Thanks Papa. Confirms my thoughts that Professional is not worth it for my needs.
So, to ask some more basic 101 level questions
Artist V5 supports plug-ins and V4 does not?
That is correct.
Artist seems to be a very sweet spot. If I hadn't previously popped for Pro in Version 4, It would make a lot of sense to get Artist in V5. I've also noticed that pretty much all of Presonus hardware now comes with Artist software. In my opinion it makes their basic USB interfaces that much more of a great deal. I just got an
Atom controller a couple of weeks ago and it came with a license for v5 Artist.
What is difference between VST and plug-in?
VST is a format standard for plug-ins. Everything VST is technically a plug-in.
[From Wikipedia]
There are three types of VST plugins:
- VST instruments generate audio. They are generally either Virtual Synthesizers or Virtual samplers. Many recreate the look and sound of famous hardware synthesizers. Better known VST instruments include Discovery, Nexus, Sylenth1, Massive, Omnisphere, FM8, Absynth, Reaktor, Gladiator, Serum and Vanguard.
- VST effects process rather than generate audio—and perform the same functions as hardware audio processors such as reverbs and phasers. Other monitoring effects provide visual feedback of the input signal without processing the audio. Most hosts allow multiple effects to be chained. Audio monitoring devices such as spectrum analyzers and meters represent audio characteristics (frequency distribution, amplitude, etc.) visually.
- VST MIDI effects process MIDI messages (for example, transpose or arpeggiate) and route the MIDI data to other VST instruments or to hardware devices.
Why are plug-ins/VST's important, IE how do you use them?
A lot of third party VST instruments include a stand alone interface which can be used outside of the DAW you are using, so for instance you may have a MIDI keyboard addressing a VST instrument as a stand alone program to play a grand piano (or have an entire library of pianos at your disposal).
MIDI is basically the digital equivalent of a printed musical score. By itself it is not capable of producing any sound. a VST instrument (whether stand alone or plug-in) takes the information from a MIDI track and converts it into a digital representation of an instrument following a musical score. The VST instrument provide the human user with the ability to manipulate how the MIDI information is processed into sound. A VSTi can be tailored to the performance metaphor. On a VSTi designed for percussion, you can pair MIDI commands with a specific percussion instrument, such as different tom-toms, snares, kick drums, cymbals, tambourine, clave, etc. A VSTi configured in an organ metaphor will give you different voicings for organs, such as from a mid-60's Farfisa or Vox Jaguar, to a majestic pipe organ or a Hammond B3 (complete with adjustable drawbar emulation). There are VSTi's and interfaces for just about any instrument you can imagine. The level of complexity can vary as well. Some (usually less expensive ones) will "create" the waveforms using digital information to create music. This is how some of the early analog synthesizers operated, using combinations of sine waves, square waves and triangle waves. The more common style today is a VSTi that uses samples of the actual instrument being reproduced.
VST effects are essentially the DAW equivalent of guitar stompboxes. They manipulate digital sound (a recording of your guitar, voice, or anything else you can record... or the output from a VST instrument) and manipulate it to either recreate a naturally occurring event (echo, reverberation) or manufactured events (rotary speaker, chorus, phaser, flanging, wah-wah... the list goes on). In most DAW's, effects can be stacked (just like pedals on a pedal board) and re-arranged in any order that makes sense (or doesn't).
VST MIDI effects act as an intermediary or translator from an original MIDI file (or live performance) to where you want it to be. Your MIDI track may have been recorded while playing a keyboard in C, but the audio you want to create is in Bb and played on a flute. the MIDI effect simply transposes (and may change some information besides pitch to be appropriate for a flute emulation. It could also be used to take a single note, along with some information about the key of the recording, create a series of chords that are appropriate to the VST instrument (or external synthesizer) that will be used to reproduce audio.
- From web page new for V5
- NEW! Completely redesigned Native Effects plugin suite.
- NEW! VST / AU and ReWire Support. Use third-party plug-ins, virtual instruments, and ReWire-enabled applications.
The Native Effects are those things that are built by Presonus. They may or may not be true VST effects. EQ, Reverb, Delay, Chorus, and pretty much everything else you see in the Presonus effects selection is what this refers to. Many of the effects have improved interfaces and additional controls, ostensibly to make them more realistic to their hardware counterparts.
I am not at all familiar with ReWire, so I can't speak to that.
I'm nowhere near the top of the learning curve, so I have to look a lot of stuff up. That was actually why I started doing the tutorials, so they would generate questions I might not think of myself. So far, I'm getting a whole lot of education on S1 in a very compressed timeframe compared to my six years with Cubase.
I hope this info is useful.
