MOTUnation.com

Hey all,
I am looking around today for a GM2/GS VSTi that I can use for sketching in DP. I'd like something that's very, very simple to use -

Sonar comes with the TTS-1 synth, which is basically the ol' Roland Hyper Canvas. What's great about that is it sounds good enough for sketching, and it follows spec so it responds to program changes, patches can be browsed within the sequencer itself, has chorus & verb - all that stuff. Very speedy for working things out before I go back through and re-orchestrate with Kontakt samples and 'real' synths. But it's DXi only, so I can't use it easily in DP.

There are lots of GM2 soundfonts out there, but I don't want to use Soundfonts since that negates the workflow advantage of using a single multi-timbral sound module. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help,
Mike

I had a similar want. I wound up purchasing a few Yamaha MU50 units on Ebay for less than $100 each.

Don't know if this is still available for purchase, but here's a link to Roland Virtual Sound Canvas VST: http://roland.com/support/article/?q=do ... d=15813994

Lastly, if you have an iOS device and MIDI/Audio connectivity, Roland has just released the Sound Canvas app for iOS, for only $20 and which looks pretty nifty. I only have an iPad2 and it's not supported, unfortunately.

EDIT: Looks like they've also released a Sound Canvas plugin for Windows & Mac called "Sound Canvas VA" for $125 - http://www.roland.com/products/sound_canvas_va/

EDIT2: Downloaded the trial for Mac and while it functioned, the playback was very choppy and off-time. Hopefully they'll fix this. No longer have my Windows music production platform running so I couldn't test it.

Thanks for the response!

I also posted this in the Sonar forums, and they also suggested the new Roland Sound Canvas VA. I tried it out and I didn't have performance problems, but right now bank & patch selection doesn't work correctly in some hosts (including Sonar). And also, the chosen device mapping doesn't persist on save! Since it's a 1.00 release, hopefully they'll fix that with an update. Then there's a good chance I'd get it.

At the moment, I'm also looking at the Korg M1 VST, which is not a GM module but is pretty quick to use and has a broad palette. It's a well-designed little plug. I'd appreciate any other suggestions in a similar vein - covering all instrument families

I'm pretty much 100% in the box, so I don't think I want to go hardware, though the dearth of good software options has me thinking about it.