Best Sound Emulation

Sound Design with GP
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Seems this may be the best place to post this. I’m curious as to what the best source of virtual instruments would be for use with Gig Performer. I’m heavily invested in Native Instruments. But I’ve seen and heard where Arturia was used and it almost convinced me to purchase that as well. While I can probably afford it without pushing my marriage into divorce, as an amateur hobbyist keyboard player, I can’t justify in my own mind having two sets of what is essentially the same thing.

It seems Arturia is targeting those that used the original instruments and want something that is familiar to them. Having skipped the synth revolution, most of those instruments appear to be difficult to use where Native Instruments seems to have the same voices with a fresh look at how to make them work. That’s just my impression at this point. That’s why I raise the question as to what is being used and why it is better than all the competitors.

My particular needs are classic rock/pop, modern country, and blues. So, everyone needs a Hammond B3, piano, etc. That’s the perspective of my approach on the subject.

So, let the debate begin.

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I love the Pianotec pianos. I think Lounge Lizard does great at Rhodes and Wurlitzer epianos. I think there’s maybe more disagreement here about what the best Hammond is, but B3-X is popular and what I’ve been using most recently.

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Oh yeah, and all 3 go on sale from time to time - yearly?

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Not to forget Cherry Audio.
And my secret weapon is Omnisphere.
What is amazing about Omnisphere is that you can clearly hear the sound in a band context without massive tweaking.
Many plugins sound amazing - when you are playing alone - but in rehearsal you do not hear them.

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Yes I tend to agree with vegeais. Lounge lizard is a great EP, however there are many. And organs are gonna come down to personal taste. I’m in the GSI VB3 camp. The Korg Tritons are a good bet for general sounds. No 2 people will probably agree on pianos. I like garritan cfx.

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Hi there :slight_smile:

I was wasting time on finding some vst. (I‘m always a bit slow… :wink:
And I‘m not sure to what extent some of that has been said in different threads already,…

I especially liked that there seems to be a kind of an „vst“ecclesiastical year with special offers:

  • Years ago, I got a used NI-Keyboard -with- some basic software thing. Then you could just wait until the updates were just half-price; and Collector’s Edition isn‘t such a big thing any more… :wink:
  • Arturia has some bundle offers, as well as IK Multimedia‘s Hammond and, actually, all the others I‘m mentioning below:
  1. Hammond:
    a) IK multimedia‘s B-3X (this one I like best! — Especially with @LMercuri ‘s rackspace. Thanks a lot!)
    b) the one by Acoustic Samples (although I usually feel as if its sound is less detailed - …well, I‘m not sure about that — I guess it‘s more for the grittier sounds)
    c) None. (Well…, my Nord Electro 4D, I do like. :slight_smile: )

Neither am I fond of Arturia‘s Hammond, nor of the Hammond of Native Instruments (which sounds to me quite slim/thin, compared to the others nowadays).

  1. Rhodes:
    Scarbee‘s EP88 (Thomas Skarbye seems to have Halloween Sale again, if I‘m not wrong.) — It is run via Kontakt. (He did his last famous Vintage Keys e-pianos for Native Instruments, long time ago. They are included in the Kompletes, but have much less velocity layers and I don‘t like some of their effects much…)

  2. Wurli:
    I love the ones from Acoustic Samples.
    (If I‘m not mistaken: )

  • „Wurlie“ is sample-based and you can create much of that Ray Charles What I‘d say sound, I think, of Wurlitzer 200/200a‘s predecessor. The various ways of extra noises/acoustics/effects/amps make it really special to me, that whole atmosphere of that humming and clattering… :wink:
  • „VReeds“ let‘s you more create of that Supertramp-bite. Here, they used more modeling, not only sampling, if I‘m right. Smaller memory footprint, but maybe a tiny bit more CPU(?).

Native Instrument‘s (NI‘s) wurlie doesn‘t have that high level in my opinion.
Arturia mixes too much Rhodes into their Wurlie (or it was too late that night ;-).

