Tusker

You must be referring to vintage digital synths? Thanks to a half century of Moore's Law, modern digital synths can have very high resolution.

From the U-He stable … AFAIK Diva, RePro, Hive, Ace and Bazille support all MPE features except for release velocity. Zebra 2 being an older horse does not support MPE.

When I listen to guys like Nick Semrad, I realize there is a wealth of new expression to be found in older synths, let alone the new and magnificent software instruments that are on a different level entirely. Synths are just starting folks. Strap yourselves in. 💪

I fully agree that soft-sync is important and dare I mention VOSIM as well? I love using sync for evoking double-reed instruments. Digital modular is typically a super-set of analog modular, admittedly with some limitations. These limitations still occur in areas like sync, audio-rate, noise and distortion, but conversely there are nearly infinite waveforms and algorithms in digital not conceived in analog. There is also the precision of digital control systems, which open up vast navigable vistas of intricacy not possible with analog control voltage. Some say the digital glass is half-full, pointing to a handful of limitations. Not me, since I am not trying to replicate analog sounds. For me, the new sounds are exciting and my cup runs over. YMMV.

Also, please consider that at high volumes, the trusty QSC's can be a bit more shrill than other speakers. It may sound better through the PA.

I've always love what Hiromi does. There is an occasional criticism of younger, more technical artists, that they never met a note they didn't like. Sometimes that criticism is fair, often not. Yes, the notes you don't play can become more important in many artists as they mature, and I hear that a bit in today's Hiromi, even though she is still about energy. She still has the excitement, the adventurousness, the passion. It's a lovely point in her artistic trajectory. I'll just leave this here. 😉

Good call! 👏 It's the personal connection you are looking for. Can you speak through this instrument? We will put up with a truckload of inconvenience for a spoonful of that magic.

Alchemy provides up to 600 partials, and if I need the full spectrum, I just keep that setting. But you can make great tonal instruments with just the first 20 partials. The vital information is in the first 3-4 partials anyway. Almost all synths allow you to pitch oscillators/operators up and down, so you could extend the number of "partials" by changing the octave setting of an oscillator/waveform if you wanted to.

I have great sound sources and my keyboards are fine for sound-design and production work. but for performing? I'd love a 61 key keyboard controller with a good synth action, a long ribbon, an XY Pad and two or more continuous pedal inputs.

Bingo. You need a simpler framework to begin with. Then you can explore sounds, asking questions as you go. The sync sound you mentioned is unusual. Even a keyboardist might be asking that question. It's a great question. Keyboardists aren't any different from you: we are all trying to figure out how to create great sounds. Three major distinctions in a basic framework are: how do I make a sound bright or dark? how do I make a sound slow (like a pad) or fast (like a pluck)? and what kinds of "wiggles" do I have available while the sound is sounding? Every sound you encounter will fit somewhere within those distinctions: bright/dark, fast/slow, smooth/wiggly. When you encounter a sound that is close to what you want, you will be able to get it closer by knowing where to start tweaking. Good luck.

Glassy and bell-like is a sweet spot for me too. With options like pitch stretch and pitch variation in resynthesis, you can be subtle and yet engaging with glassy pads and shimmering textures. It's often a better tool than FM or physical modeling which have often been deployed for those sounds.

Those who wish to do this sort of thing should take a look at synths like Logic's Alchemy and Image Line's Harmor. Both are capable of resynthesis. Izotope's Iris is similar if a little limited. You can click on those links, and I do apologize for the length of the Alchemy video. The main point is that these type of synths include meta tools by which you can grab multiple harmonics at once and modulate them. These include odd/even mix, pitch variation, pitch stretch, fundamental boosting, octave emphasis, etc. There are dozens of these meta tools, each modulatable by lfo or envelope, allowing you to be powerfully broad-brush when you control the timbre over time, even though you were highly precise when selecting and editing the sample. Resynthesis doesn't always sound acoustically cohesive, but that's the nature of editing partials. It's like editing pixels. Sooner or later your picture disintegrates. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

Your comments describe the difficulty of carving out the niche for these offerings. An Arturia soft synth user who want to go all hardware? Someone who has never worked with software? Possibly But if someone has worked with Arturia's soft synths, can you persuade them to leave the laptop at home? If someone has worked with another manufacturer (say U-He and NI) can you get them to switch? Soft synth manufacturers encouraging a hardware switch, really have to do their market sizing accurately.

