Just starting to mess around with this stuff and make sure I am assuming right. It appears to me that the MOFX VST in Cubase is not a true "soft synth" in that it seems the MOFX must be connected to the keyboard, unlike the Halion Sonic where the tones are stored on the computer...do I have this right?

Sort of, but let's get it absolutely clear. The MOXF (not MOFX) is a hardware synthesizer with its own resources and engine. What the MOXF VST is, is a software representative of your hardware on the computer - it is not a soft synth. It makes your computer 'think' the MOXF is on the computer like a soft synth, but actually the MOXF is real hardware synth. This means you can do everything that a soft synth can do without using up the computer CPU resources.

Let's clear up an oft confused thing. VST is an acronym for VIRTUAL STUDIO TECHNOLOGY. A Steinberg innovation from the mid 1990's that introduced external devices. 'External' here refers to everything external to the DAW Cubase/Nuendo (including plugin effects, plugin synthesis engines, as well as hardware effect processors and synthesizers) and this opened the door for items outside of the Cubase / Nuendo program to be used in the computer environment.

The key here is VST does not mean only software synthesizer and software effects, but can refer to external hardware. So VST is a routing scheme. A way you can route signal into the computer, into the DAW environment so that instead of printing audio directly, the audio remains virtual. What this means is you are listening to the data before it is actually recorded and permanently documented as a Wav.

Thus the "virtual" audio term. So you are listening to what the result will sound like when you actually EXPORT or Render the data as an audio waveform. Somewhere along the way VSTi became synonymous with "soft synths". Nothing could be farther from the truth. It includes hardware... It's just signal routing.

Soft synthesizers are generated by the same computer that is running the DAW (like Cubase). So you can think of these kinds of synthesizers generating their synthesis on one part of the computer, and being processed and output from another. The audio is virtual until you finally MIXDOWN.

Hardware synths, until VST, were precluded from using plugin Effects in the DAW because of the signal routing. Here's how the MOXF VST works:

It is on a 1:1 basis with the external MOXF hardware. So as far as your computer knows it is just like a plugin synth. When ONLINE, any changes you make to the front panel of the MOXF are immediately reflected on the MOXF VST Editor on the computer. And any changes you make on the software VST Editor are immediately reflected on the MOXF hardware.

The computer thinks the MOXF is just another virtual synth, but it is not, it is a hardware synth connected via MIDI. The advanced delay compensation built into the DAW engine makes this all possible without any penalty.

You can do everything that you can with a software synth. It allows MOXF owners to break the 16 Part multi-timbral barrier as you can open multiple instances of the MOXF VST. Need to do 32 Parts or more... No problem. You can FREEZE VSTi.. Freeze is a process where the DAW prints a temporary (invisible) audio file which frees the synth to generate another instance of itself.

Hardware VSTi are better than software because you get all the benefits of being "in the box" without the drain on the CPU of your computer! It has its own EQ, effects, etc. every Part in the MOXF has its own three band EQ. If you were to open 48 bands of EQ generated on the computer, likely it would start spitting up blood! 🙂 The MOXF does not drain your computer's CPU.

You can record MIDI data to Cubase, and due to this advanced routing, you can have that MIDI routed to the VST EDITOR, the Editor is in 1:1 communication with the hardware MOXF. The MOXF returns audio to the virtual audio lane just like it were a soft synth generated on the computer.

You can then process it with plugin effects, you can Freeze, you can use Export audio mixdown... The computer will memorize every setting, every custom setup, and the drain on your precious computer CPU is minimal. The best of both worlds!

oh yea MOXF...oops

Thanks!