Seriously Guys be honest.

[soultensionbenjamin]

When being a musician is half the battle getting those very expensive Vsts like kontact and Komplete And Hollywood strings?

[Raddons]

Bah, all I need is Sytrus, 3osc, and Itchy Synths. I scoff at all of the expensive VST's.

And I will never make anything good sounding

[Stars In Autumn]

That was a sentence fragment. I don't understand.

Are you suggesting that half the skill of a producer is on the quality of their VSTs?

[Makkon]

They help tremendously, yes, but they won't make you magically better at writing music.

[StormWolf]

In all honesty it probably depends a lot on the genre of music. For example, orchestral music can go from nice to really damn bloody nice with some good vsts.
But as Makkon said, you don't magically get better or anything. The skill of writing and arranging music itself is the main thing, so I wouldn't say VSTs are "half" the battle. More like bonus reinforcement soldier that help out.
And of course there is the skill in using the VSTs themselves, so yeah. It really depends I guess, but with the right attitude and the right amount of skill, knowledge and possibly experience, you can make good music without too many fancy VSTs and such.

[SoaringFlight]

Two things. One, you can have all the VST's, all the equipment in the world - but if you cannot put it to good use, if you lack the composing knowledge and other skills, all that equipment won't make you a better musician.

Two, there is a saying, the quality of output track is only as good as the elements that you put into it - meaning that, if it sounds crap to begin with, the output cannot reach its maximum potential. Thats where good VST's, samples and everything else matter.

So it is a yes and no, having these VST's and equipment will not suddenly make you an amazing musician, but they can be a huge factor in terms of quality, sound and feel of finished track.

[senntenial]

I'd kinda have to say that if you want to make really good sounding Orchestral, you're gonna have to splurge for something like EWQL or LASS... The freebies don't cut it very well. For Electronic, it's easier to slide by on cheap or free stuff for a while, but getting something pro really does make a difference.
I think there are 2 separate parts of skill for music:
How well you compose, and your sound design.
So for me at least, yeah. It was half the battle. Well, it still is. Saving up for Komplete 8...

[Icky]

I don't have Kontakt or Hollywood Strings, yet I think my music is doing fine without.

[soultensionbenjamin]

Damn Then imagine what you could do with it with Icky The world could be Yours MWHAHAHA.


(Im being Dumb)

[Icky]

Damn Then imagine what you could do with it with Icky The world could be Yours MWHAHAHA.


(Im being Dumb)

Here's a song I made using only 3xOsc, Monomate (free plugin) and the song Jingle Jangle Jingle.
I doubt expensive sound libraries would've added anything to this song.

Don't get me wrong having the programs would be neat, but I don't think its that important when making music. Some of the best producers use really simple VSTs for their sounds. Spor actually used 3xOsc for some of his reese basses for example.

[CommandSpry]

Or you guys could just download a certain piece of software, just sayin' couhraclkrwncljwdrdrumsdlkabrvqerverv

Quality orchestral plugins certainly immensely help, but I think for electronic, in 3xOsc you can craft amazing sounds without going out of your way to get software.

Also you have Synth1, which is free and very light on the CPU.

[timbaer]

As people have said, it really depends on what kind of music you want to produce. When it comes to electronic, you can almost always get the sound you want by just taking a simple synth and tweaking it until it sounds like awesome, or by sampling and filtering and such. PinkiePieSwear uses Nexus almost exclusively, for example, and it seems like half of the electronic music world swears by Massive.

Orchestral and other traditional styles are a different story. They can only be synthesized to a certain standard of quality. As Makkon said, however, your composing ability and instrument quality are pretty independent of each other; a well-written song using stock string and piano synths will still be great. Sampled sound libraries just help turn "great" into "fantastic".

...they do have other advantages, though. Few synths could ever imitate LASS's Divisi feature, or the auto-rhythm tool or the anti-machine gun thing or whatever. Not without a ton of work, anyway. And having the ability to go right from working out a harmony between legato cellos and sampled crystal bells to laying down some heavy percussion beds sampled from a world-renowned orchestra, just ten minutes later, is pretty incredible, if you think about it. So, yes, the higher-class instruments also have a lot of convenience and extended techniques that give your songs elements that would otherwise be difficult to include.

Oh, and multis. Good heavens, multis.

