Quote:
Originally Posted by Berni
Oh I dare say they do with there hefty price tag they should be something else. There has been no new feature updates for the virus in years or hardware updates for that matter but who's to say Sequential might go down like access have? If a software synth stops getting supported then no big financial loss but when hardware loses support you are left with a very useless box of knobs that has cost you thousands of dollars.
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They are expensive synths to be sure, but you get what you pay for in terms of sound quality.
The original Sequential Circuits already went out of business once... digital synths came along and nobody wanted crappy old analog anymore (lol! but seriously the DX7 and the inexpensive digital synth invasion was part of what killed it). Dave Smith just turned 70, and who knows how long he wants to continue or what will happen when he retires.
But here's the difference. 40 years later, an original Prophet 5 that originally went for $4k can now fetch between $6k-12k no problem. A brand new Prophet 5 (which has more features) can be had for $3.5k. Do you see where I'm going with that? Sequential instruments are an investment, are built to last for decades and can be serviced and repaired as needed. They are designed to be used as hardware instruments. Nobody is going to reverse engineer Virus Control software and fix it for Access, both because it would be a pain in the ass (not fun like restoring hardware) and also for copyright reasons.
Even though Dave Smith invented MIDI and was a pioneer in software synth plugins, he is not a big fan of software integration for the very reasons we are talking about here... he doesn't want to be running in circles trying to keep his shit working on another vendors' OS.. he has talked about this in depth in interviews. He wants to make musical instruments that are designed to be played, not be fiddled around with a mouse. Yes you can buy editors that help you do some things on the computer but they are meant to be PLAYED, and therein lies the difference.
I'm not saying everyone needs lots of analog polys. It depends on what kind of music you want to make.
It is definitely possible to make good music using only software. But if the analog sound is your thing, the really good soft-synths eat up half your CPU and still aren't in the same league. When you've got 4 or 5 rich sounding poly synths going in a mix, and you look at your CPU and its still sitting at 9% then it becomes clear... yeah software alone can't do that. I still use plug-ins for certain things like samples and FX...