Dear all Hope you'll be able to spare me some thoughts. My system: Logic Audio 5.5, ES1, EVB3, EVP88, EVD6 PowerMac 1GHz single processor 1Gb RAM OSX Audiophile 2496 PCI External LaCie Firewire 60Gb audio drive I bought the Big Box a few weeks ago. I'm no engineer but having found my way around a few basic functions my new problem is that I'm lacking sounds in a big way. In my limited experience with the EVB3, EVP88 and EVD6 they seem to lack edge. I am considering what I could do to broaden the range of sounds I can use and I've been looking at various plugins. However I'm restricted to OSX as Logic doesn't seem to recognise my XSKey when booting into Classic mode. My options seem to be: 1. Upgrade my EXSP24 to the full EXS24mkII and get a bunch of good quality samples 2. Buy the ES2 and EVOC20 to complete the set of Emagic instruments 3. Get the FXPansion wrapper and invest in a few VST instruments - I've been thinking about Battery, Stylus, & DR008 (drums), Virtual Guitarist, HALion Strings, the Grand ('real' instruments), and M-Tron, Oddity, Absynth, FM7, Pro-53, V-Station, Trilogy, Tera (synths). Also effects - Autotune, Pluggo, TC Native Bundle 3, FXPansion Series 1. I realise some of these have yet to make it to OSX! 4. Buy Reason and/ or Rebirth and slave them to Logic 5. Upgrade to LAMP 6 for the extra effects (thanks for the interesting recent thread on this) 6. Sod it all and buy some outboard! Is there anyone out there who can offer me a bit of guidance? What seems to work well under OSX, are particular VST instruments or Logic FX worth it, am I better off getting an in depth knowledge of the EXS24? My uses are: 1. Creating semi-pro demos of commercial pop songs I've co-written to try to get a publishing deal (so I need a mix of convincing synths and realer sounds) 2. Recording demos of my own stuff (more acoustic/ rock/ pop sound) If this seems OT, please reply to my email address. Any comments positive or negative gratefully received. [To complete the picture I also have a Rode mic and Fat 2 preamp, Line6 Pod 2, a saxophone and a couple of guitars]

On a fine day, 02-05-2003, tris benedict taylor wrote: >1. Upgrade my EXSP24 to the full EXS24mkII and get a >bunch of good quality samples Imo nobody should be without a good sampler -- which for Logicians makes the EXS at least an interesting option (or a must-have, depending on how you look at it). The 3 instruments you own are interesting, but _are_ of the "vintage" category of course. I don't think they lack edge (besides, a few plug-ins often do wonders to even the blandest sounds), but they're quite "particular" -- not everyone needs a Fender Rhodes all the time. In that sense a good sampler has a far broader scope. And with the dozens of excellent sample libraries out there, a sampler is really something you shouldn't skip. >2. Buy the ES2 and EVOC20 to complete the set of >Emagic instruments I haven't tried the ES2 yet myself, but people generally rave about it. try the demo and judge for yourself. As for the EVOC: do you really need a vocoder? It _is_ a rather "special purpose" kind of thing imo. At least it probably won't broaden your sound-palette in the way you envision (except when you happen to be a die-hard vocoder-lover -- in which case you shouldn't have asked about the EVOC but simply should have bought it :-). >3. Get the FXPansion wrapper and invest in a few VST >instruments - I've been thinking about Battery, >Stylus, & DR008 (drums), Virtual Guitarist, HALion >Strings, the Grand ('real' instruments), and M-Tron, >Oddity, Absynth, FM7, Pro-53, V-Station, Trilogy, Tera >(synths). Also effects - Autotune, Pluggo, TC Native >Bundle 3, FXPansion Series 1. I realise some of these >have yet to make it to OSX! Personally if I were forced to use OSX I wouldn't buy VST's now that rely on a 3rd party wrapper to work. Either wait till some become OSX native, or, if you can't wait, buy a VST (plus the wrapper) from a reliable company who've announced they will go OSX in the near future (and make sure you can crossgrade to the OSX version for free then). Drum-samplers are nice, but not _really_ a must-have imo (I know I'll get flamed for saying this :-). For drum-use they're more convenient than a normal sampler like the EXS, but in the end there's very little they can do that a normal sampler (with a bit of workaround-ing, like inserting multiple instances of the EXS) can't do. Absynth: a killer-synth and an absolutely amazing concept. mMre geared towards strange "other-worldly" sounds than to "middle-of-the-road" pads and synth-sounds though. FM7/Pro53: if you liked the DX7-family or the Prophet 5, you'll love these. Again: somewhat vintage-stuff, which is to your liking or not (although I suppose the FM7 is less 'vintage' than the Pro53 is). Virtual Guitarist: I mainly read _very bad_ reviews on that one, here in the LUG. Can't comment on the others. The effect plug-ins: Autotune: do you do lots of vocals that need corrective tuning? If not, save the money for something else. Pluggo: a huge collection of mainly non-mainstream effects. You love it or you don't. Tough one... Not sure if it'll work though. It seems the last incarnations of Pluggo have caused a lot of problems with many people, so I would be careful. Can't comment on the others. >4. Buy Reason and/ or Rebirth and slave them to Logic Nice if you're into dance/hiphop/house. In other words: buy something else. (hey, do I feel another flame coming on? :-)) >5. Upgrade to LAMP 6 for the extra effects (thanks for >the interesting recent thread on this) A good idea anyway, but rather unrelated to your desire to broaden your sound palette. >6. Sod it all and buy some outboard! There's nothing wrong with having a good workhorse-synth to do the boring stuff (pads, electric piano's, etc) so you can spend your CPU-cycles on the more interesting things. >1. Creating semi-pro demos of commercial pop songs >I've co-written to try to get a publishing deal (so I >need a mix of convincing synths and realer sounds) >2. Recording demos of my own stuff (more acoustic/ >rock/ pop sound) Sounds like EXS, maybe ES2, a couple of good sample libraries... If you indeed have Logic Audio (i.e. formerly Silver, the smaller brother of Gold and Platinum) you might want to invest in a good software reverb and compressor as well, as these are seriously lacking in Silver (uhm, Audio -- why on earth did Emagic ever change a perfectly sensible naming-scheme?). Or a soft-verb and hardware compressor (which makes more sense, I guess, as you tend to compress on input). At least I would build it up gradually. Don't go out with your creditcard, buy anything you can find, only to discover that half of what you bought hardly ever gets used. And of course everything also depends on how much money you're willing (or rather: able :) to spend... -- Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@...> Omega Art: http://www.omega-art.com/