Playing Soft Synths Live, Is it do-able? Options

[glenwood]

I haven't been able to find a clear-cut answer to my question anywhere, so I'm hoping you can help me out. How feasible is it to play a soft synth live with current technology? Do I need more than a laptop, controller, and sound card? From what I gather, I need some sort of virtual instrument host program or sequencer such as Cubase or Digital Performer. Any help would be greatly appreciated--thanks!

[captainrandom]

That depends

If you're only running a single soft-synth (such as Absynth, Reason, Kontakt, or Reaktor to name a few) in standalone mode then all you need is a controller and your laptop.

If, on the other hand, you want to run several soft-synths, then you'd be better off going with sx or vstack. This is because some soft-synths, in standalone mode, will assume they're the only program talking to that MIDI interface.

Cheers,
CR.

PS. Reason, especially, is just fine live! Ditto for Reaktor.

Ce message a été modifié par lepetitmartien - jeu. 30 oct. 2003, 00:53.

[glenwood]

Thanks for your reply,
Is latency a big concern? If I'm running 256 mb of RAM in my laptop (Windows XP), will I be all right?

[captainrandom]

Depends on the soft-synth (and the drivers for your sound card), I guess...

Under XP, try and make sure you can get ASIO or DirectX drivers for your sound card (and that the soft-synth will use them).

[lepetitmartien]

However interesting they may be, as this is a mac only forum, PC talk is Off Topic save in open bar

Note that the 2 first posts were On Topic (the use of soft synth in general, live).

If you need to extend the subject further, I'll split the thread.