Ignore my gushing. Is it better? Yes. Of course it's better. You pay for the quality. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. Think of it like buying a guitar - a more expensive guitar might have a really nice sound, and some cool features, but it probably won't make you any better at guitar, and most of the things you would ever need to do with a guitar you can do with one that's infinitely cheaper, or even free.

[soup2504]

3xosc is my everything. I rarely use Massive or Sylenth1 because of this baby. You don't really need the expensive VST's to make a great sound.

[the4thImpulse]

Its all about the hardware, cause harware is cool.

But serisouly if you don't have any skill than you won't be making any music, so go get skills first and then get the fancy expensive tools.

[PhillyPu]

Please guys, some of the best composers used paper and ink.

Paper and ink

And really, if you know a decent bit of guitar or piano, there's no reason you couldn't compose good music and hear it played back if you just did a little practice. No need for VSTs, DAWs, etc. Hell, it's just good practice to compose with pencil and paper once in a while. Wildly different form of composition.

But I wouldn't argue with the fact that expensive VSTs sound nice and (sometimes) orgasmic. But that's just one of the facets of being a musician: you start spending less and less on everything else and spend more and more on equipment and software. Personally I think it gives me something to work for, you know? Working isn't just for sustenance of your stomach. It's for the sustenance of your soul.

[Whitetail]

You can have the nicest plugins in existance and not knowing shit about production you can't expect to make anything good.

Start with cheap or free stuff and learn how to make things from the bottom up, in the end you'll produce much better music since even though have the fancy plugins which make it easier you know HOW to make all these crazy sounds.

Example - you can make nearly any dubstep wub ever using 3xOsc and various effects if you know how the sound actually works. It's not unless you're getting into alternate synthesis methods (like additive or FM, which I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find something free/cheap) or require a functionally different plugin (like vocoder) that you'd be outright incapable with those tools.



Really the trouble comes in with acoustic sounds, which generally aren't going to sound any better with some dressing up - but there are plenty of good sources out there for the next best thing if you care to look, just use them for the time being until you can save up for some good sound libraries.

[senntenial]

But wait, you don't need any skill if you have Dr. Drum!

[Lavender_Harmony]

If you look around, especially on KVR, there are literally hundreds of free plugins you can use. Having expensive VSTs is nice, but only if you know how to use them. Learning how to write for orchestra is challenging, and took me two years to get down somewhat, and I still don't think I'm very good. I've heard music from people with those VSTs and it sounds mediocre, whereas if you listen to Twilight's theme from FtiM by RC88 he uses the sounds that come with his DAW and a couple of other really old VSTs that aren't even sold anymore.

No it's not half the battle at all. Learn with what you have, then expand your palette if you need to.

[Alecrazer]

Bah, all I need is Sytrus, 3osc, and Itchy Synths. I scoff at all of the expensive VST's.

And I will never make anything good sounding

Hey, 3xosc is amazing.

[Raddons]

If you're good at editing and knowing what all of the knobs and what not do. Which I am not.

I do love it for some wobble presets I've made. I should really start learning it more. Maybe I'll buy a book.

[Lethaargic]

Don't forget that it's important not only how an instrument sounds, but also how you handle/hold it. In the case of vsti synths, it is important how the knobs, envelopes, ect. are placed. So that they are manageable and not cumbersome, or difficult to learn.

try some free and demo ones and see which feels like it might work for you.

[Triple_B]

I once heard a phrase that I feel applies here.

"An imbecile armed with the most high-tech equipment in the world cannot hold a finger to one well-trained individual with a rock."

Or something like that. I don't exactly remember. That's basically it.

Same thing applies for music/musicians.

"An idiot with all of the best gear, computers, and instruments in the world cannot possibly hold a finger to one professional with a copy of FL Studio."

Make sense?

Skill > Equipment, in real life. This isn't World of Warcraft.

[Jimmy]

I'm sure it's been said already, but limitation breeds creativity. Try to limit yourself from time to time by deciding that you don't need something, or that you'll exclude a certain piece of gear/software from your next song, and you'll find a workaround somehow. And you'll feel really pleased about it.

[Captain Ironhelm]

Like how you put that Jimmy. I'll try that out!

[EverfreeLuna]

If you're good at editing and knowing what all of the knobs and what not do. Which I am not.

I do love it for some wobble presets I've made. I should really start learning it more. Maybe I'll buy a book.

Stop being modest Over Her Pasture is really good! It's going in my collection now