Virtual Instruments vs Plug-ins...

[drbluezz]

...what's the difference? For example, what's the difference between a "virtual instrument" and the samples offered on Sampletank? Thanks.

Tom

[DAS]

There is a relatively short answer to your question, however, in the interest of teaching to fish (rather than just giving the fish) I will direct you here, since I assume others will offer up the short answers.

http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/vi...trument-guide/

Read the articles from Nick Batzdorf and Craig Anderton. It won't take long, and a lot of other potential questions may get answered along the way.

[Jeff Hollman]

Ditto what DAS said!

SampleTank is both a virtual instrument and a plug-in! Not all virtual instruments are plug-ins (Reason is an example of this, since it runs stand alone or rewired to another program, but never as a VSTi, RTAS, or other format plug-in...) On the flip side, not all plug-ins are virtual instruments, (obvious examples of this would be reverbs, EQs, and other such effects.)

So vitual instruments would simply be software programs that create sound and behave in a similar fashion to what we consider instruments... this includes virtual drummers such as BFD and Groove Agent, drum samplers such as Battery, sound modules such as Sampletank2, and on and on and on...