I remember the first time I fired up my Commodore 64 computer - it must have been back in the early '80s. Though the C64 is an ancient toy now, at the time, it was a rockin' personal computer! I was especially impressed with the sounds it could make using its internal soundchip. Then I discovered that with a bit of computer-programming savvy, you could actually use that soundchip to make your own synth sounds! I was immediately hooked, and spent many years anxiously awaiting the day when my computer could take over for the stack of hardware synths and samplers I used for composing and playing music.

Computer Horsepower Drives Virtual Instrument Explosion

That day has arrived! With today's Mac and PC computers, you can easily power an array of virtual instruments - everything from drum machines to orchestras to analog synths. The current crop of virtual instruments can run stand-alone - meaning they work as separate programs running on your computer, effectively turning your PC or Mac into a dedicated synth or sampler - or they can operate as plug-ins that load into, and operate within, your digital audio workstation. If you're taking your laptop out onstage to serve as your synth, then stand-alone operation is essential. If you're composing and producing music in your studio, then plug-ins make life very easy, since everything you do can be programmed, stored, recalled, and played right from within the same piece of DAW software that records your miked-up tracks.

Practically Limitless Layers of Sound

A big advantage to virtual instruments is that you are only limited by the power of your computer. With a hardware synth, you can only play so many notes and so many sounds at a time. With a virtual instrument - assuming you have the computer power - you face no such limits. Need another analog-style synth bass part? Open up another instance of your virtual instrument. Now need an analog-style lead part? Another instance of your virtual instrument is all it takes. Today's computers are so powerful, you can layer sounds to your heart's content to create incredibly fat, rich, detailed sounds, all by simply loading in extra instances of the same virtual instrument - keep loading it over and over until the sound is what you want and you have all the parts you want covered.

Automate Your VI's Performance

Virtual instruments are also automatable; you can use your DAW to automatically take control over all your soft-synth's parameters to achieve an expressive performance that can go beyond what a human player, with two hands and two feet, can achieve. Need to change 10 parameters simultaneously for the musical effect you want? Not a problem, just program the automation to do it for you! Even better, everything you do can be memorized in your software and played back perfectly every time.

Easy Updates

Another virtual instrument advantage is that they're easily updatable by the manufacturer. Whenever the company comes up with a new feature, bug-fix, or addition, they simply release a new version that you can download (often for free) over the internet. Try that with your vintage analog synth!

The Price Is Right

Need another advantage for virtual instruments? How about price! For a few hundred dollars, you can buy a versatile, great-sounding software instrument that can provide tons of power - maybe everything you need to play a complete composition or song - that can run right on your laptop or desktop computer. A comparable hardware instrument would cost significantly more money.

In short, the era of the virtual instrument has arrived. Powerful computers are commonplace, computer memory and hard drive prices have dropped to astoundingly low points, and the software technology is in place to make it all work.

This isn't to say that hardware keyboards and modules are dead and gone. Far from it! But for many of us, virtual synths and samplers are exactly what we need: affordable, powerful, convenient, flexible, great-sounding musical instruments that integrate tightly into our studios and live rigs.

Check out the extensive list of virtual instruments that Sweetwater has available. There's literally something for every application, every platform, every price point, and every musical need or desire.