Help please ! soft synths

[swaps]

Hi All,
Im looking to start learning to play keyboards. I did play 20 years ago and lost interests but want to start again. I have been given a Technics keyboard with midi and it has some good sounds but I would really like to attach this up to my PC and to be able to get the sounds of my favorite 80's synths. PRO 1 / Prophet 5 / juno 60 and many of the other early synths of this period. I have found a lot of soft synths but all these seem to be VST's. Can anyone point me in the direction of information on how I can achive my dream ? Free options if possible although I can pay a little if needed. I have a midi to USB lead so conecting the keyboard / PC is not a problem.

Thanks Alan

[EdRyan]

Welcome Alan.

You seem to be a bit confused. All soft synths will fall into a following plugin type:

VST/i (Virtual Sound Technology Instrument)
AU (Audio Unit. A mac only platform)
RTAS (Real Time Audio System. Pro-tools only platform)
TDM (Time Division Multiplex. Pro-tools only platform).

There are some other minor ones, but they are the major 4.

All of the above are interface platforms for developers to make tools work within daw/sequencers. Steinberg own the VST standard, Apple own the AudioUnit, Digidesign own RTAS & TDM.

Most other daw packages such as Ableton Live or Cakewalk Sonar will support at least one of the above, depending on things such as operating system. For example, Live is a PC and Mac application, so it supports VST/i and AU.
Steinberg Cubase is also PC and Mac, but because it's a competing technology (and not available for pc) they do not support the AU.
Sonar is a pc only app, so only supports VST/i.
Logic is a Mac only app, so only supports AU.
Protools is both Pc & Mac, but they have their own interfacing standards of RTAS & TDM, so do not support VST/i and AU.

You get the idea, it's quite political. There are ways around it. For example you can purchase a 'wrapper' that turns VST/i into Au for use within Logic.

Some sequencing applications (namely Propellerheads Reason & Record) do not support any plugins. They aim to be self contained environments with built in synths and effects. The advantage is that these programs generally are more stable because there isn't anything external running within them that could make them crash, they are more cpu friendly etc. You can use these in something called Rewire mode, which sets them up as a slave device. The audio is passed through the master, with tempo, samplerate etc all locked to the master as well. You can almost treat them as a giant instrument when working in this way.

After the brief history class.... To use any plugin, you need a daw host. The most popular ones are Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Protools, Live. These are all fully fledged and age old commercial products. They tend to carry quite hefty price tags as well. A fairly good and free/inexpensive alternative is Cockos Reaper.

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/about.php

As for the 80's hardware you mention, there are plenty of free plugins. Gettign the sound you want will be determined by how well you are able to program them, just like it did with hardware.
For a Juno, check out Togu Audio Line U-No 62. http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products

As for non-free plugins. Check out AAS Ultra Analogue at the moment.
http://www.applied-acoustics.com/ultraanalog/overview/ It's a great synth, and on a great offer elsewhere. I paid £9 for it last week !

[saxman]

Ed Ryan has given you some good info. I know little about all this stuff but from my understanding you were looking for a simple free soft synth application that runs on it's own and accepts midi input?

Three basic standalone soft synths;
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/soft/713635/
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/soft/56697/
http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/

[terminal3]

Maybe have a look at Reason? It's not free, nor is it even that cheap, but it makes a great standalone rig with a MIDI keyboard - tonnes of sounds!

[saxman]

Originally Posted by swaps

I have found a lot of soft synths but all these seem to be VST's.

If you have free soft synths that have to be used as VST's but you have no VST application, then you could use a free application that will load the VST's for you;
http://www.tobybear.de/p_minihost.html

There is a great list of free synths here;
http://lesitedeburnie.free.fr/lalistedeburnie1-en.html
Many of the synths are VST's as you have already found, but you can use the Minihost software I mentioned above and the site also mentions another free VST host Cantabile Lite.

[swaps]

Hi,
Thanks for the information. I will grab a few of the downloads and give it a go at weekend.

All the best Alan