[ddots-l] The eternal quest for realistic sounds
- From: "G. McFarlane" <gmcf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Dancing Dots" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "midimag" <midimag@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:59:08 +0100
Hi
Some of you will remember I requested a while ago realistic sounds for strings
brass and human voices, as to where to find them. I've been on a quest for them
since and have had much helpful advice from Band In A Box and some from
Midimag. This hopefully will be my final email on the topic.
As a bit of a novice I'm looking for advice especially from the blind community
who use Sonar and Band In A Box. It seems I can get a module from Ketron, the
Ketron SD2, which certainly has good realistic sounds in the main.
Alternatively I can go the way of the sound synth or is it sound font and get
the Garriton Personal Orchestra or their Big Band synths. Furthermore there are
good offerings from East West sounds.
My difficulty is, and this is why I'm seeking your help, how accessible are the
soft synth packages. Is anyone using them who can advise on accessibility. On
the Band in a Box list someone said he would not recommend the GPO (Garriton)
for a blind person as it needs constant checking and tweeking. Speaking to Band
in a Box help they say that it should work easily as a VST plugin. How will
this work in Sonar 7 Producer? Also to gain natural sounds it would need a bit
of tweaking - true or untrue? My fear is that the software programs have their
own interface and therefore would not be really accessible to Sonar or myself.
I've got to say that I like the module sound of the Ketron SD2 - especially as
I'm in the market for a keyboard, I could carry both with me and keep things
portable. The downside of this, I think, is that the output from the SD2 has to
be recorded into Sonar again (or Band in a Box), which is definitely not as
handy as having it as a piece of software which both programs can work with in
machine to render, etc. This is why I probably wish to go down the way of the
software option, but I'm open to any further advice.
Most people I've spoken to shy away from making recommendations for soft synths
and sound fonts but I'm fairly sure in the blind community most of us who hear
well are fairly clear about what we like and what we don't. It's fairly obvious
that the basic Microsoft GM sounds are not good for professional use, so once
again I'd be glad to hear about what works well with Sonar and Band In A Box to
get that authentic sound ofstrings, brass and human voice. My main aim is to
use these in preparing Country ballads, so I'm not sure if the solutions I've
put forward are suitable for this mode - perhaps some of you can suggest
something more suitable.
Thanks for reading this.
Gordon McFarlane
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