🚀 go-pugleaf

: In article <richard.779859019@citadel.cit.gu.edu.au> richard@kurango.cit.gu.edu.au writes:

: > My dad sent me a (non-specialist) review and the demo CD for this keyboard
: > the other day. I'm ever so slightly impressed with the sounds it produces.
: > However, I get the impression that the demo CD doesn't really do the
: > machine justice - the recreation of things like French Horns and so on
: > wasn't really what I wanted to hear it doing. Sure, it does a pretty good
: > job (most of the time), but I wanted to hear the *really weird* stuff.

I played the VL-1 just before christmas last year (yes, it's true!! - the 
very first machine in Norway) and it blew me away!! (pun intended)
The VL-1 is meant to reproduce the sounds of wind instruments, which 
means that the instrument 'models' it has in its ROM don't have the 
capablility to produce sounds very much outside of these limits. It 
*does* do a couple of string sounds, though - and fairly well, I might 
add. 

the big point about playing the VL1 is that one actually does get the 
feeling that one *plays* the instrument. Using the breath controller, the 
keyboard and wheels, it was so much closer to playing a *real* instrument 
than anything else I have experienced. In this respect the VL1 and the 
physical modeling-synthesis is unique. 

There's also the aspect of stretching the models outside the boundaries 
which limit real acoustic instruments. This means you can make 
'instruments' on the VL1 which couldn't hace been made in reality, and 
those may sound really weird, if that's what your looking for.

In my opinion, the VL1 is the most impressive *instrument* amoung the 
synthesizers available today. It's more or less limited to wind-intrument 
reproductions, and it's rather expensive ($3000-$5000), but it's great! 
On the other hand, a synth like the K2000 or the SY99 are more 
'all-round' in their approach, and especially the k2000 impresses me with 
its ongoing development (new ver. 3.0 software released a couple of weeks 
ago).

Whatver you do, try *playing* the VL1 before you decide what to buy. 
Good luck!

- Pal H. Brekke