Do VST Instruments have any advantages compared to stand-alone hardware synths?
For most musicians, the biggest advantage is that they are considerably cheaper than their hardware equivalents, although for talented developers they do offer the opportunity to create synth designs unfettered by practical considerations such as cost. An excellent example of this is Native Instruments’ Reaktor — a completely open-ended synth construction kit for Mac and PC that can either mimic existing hardware designs or create completely new ones at the whim of the user. Although the design process needs the stand-alone version, you can launch a VST-compatible playback-only version for using your designs within Cubase. At a more general level this freedom allows developers to create user interfaces with a separate control for every parameter (no more multi-function buttons!), graphic display windows, and any groovy colour scheme imaginable. What’s more, once you’ve edited something to perfection, you know that the sound will still be there the next day, because the patch will be s
