GigaStudio

I have been playing with my brand new GigaStudio with Peter Seidlaczek's orchestra for a few days. The first part of the learning curve is not too steep, but the time it will take me to produce a track has increased a bit. I've had plenty of trouble with Windows XP, shared IRQs, and all kinds of updates you don't want to hear about, but now that I've got my system tweaked to be stable for at least a few hours between crashes (ouch), I can make some headway.

I was very disappointed with all the sounds at first (GigaPiano, Seidlaczek's brass). I feared I'd been had, because I've heard some recordings lately done with Giga voices and they sounded very artificial. The samples on various retail sites were so convincing, though, that I hoped it was a matter of me learning how to make the sounds seem natural rather than expecting the new samples to somehow miraculously sound natural just by pressing a key. Sure enough, if you play with these voices enough, using the flexibility built in with each voice, they really sound great most of the time. Where they "fail", I assume I have a little more to learn. I'll post a brass fanfare "study" I've been working on in the next couple of days so you can hear my progress.

I will be getting Quantum Leap's "Voices of the Apocalypse" (can't wait!) and visiting the sites that Joel Steudler recommended for some free or low cost voices. Thanks to all who recommended Giga Studio to me-- it is really great-- you were absolutely right! Am I ever going to leave this computer to eat?

Nick