VST Plugin

[spiro13]

Hi

I have a DGX 660 and have been fiddling with the settings as well as the settings on a Keyboard Amp. I am unable to get a rich tone from all my adjustments. I recently heard some keyboard music played using a VST plugin on a computer. I believe a DGX 650 keyboard was used for the input. I am totally unfamiliar with using software in this manner. The tone was utterly fantastic. Has anyone used this type of software? If so, can you give me some information or point me in a direction so I can become familiar with using this software with the DGX 660. I would appreciate any help with this.

Thank you,

Tony

[panos]

Any new keyboard can connect to a VST even a 50$ midi keyboard can produce excellent sound on the computer.

The quality of the sound depends by how good(expensive  ) is the computer and not how good is the keyboard.
The VST is using the computer's "power" to produce the sound.
The keyboard just gives the orders.
So the most important thing is how good is the computer's sound card.

If the sound of the VST is in high quality a medium computer encounters overload problems and it cannot produce the quality of the sound,
or there is a delay between playing the keyboard and hearing the sound from your pc.
Of course is impossible to play music this way.

So every VST plug-in has settings to adjust the quality of the sound that your computer can produce and you must compromise with that.
For exanple,
while you playing and recording you choose low quality settings
and while you are extracting an mp3 file with your music,you choose more high quality sound because at that point your pc does not have to "read" also your keyboard so it is able to produce better sound.

Here is how you fix sound in fl studio for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWWmyrCkDl8

You also have to downoload ASIO4ALL audio driver (its free) for latency problems.
http://www.asio4all.org/intro.html

Which Vst are you using so people can help you if they are using the same?

[spiro13]

Thanks so much for the information and the links. Since I have just started the process, I haven't researched which VST might be be best. When I do decide I'm sure I will need some additional assistance.

Thanks again

Tony

[SeaGtGruff]

Tony, if you get a USB 2.0 "printer" cable (standard USB Type-A-to-Type-B cable) then you can connect your DGX-660 to your computer. You may or may not need to install the appropriate Yamaha USB-MIDI driver on your computer; I believe the DGX-660 is USB-MIDI class-compliant, but even so it's sometimes necessary or recommended to install the driver.

Virtual instrument plug-ins are available all over the internet, ranging in price from completely free to several hundreds of dollars. As is so often the case, "you get what you pay for," which is not to say that there are no decent free plug-ins (because there are) or that all expensive plug-ins are worth their price tags (because some of them aren't). But generally speaking you'll probably need to spend some money-- possibly a lot-- to get truly great virtual piano software, although you might want to start with free plug-ins to see what's what.

Aside from a USB cable, the USB-MIDI driver, and some virtual instrument plug-ins, you'll need some software to host the plug-ins. Typically a DAW (or "digital audio workstation") will be used for this, since it can also be used for recording and editing audio and MIDI tracks, mixing them together, and producing a final audio file. DAWs range in price from free to expensive, so you might want to start with a free one, but the free ones often have much more limited features. And one thing that tends to run up the price of professional DAWs is the inclusion of virtual instruments and effects, so you might want to look at the list of virtual instruments that are included, since you might be able to "kill two birds with one stone" by choosing the right DAW. However, if you'd rather not get into DAWs right now, there are also simpler plug-in hosts available for free-- just search for "free VST host" or something like that. (By the way, "VST" isn't really the best term, because it refers to a specific type of plug-in technology, and there are also other types-- e.g., "AU" and "AAX"-- so the best term when you're speaking of plug-ins in general is "virtual instruments," or "virtual effects" if you're talking about effects plug-ins.)

EDIT: PS-- One thing that can have a big impact on the quality of a virtual instrument is whether it uses sampled sound or modeled sound. Sound samples are fine-- that's what the DGX-660 uses, after all-- but there are limitations to how much tweaking can be applied to it, not to mention problems with getting a really good sustained note. On the other hand, sound modeling is more expensive but can produce better-sounding results if it's done well. That's why software such as Pianoteq uses sound modeling-- and why it costs more than a virtual piano plug-in that merely uses sound samples.

[spiro13]

Thanks for the wealth of information.

Tony

[DerekA]

Thanks so much for the information and the links. Since I have just started the process, I haven't researched which VST might be be best. When I do decide I'm sure I will need some additional assistance.

There are hundreds and hundreds available - some free online, others available to buy. Some are in effect synths, others are sample players. So your first step is decide what kinds of sounds you want from the VST - synth, simulations, pianos, orchestral, etc etc.

[markstyles]

All recent computers, and a decent sound card, can generate excellent results, Some VSTS plug-ins are better, for a certain individuals use.  Some companies,

Kontakt is a VST plug-in (several formats actually - Audio Units for Logic Pro, HAL of Protools (I think)..  most virtual instruments makes make plug-ins for which ever PC format you use, and the DAW you use.  Kontakt has a tone of 3rd party companies making sample libraries of any instrument you can imagine.

Thee is a hardware box, (or used to be.. It was a rack mount box. and you loaded in what VST plug-ins you wanted, so you could play it live, without a computer connected to it.  Some VSTS are free, (and some decent)..  Main issue would be the interface box to get audio out of your computer..