  1. Acoustic piano:
    I like „Noire“ by NI, but, as mikelupo said: 2 people, 3 best-must-have pianos.
  • Noire seems quite good for many different surroundings…, maybe also because it‘s quite… neutral. Good one.
    (With my next laptop I might want to try out Pianoteq and/or embertone‘s (Walker D?), let‘s see.)
  • NI‘s „the Maverick“ seems to be less conventional and it might fit in in some sound situations, as their „Upright“ does.

  1. Digital grand: There is one in Arturia‘s collection, isn‘t it?

  2. Clavinet: I use the NI clav within Vintage Keys. I haven’t tried out Arturia’s, yet.

  3. Pianet: I really like the unconventional sticky sound of this Hohner e-piano‘s sampled contacts. :slight_smile: Good one! Thx Scarbee! (Despite of its effects section.)

  4. Synths:
    I bought the Arturia bundle mainly because of those vintage synths, Oberheim, Juno, Jupiter, Prophet and all those great synth icons! Yippieh! :slight_smile:
    (I‘m not sure about their accuracy, though, for example, about the Mini V presets that sometimes sound like Juno sounds, which are not monophone in contrary to the original Minimoog…(?!).)
    I do like NI‘s strictly -monophone- Monark, although I wonder if its live sound is fat. I hope.

…
(Brass: Session Horns Pro, but just an idea…)
(Strings: NI‘s Stradivari sounds great for some things, but that small violin has a Yeti-footprint, I‘m afraid.)
(Some acoustic guitars, if not played on a real instrument: NI;
Acoustic Samples might be interesting for controlling rhythm acoustic guitar live, if you really want that.)
(Electric bass: I can‘t say anything against NI‘s VSTs. IK multimedia’s Modo bass has a free version where you can tweak the one given model into a fretless option. Sometimes I do like that.)
(Acoustic drums: NI’s studio drums sound a bit unexciting, sorry, I can’t express it. So if all the other drum VSTs don‘t move you… — I discovered drum-drops.com ; and the free version of IK multimedia‘s Modo drums where you can modify the kettles, especially the snare.)

(Just another side remark: — controllers
A great help is Behringer FCB1010, midi foot controller board, with 2 expression pedals and some footswitches, … used for less than 100,- and Akai‘s Midimix ( with 9 faders, many knobs). With those I can play on whichever master keyboard is in a rehearsal room.)

Sorry for having such a long post, now that I realize I got lost in it. :wink:

Everytime I play my favourites 1), 2), 3) mentioned above — I‘m really happy that I found those VSTs for Hammond, Rhodes, Wurlitzer.

I agree with @pianopaul that there are many of the sounds that sound great alone, but don‘t cut through (or don‘t find their sound-niche) in a band rehearsal (maybe many I have listed, too, I‘m not sure).
And thanks to all your hints @vegeais and @mikelupo (Pianotec, Garritan cfx, Omnisphere).

Cheers!

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I currently use the IK Multimedia B3-X for my Hammond stuff, but I spoke with my friend who has been playing organ with Hornsby for the past 20+ years and he doesn’t really like the VSTs. He uses an Hammond XK and a Ventilator rotary pedal when he gigs locally, but he understood the point of keeping your rig light for those types of gigs.

For EP, I liked Lounge Lizard, but once I found Keyscape, it became my go-to for Rhodes sounds. I also have the Rhodes V8 but I’ve yet to coax out the Eddy Reynolds voiced Fender sound from that VST. I’ve used PianoTec for accoustic piano since v3 of their software. Now they’ve added a really nice Bosendorfer to their lineup that I really dig. I also like their wah clav for chopping it up on funk songs.

Horns, I made my own stab brass using the Triton Extreme, and Roland XV-5080 VSTs. Most other sounds I get from the Korg Collection if they need to be accoustic type sounds, or Arturia V-Collection for synth stuff. I really only use this for live use though and you experience may be different if you’re looking for stuff to use in studio.

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