I made the big jump to the plugin world because of the killing combination KAWAI VPC-1 and VST Ivory American Concert D, which gives you the feeling of playing on a Steinway Grand. Each time I come came from rehearsal, where I play on an Arturia Keylab 88 mk2, and play again the VPC-1 and the American Concert D, it is a bit like feeling at home again. And as soon as it becomes available for Windows, I will buy the brand new Ivory III German Concert D. I’m not going to be able to help myself…
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I think we can all agree that plugins are generally much more powerful than what you get in hardware and the sounds are amazing.
That said, I think the one thing that people don’t think about is “playability”.
For example, you can have the greatest hammond organ plugin there is, but if you’re not using a waterfall keyboard and decent feeling drawbars (preferably multiple sets) as opposed to those toy sliders on most controllers, then it just isn’t quite right.
Similarly, if you’re playing a Minimoog, the positioning (and size) of those knobs makes a huge difference. That big filter cutoff knob on a Minimoog makes all the difference for performance as opposed to having 9 tiny little knobs in a row.
Even the Kronos (and the original Oasys, which was my original introduction) gives you amazing hands-on control that the virtual world just doesn’t quite capture.
I’m certainly not giving up my virtual environment for touring, schlepping “real” instruments is just not worth the hassle for me. But I miss that playability.
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I do ! 
Thanks to the versatility of the combination GP+VST, I can play on probably one of the best piano keybed ever, I also play organ on a quite low cost clone wheel, but with a very good waterfall keybed and nice drawbars (while I don’t care about the organ sound). I have the opportunity to use a small sized motorized control surface which has also a nice big rotating knob. Thanks to GP I can control the mixer software of my audio interface as well as an additional GP VST mixer and much more on the same control surface. This “playability” has of course a cost in terms of working time, but it has really a great flexibility.
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For me I like the VST piano’s better (comparing e.g. Noire or Grandeur vs the Korg Kronos default grand).
About the audience hearing a difference. I think keyboardists in general do way more to ‘tweak’ sounds than other musicians.
For me the Kronos had a lot of controls, more than many others, like the 9 sliders, knobs, the nice joystick and ribbon control
However, even with my super cheap M-Audio Oxygen 61, I have also 9 sliders, 9 knobs, more buttons. And I get used to the mod wheel/pitch bend wheel. Too bad there is no ribbon control.
But thanks to GP I can assign whatever function I need, per song to any controller, so for me the playability has improved a lot, as I can now do things which were not (or hardly) possible even with the Kronos.
I also have a Korg Kronos, but lately it’s been having one or two problems related to its age, particularly with the hard drive and touch screen. Although I still use some of the sounds from the Kronos that I will really miss, I still decided to use a keyboard controller. Are you satisfied with your M-Audio Oxygen 61? I only need 61 keys and currently have the Arturia Keylab MkII, the Novation 61SL MKIII and the AKAI Professional MPK 261 on my shortlist. Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 MK2 is out of the question for me because I need faders. Do you use your M-Audio live and does it work?
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I think my last reaction didn’t get through so this is another try.
The velocity sensitivity of the maudio key bed is not great. However, I use it mainly for synth and Hammond. For piano I have a second keyboard, a studio logic acuna 88.
I bought the maudio because second hand it’s very cheap and high likely I will upgrade at some time.
If it’s your only keyboard, I suggest a better one. But it has a lot of faders, knobs and buttons.
Thanks! I only ever used one keyboard live, the Korg Kronos. I’m not a pianist, so something similar is enough for me. The advantage of the M-Audio over the other controllers is that the faders are on the left like the Kronos.
Overall it looks like the trend is to replace the workstations with a GP / VST / Midi Keyboard setup due to flexibility / sound quality / weight / €$€.
Except weight (as a 100% home user) these points have been also my main decision points when i reanimated my keyboard life 3 years ago. I’m happy with my SL88 Grand and the Mac GP setup.
Only 2 areas are open / not finally decided:
A real synth (eg Moog or Prophet) would be great and is on the wishlist due to the haptics to use real knobs / faders to develop sounds. This will happen sooner or later …
The more difficult question is related to the Organ. I’m using the B-3X and I’m happy with the sound. What i’m missing are the waterfall keys / drawbars as i have not found an adequate midi-controller.
What the position / opinion of the experienced GP user?
Is it reasonable to spend the money for an actual HW Organ like the YC61 (including some nice piano sounds) or Hammond XK4 related to sound / haptics and sound?
Or is it better to look for used / outdated organ and use the waterfall keys and drawbars only as a simple midi controller for a VST like the B-3X?
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Thank you
Yes, I also like it on the left side better. However, maudio I think also has an oxygen with a better key bed, but more expensive, which also includes after touch.
For me a normal keyboard is enough for organ playing. But I can imagine it’s better with real waterfall keys.
Personally I usually use my Kronos as a MIDI controller 
but seriously, I still sometimes uses its internal sounds either for comparison or just to use my computer power for something else.
While I prefer my plugins for most stuff, dedicated hardware can still be useful for a few use case:
- if your computer have some hard time processing (lots of tracks with heavy processing) but you dont want to/can’t increase buffer size (buffer size should always be kept to as low as possible);
- you just want to record yourself with as few VST processing as possible and tweak VST afterward;
- you want to use it as an additionnal layer;
- use the keyboard as additionnal effects (usually not worth it but you could);
- you want to be crash safe. If my PC or GP or DAW crashes (GP is not that crash-proof compared to some other DAW) or start having issues or crackling (possibly because of some background processeslike windows update), you might sometime want dedicated hardware;
- you have a powerful studio desktop but not a powerful laptop but want to bring your gear (i would not bring my kronos, however, to heavy );
TLDR: I too prefer plugins and mostly use the Kronos sounds very sporadically.
In this case I resample the sounds using the new Auto Sampler
Please explain in detail, when a plugin crashes then the DAW also crashes.
An excpetion seems to be bitwig, but this needs a “shell” over the plugins what is not doable in a real time environment.
When GP crashes then it is nearly 100% a plugin which crashes and that is not the fault of Gig Performer.
Really you allow automatic updates of the OS?
All bets are off if you do that — it is completely absurd to allow any kind of background update while you’re running a real-time critical application.
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To all the replied to me about the windows update: even when you turn the auto-update off, Winfows can decide to do some background processing to prepare and check updates. It wont install it but it can prepare it. For those with the home edition you cant control it much at all (better control with pro/workstation versions). And yes, Im using Windows for workstation. And really, with any non-dedicated hardware you will allways have some background processing in something, the OS usually the most part of it if you know what you are doing with you computer. The windows update is just a common issue I have seen on many computers (not necessaraly mine).
About VST crashes: yes I do use bitwig so i havent got any crahes since. Even without running in a sandbox, bitwig wont crash but you’ll have to restart audio and thats it. With GP, everytime I got a crash, I lost what I was doing, which is worth saying.
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Did you get crash reports?
While I don’t use Windows myself these days, it’s my understanding that one can disable Windows “deciding” to do some background processing, probably by disabling the appropriate services.
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Do you need internet connection on stage or rehearsal ?
As I don’t need it, I turn it off, as well as antivirus, firewall, etc.
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