (M-Audio Radium 61). However, the midi-keyboard has no sound and I didn't want to be dependent on my PowerBook to play music. Because of this, I bought my first sound module, a Korg 05R/W, for about 100 Euros.

After that, I realised GarageBand was really crap. It does not support MIDI-out, so I couldn't use GarageBand with the Korg 05R/W. Instead of buying a new expensive music program such as Cubase or Logic, I bought an Amiga 1200 with MIDI-interface. Now, I'm using my Amiga 1200 with Bars&Pipes and I really like it.

Later, I bought a Yamaha QY70 for about 60 Euros. It is a sequencer and a music module in one unit. I want to use it to transfer drum and bass sequences to the Amiga, but I haven't got that far yet.

On Monday, I will get my JV2080 with two expansion cards (orchestral and session). I bought it for about 330 Euro.

If you don't know what you need, a good idea is to start with something cheap, then expand with more modules. Merging together the sounds from two or three modules might give a more interesting sound.

One thing which I would like to have is a sampler module, such as the Akai S3000 or something similar. My dream would be a Korg Triton Rack, but they are still quite expensive.

Regarding patch editors, I haven't really used one, but I imagine that if you want to upload a patch to a synth you could always do it through sysex messages, even if you don't find a librarian program for your synth.

[larsef]

@marcfrick2112: OctaMED SS and Bars&Pipes are two very different programs, since OctaMED SS is a tracker program while Bars&Pipes works more like a traditional sequencer such as Logic and Cubase. It is difficult to say which one is the best or easist to use, it all depends on you and what you like. The reason why I like Bars&Pipes is because of the pipeline system. That is why I'm using Bars&Pipes and not a tracker program. As far as I understand, modern sequencers such as Logic and Cubase do not have this kind of pipeline system, which is basically the reason why I'm using my Amiga for music and not my Mac.

The pipeline system is very simple yet powerful. MIDI-signals (e.g. from your keyboard) are coming in from the left through a pipeline and being put through a number of tools. One important tool is the sequencer recording tool itself, which records the MIDI-signals so you can play them back later on. Another tool allows you to split the MIDI-signals and send them to two or more MIDI-channels (where each MIDI-channel has its own instrument). This is great, because it allows you to play many different instruments at the same time from your keyboard. You can also add an arpeggiator tool, an echo tool or a split keyboard tool (allowing you to play one instrument with the left hand and another with your right hand, even if the sound module itself does not support it). There are even more tools to download.

For instance, say you want to have a bass arpeggiator played with your left hand (going C-E-G-C-E-G if you play a C-major), and at the same time you want a choir sound playing C-E-G all at the same time (also played with your left hand). Then, with your right hand you want to play a piano together with a string instrument (violin). This will take up four midi-channels (one for each instrument). Finally, you want to have a drum track played in the back (typically on midi-channel 10). You also want an echo on the bass arpeggiator. This is very easy to set up with Bars&Pipes, and you can play all these instruments at the same time from the midi-keyboard without playing back anything already recorded. The drum track is itself generated by the pattern tool, which generates midi-signals from patterns. You can also quantize the signals through the quantize tool, forcing all the notes to be no less than 1/16 or 1/32 (or whatever you choose). Of course, all this allows you to record all these for instruments+drums in one go instead of one time per instrument.

Finally, if you would miss one tool (I would for instance like to have a groove-box tool with built in step-sequencer) and you know how to progam in C, you can always make such a tool yourself. There's good documentation on the web in how to program your own tools.

I think you should try Bars & Pipes and see if you like it or not. Bars & Pipes has a very good documentation on the web and you can also download tools that other people have made. You can download Bars & Pipes for free (and even get the source code).

Check out these URLs:

Documentation:
  http://www.fromwithin.com/liquidmidi/docs/barsandpipes/index.html

Alfred Faust's homepage, who's continued to develop Bars&Pipes (latest version is from 2005). You can download the latest version from his page:
  http://www.alfred-j-faust.de/indexeng.html

Tools programming guide:
  http://alfred-j-faust.de/rft/main.html

You can dowload many tools here:
   http://fromwithin.com/liquidmidi/tools.html