Hi again folks - two months later, I thought I'd come by and close the loop on this discussion, at least as far as what we've settled on.
So (as I reported elsewhere a few minutes ago) I made Brad a shopping list, and it included the wet Skinner and Basic HW. He went off to Classic MidiWorks' site and ordered up everything, and somehow the dry Skinner came instead of the wet Skinner. I hoped maybe the dry set would be adequate.
While Brad started assembling the console in his house, I assembled a computer for Hauptwerk and loaded all the software, including the dry Skinner. Then I plugged in my dumb M-Audio 49-key MIDI keyboard and some Bose computer speakers, and discovered the sound to be really dry. Like, REALLY dry. I said to Brad, "this simply will not do." He went back to Hauptwerk which set him up with the wet sample, and also an upgrade to HW while we were at it. The wet set is divine!!
A small number of you advised me (either here in the thread or via private message) to avoid the wet set due to some imperfections in the sampling. I want you to know I did consider that carefully, but decided that while I'm sure that was all true, my listening ears (and Brad's) aren't as finely tuned to those things. Granted, so far I've only heard it through Bose headphones and Bose computer speakers -- we'll see what happens when we hook it all up to the subwoofer and monitors at Brad's house.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying having this toy in my home office for a few more days. And I am seriously ready to sell a kidney in order to get my own HW instrument - I have my eye on the FCCLA Skinner.
Thanks to Brett and gang at HW for an excellent customer service experience, especially with the dual upgrades, and thanks to all of you here for your expertise concerning wet vs dry instruments! I'm sure I'll be back to bother you again in the future.
So (as I reported elsewhere a few minutes ago) I made Brad a shopping list, and it included the wet Skinner and Basic HW. He went off to Classic MidiWorks' site and ordered up everything, and somehow the dry Skinner came instead of the wet Skinner. I hoped maybe the dry set would be adequate.
While Brad started assembling the console in his house, I assembled a computer for Hauptwerk and loaded all the software, including the dry Skinner. Then I plugged in my dumb M-Audio 49-key MIDI keyboard and some Bose computer speakers, and discovered the sound to be really dry. Like, REALLY dry. I said to Brad, "this simply will not do." He went back to Hauptwerk which set him up with the wet sample, and also an upgrade to HW while we were at it. The wet set is divine!!
A small number of you advised me (either here in the thread or via private message) to avoid the wet set due to some imperfections in the sampling. I want you to know I did consider that carefully, but decided that while I'm sure that was all true, my listening ears (and Brad's) aren't as finely tuned to those things. Granted, so far I've only heard it through Bose headphones and Bose computer speakers -- we'll see what happens when we hook it all up to the subwoofer and monitors at Brad's house.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying having this toy in my home office for a few more days. And I am seriously ready to sell a kidney in order to get my own HW instrument - I have my eye on the FCCLA Skinner.
Thanks to Brett and gang at HW for an excellent customer service experience, especially with the dual upgrades, and thanks to all of you here for your expertise concerning wet vs dry instruments! I'm sure I'll be back to bother you again in the future.