Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Boxes for Synths

For a long time now I have been looking at a box for my plug ins (either NeKo or Receptor). I think there might be a few others out there but those are the only ones that have caught my eye. The reason is that I have experienced many problems with my plug ins crashing. Granted, I am using an old machine that I probably should have retired a while ago but moving lots of software and reinstalling is not something I am anxious to do.

Receptor for a while looked good to me but the fact that you need to have special programs to install plug ins and not all plug ins are available made this a somewhat less than attractive option. I like the Receptor concept but the practical limitations make me a bit reluctant.

Then there is NeKo. Looks state of the art but again, practical matters make me reluctant. First, NeKo has a deficient audio interface. This really surprised me. Sure, you can integrate it with a Pro Tools interface but for the price, I would want at least an 8x8 like MOTU offers on some of its interfaces.

Second, its not portable. If I want to move it from place to place (and I do), it's not that great an option.

That brings me to a 3rd option. a Power Mac with a MOTU interface and Logic. OK, not state of the art in many ways but it would work for me. I need something to integrate my soft and hardware synths and this would do it.

So sometimes, old technology works better.

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