Equipment Advice: Which Synth Which Software Mac Based

Sorry if you've hashed this out before, but I am new here. I am mac based. I have
Roland gear, Korg, Sequential Circuits, & Peavey keyboards. But what do people
recomment the most. I want to do Indian & Just Mostly, but want to learn other ways
as well. I don't know if everything I have is updated or there is an easier way. Proteus
is not too appealing to me.

Thanks,
San

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "moutainsound" <moutainsound@y...>
wrote:
> Sorry if you've hashed this out before, but I am new here. I am mac
based. I have
> Roland gear, Korg, Sequential Circuits, & Peavey keyboards. But
what do people
> recomment the most. I want to do Indian & Just Mostly, but want to
learn other ways
> as well. I don't know if everything I have is updated or there is
an easier way. Proteus
> is not too appealing to me.
>
> Thanks,
> San

Hi!

Though you're likely to get some good suggestions from this list, I'd
also post this question to the MakeMicroMusic list, also on
yahoogroups.

Good Luck,
Paul

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "moutainsound" <moutainsound@y...>
wrote:
> Sorry if you've hashed this out before, but I am new here. I am mac
based. I have
> Roland gear, Korg, Sequential Circuits, & Peavey keyboards. But
what do people
> recomment the most. I want to do Indian & Just Mostly, but want to
learn other ways
> as well. I don't know if everything I have is updated or there is
an easier way. Proteus
> is not too appealing to me.
>
> Thanks,
> San

If you have a keyboard or two that supports MIDI Tuning Standard
(MTS), check out Max Magic Microtuner, a free utility which can be
found at /16tone/. It can read Scala
tuning files, which are also freely available in a separate
distribution (well over 3000 different tunings) from the same
website. It can export those Scala files into MTS files (.mid, .syx)
for your MTS-compatible gear.

Alternatively, look into LMSO
(http://www.nonoctave.com/tuning/LilMissScaleOven/), which offers a
bigger feature set for the price. I use Max Magic Microtuner because
I don't need any features right now beyond exporting tuning files to
MTS files.

I am a Mac OS X user, so be aware I haven't looked much into the Mac
OS 9 soft synth offerings. For OS X, we are pretty much limited to
Native Instruments' soft synths and LinPlug's CronoX. Of NI's soft
synths, only FM7 and Pro53 can load tuning files of some kind.
Absynth reportedly has tuning capability but it can't load tuning
files - all tuning must be done manually. CronoX is VST-only on OS
X - a VST-AU wrapper must be purchased if you want to use it as an
AU. I limited my soft synth search to AU (Audio Unit) compatible
offerings because the sequencer I use (Numerology) happens to be an
AU host.

I currently use FM7 because the local shop sells it for $189, which
is not much more than the cost CronoX + VST-AU wrapper software. And
I don't already have hardware synths. One caveat about FM7 for OS X -
it currently has a minor stuck-note problem which happens when I
play it directly from a hardware keyboard, but not when I trigger it
with Numerology. Numerology's author is an NI beta user - he put in
a tweak to compensate for FM7's stuck note problem.

The other soft synth solutions for the Mac that I am aware of are
the "roll your own" type in which you are provided a toolkit to build
your own synth (Max/MSP, CSound, etc.). FM7 was just the quickest
solution for me.

Good luck,
Paolo