The Grenoble-based developer now makes synths in both hardware and software form, and they’ve continually pushed the state of the art forward in both areas. And when it comes to cost, well, there’s simply no contest.Īrturia has long been a leader in emulating classic instruments like the Moog Modular and Yamaha CS-80.

Many of them offer greater polyphony, too, and they integrate seamlessly with your DAW. Soft synths can be easier to use, store thousands of well-organized patches, and take a lot less space in your studio. From early successes like Propellerhead ReBirth to workhorse mainstays like Omnisphere and Kontakt to the latest virtual modulars like VCV Rack and Voltage Modular, in many circumstances, soft synths get the job done as well as hardware and often better.Īs vintage instruments age and become more scarce, old hardware is more expensive to buy and difficult to maintain. Even though a soft synth is only a computer-generated illusion, it often looks, operates, and sounds like a real synthesizer, but in two dimensions. If you were wealthy, what classic keyboards would you buy? A Fairlight CMI? Mellotron? Hammond B-3? What else? Now you can own the virtual keyboard studio of your dreams for less than $22 per instrument.įrom an electronic musician’s perspective, one of the greatest inventions of the late 20th century was the software instrument.

Arturia piano & keyboards collection