Why Buy A Workstation?

I was in KL yesterday and I headed to SMX in Berjaya Times Square. It’s always nice looking at new music production gears in the store, being able to put your hands on them and try them all out. And as usual, it’ll take some time before I leave the store. There weren’t any mixers sold in the store at all. I was told that since everything can be done on softwares and computers, the demand for mixers and workstations have decline.

But there are still people buying workstations, keyboards and synths. Clearly there are many models while everyone of them has their features and more, you’ll be wondering why buy a workstation or synth? Aren’t all those done in the computer? Why do people still buy them?

SMX in Berjaya Times Square

What Makes Synths & Workstations still Available today

Firstly, a workstation is built to do what it is meant to do. You never have to wait for your computer to fire up, load up an instance of Skype & Facebook before getting to the music. All you need to do is simply switch on the workstation and you’re ready to go. And if you do come up with some nice ideas, the on board sequencer on the workstation is there. You don’t even have to launch your software and solve any software or technical issues.

It should also be noted that most workstations have improved throughout the years as well and most of them come with a variety a great sounds inbuilt. Keyboard players would love the sounds that is built in with the workstation and these sounds from piano, strings, basses, pads and more would be valuable for any keyboard players on stage. It’s often quick to load up sounds & different patches within the workstation and play away. With a good workstation like the Nord, you’ll be assured that you’ll have all the sounds that you’ll need as a gigging keyboardist.

Nord makes pretty good sounding hardware synths!

Analog Sounds Better

As much as I like to agree that analog & hardware based synths sound better, I think it’s an understatement. Well, it might be true few years ago, but if you learn MIDI well and learn up your synths technique, you’ll be able to make sounds from your computer digitally sounding the exact same or better than analog based synths.

However, it’s still much fun to be able to turn knobs & buttons physically on a keyboard workstation compared to using mouse clicks.

You Can Still Connect Them to your Computer

And what more? Most workstations today have the ability to connect to your computer acting as a midi controller and some of them even have the ability to record audio to your computer via USB. So it’s like killing two birds with one stone. With a workstation you’ll have a midi controller and a stage keyboard all ready to go.

Conclusion

In conclusion if you like fast access to a keyboard with great sounds without taking the trouble having to tweak it all the time, a workstation is for you. If you just want an access to a whole lot of sounds with all the unimaginable customization you can do, then maybe stick with the software based synths.

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