Re: Taking VSTs out on the road

[Sjaak Overgaauw <tcplugin@gmail.com>]

> There are some vst hardware hosts, but therey are either rather pricey, 
>or
> lacking in something.. I was looking into this for a bit, same reason,
> prefer hardware... but I wanted to put some vstīs that I had programmed 
>into
> a little box... never found a good thing...

The Receptor is good but expensive. Regarding the SMPro V-series: I
haven't seen many reviews yet, but here's one.
http://emusician.com/aux_hardware/sm-pro-audio-vmachine-review/index1.html

I have been struggling with hardware vs software dilemma for a long
time. Despite the fact that I'm a programmer , I didn't want to go
laptop on stage because I was afraid of stability issues. Anyway,
after almost a year, I have changed my mind. Stable operating systems
do exists as well as stable VST or AU hosts and plugins and if you
have the discipline to threat a laptop as a hardware unit and use it
for music only, it works as a breeze. Keep in mind that "instability"
issues can be caused by the VST plugins itself, which means a hardware
host like receptor or V-rack will probably behave the same.

> On the question of good sources of sounds ethnic or otherwise, I am 
>really
> seriously loking at the Proteus series of modules.. they are OLD NOW, and
> relitively cheap on ebay, plus the ROM cards are interchangable some if 
>you
> get one model, you can stuff in some ROMS form another, so 3 rack spaces 
>can
> be 1...  I DONT have one yet, but have been drooling for a year or so 
>now...

I have owned several Emu 19" modules but IMO, they sounds a little
dated compared to more recent rack units. More recent alternatives are
the Yamaha Motif ES rack, Roland XV-5050, Roland Fantom-X rack, Roland
Sonic cell. The Roland have the advantage  that they support the Srx
expansion cards with additional wave rom and patches. I have used the
SRX-09 World Collection Exp. Board and it sounded very good. Btw: SRX
cards fit in many Roland synths and modules.
-- 
Sjaak Overgaauw
http://premonitionfactory.com/
http://livelooping.be/
http://euroloopfest.com/