It was an end-of-the-line keyboard synth. They discounted the prices and stuffed goodies into it to monetize the JV sound libraries. Before long we were upgrading to the XV series. Because of its relatively shallow depth, light weight and sturdiness, it was an easy synth to add to a rig. Just that nice little sound source on top for all the sonic sprinkles you might want. Roland's Performance Mode is still brilliant to me and it worked on this tiny synth as well. Want strings? Press button #1. Want some bell with the string? Press buttons #1 and #2 together. Want that bell layered with a cacophony of detuned metals? Press buttons #2 and #3 together Want just your strings back? Press button #1 again. Want your strings with a French horn? Press buttons #1 and #4 together and so on ...

XP30 was a powerhouse gigging tool indeed. Tiny and yet a Swiss-Army-Knife of useful sounds.

This has been a peeve for me across multiple keyboard designs for many years. Often the controllers are huddling on the right hand side of the keyboard. Do manufacturers not know that most keyboard players have stronger right hand technique and are more likely to reach for controllers with their left? 'Tis a puzzlement. As to VI instruments at gigs, I take the long view: Virtual instruments were initially solving a technical problem: let's make that sound with computer code. That's pretty far from the problem of instrument design. I expect to see a line of evolutionary instruments, inching closer and closer to human ergonomics. Some designs more useful to patch and others more useful to play. For playing, something which looks like the Nonlinear labs C15 with two large ribbons and four pedal inputs speaks to me. That's a design worth emulating.

Bitwig might work very well with your modular sentiments Robert. An expert sleepers (or MOTU) interface and you've got a unique hardware/software hybrid.

It's a very good point that if the OP wishes to do sequenced arrangements and other features of a live set he will need a full featured daw/host at some point. Live mode in Omnisphere is pretty good at multi-timbrality and allows you load your own samples. You can work outward from that framework as you build a set. If the OP goes down the path of DAW/Host arrangements, he will have a choice of clip based (Ableton) and linear (Logic) metaphors. Most DAWS now offer a bit of both. I've sometimes begun a set relying on sequences (linear), and then converted things to clips (triggered/improvised). Modern tools are flexible. A piece of content can begin in one platform and migrate over time. Don't worry about wrong turnings. There are many good ways to do a thing. It reminds me of this story by Dave Rosenthal. 😅 He was helping Bruce Springsteen's E street band to transition to laptop sound sources, so while Roy Bittan and others were rehearsing, he used their keyboard midi outputs to feed into the laptop rig, carefully tweaking the sounds until he could fool them.

We enjoyed a rather beautiful darkness in Southern New England. Somehow, I cannot think of eclipses without remembering Tintin. 😉

Robert, my first two thoughts are similar to yours: Maschine from NI and Live from Ableton. Either or both. I have dabbled with both on the software side: enough to have an unreliable Dunning-Kruger opinion. Ha ha. As a pure percussion instrument you would think Maschine and for everything else (Loops, Arranging, Mixing) Ableton right? Will watch with interest. It's a great idea. I have a spare Air (intel) gathering dust.

Yes. It’s the same library. It's quite massive, a huge asset. Based on over a decade of performing with it and loving it however, I would still say there are third party tools which can be more directly aligned with your musical goals. Personally, I have no regrets about using the ecosystem, but if I was do it again, I would take a peek outside the ecosystem sooner. YMMV

Yes the Modifier in MainStage is the same as that in Logic. Very useful tool.

Begin with the end in mind. It will take a lifetime to exhaust the Logic toolkit. But your goal is to stand up your project quickly yes? Use tools which will most easily help you acomplish your goals. Logic easily provides the basics. Third parties easily provide the rest.

Yes, what a great interview. I thought I was the only keyboardist who would want to discuss this interview. Fantastic to geek out on this great band! Geeknote: I assume the Matte Kudasai solo they are referencing is about 2.30 seconds in this video? think of it as a bit of Lennonesque snark to counter McCartney's (Belew's) sweetness. I get what Belew says though. He is like a melodic Roy Orbison in a distorted rock world. What a combination. These guys are among the most dedicated sound designers in the world. Still an inspiration. Thanks for sharing.

The OP hasn't established a budget but he has established a purpose: he wants to emulate various artists he mentioned. I've performed with the Logic/Mainstage plugins for more than a decade now. ES2, Sculpture and Alchemy are among my favorite synths. In some respects Alchemy is unrivaled. But two issues are worth considering: time and polish. First, the third party synths often have patches/effects/automation that speed up the process of building a mix. Third party patches accelerate this process even further. Second, some of the Logic synths don't sound as polished or three dimensional out of the box. They are not the newest code. But you can polish them up with effects. Skrillex used an ES2 sound in 2010 on Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, but there is an effects chain polishing that sound. Polishing isn't rocket science: it's usually some combination of compression, chorus, delays, reverb and spatial panning to make the sound bigger. By contrast, many of today's third party synth patches sound great out of the box. So polish is also a question of how much time you want to spend. There's a question for our OP: what's your time worth?