If you have a MIDI keyboard you can plug into your computer and a VST or AU host, here’s a very nice freebie you can play with. It’s based on the Oberheim OB series of synthesizers. It works fine in Logic on my aging Mac laptop. I haven’t had time yet to do more than try some presets, but it sounds very ’80’s to my ear.
My first foray into a midi device was a Yamaha QS300. I bought it in the very early 90’s. It had a floppy disk drive. It was also right about the time when (I think it was called) XG came into being. I think it had 39 voices or something. I knew almost nothing about midi. I still don’t, other than theory. The kids ended up using it to hear the sound effects section. Walking, getting in the car, starting it, skidding and crashing. Hours of fun.
I tried playing the keyboard analogue into the midi section of Cubase 5.1, the last recording software I used a hunnert or so years ago. I just couldn’t get it to synch right. Midi was something you seem to get so easily, but i had such a hard time on.
Hmm. I use inexpensive MIDI controllers that plug directly into the USB hub, and they usually work immediately. At most, I just need to tell the application which MIDI device to use. I’m on a Mac, though, where all the fiddly stuff is hidden under the hood. Things may be more complicated with Windoze or Linux.
The advancement in midi has been remarkable over the years, unless you compare it with all the other computer driven technologies. I gave up well before i should have, I guess.
The voice count, the effects, the layers are so incredible these days it’s still amazing the original principle is still there.
The same is true of analogue to digital mixing. I still have the original Layla that converted the analogue signals from the mixer to (max 8) digital signals into Cubase. Now Mackie has mixers that plug directly into the computer USB2.