From the likes of Sybreed with their groovy synthetic beats playing over the machine gun guitar riffs, Fear Factory and good old Strapping Young Lad with their subtle ambient affects which create a haunting affect over the metal, synths are a powerful force in metal and can really alter how a band sounds. I've been trying to get into synths for a metal band that I'm part of, but, I've come up short in a lot of ways due to a lack of information, advice, and knowledge.

I've been wanting to invest in a synth rig which is aimed towards playing in this kind of way, yet I've yet to find any resource which particularly advises on which way metal synth players typically go. I'm aiming to gig with this equipment, so the idea investing in the soft synths route and then discovering that the bands I know, love, and want to emulate use the hard synth route doesn't sound too appealing. Where should I look to find out what equipment these bands use? Any website recommendations would be greatly appreciated, as I keep looking at the official band website and finding out all about the guitars and the drums these bands use, yet the synth section seems tight lipped.

Is the hard synth route, or the soft synth route used in metal? Are both used? I know I can get decent affects out of both of the routes, yet I know there are limitations for both. I don't mind lugging a laptop around, but I'll only do so if I can get the sounds found in metal from Reason and a good midi controller. I've been to plenty of gigs where a synth player is performing, but I never manage to see if the keyboard is creating the sounds, as a synth would, or if it's connected to a laptop as a midi controller would. Say for example, in this video of Devin Townsend's Life is the keyboardist playing two midi controllers, or two actual synths? Is he connected up to a laptop or a computer, and then to an audio interface and then to the mix, or is his two synths connected up to the mixer? Which is more practical for gigging, as I know that's a studio kit.

My current gear is a powerful laptop running Vista (which I will dual boot with XP, as I hear it's a lot better for performances), a copy of Reason and Cubase, and a choice of two keyboards. A Yahama PSR-E403 keyboard which has a usb midi out, and no normal midi ins or out, or the Yamaha PSR E303.

These are pretty good keyboards, and are 88 keys which suits me as I play piano as well, and I like the expressiveness of the keyboards. The patches which both have are not suited for metal at all naturally, only having the stock choirs and synth pads which sound okay, but very amateurish. What I invest in at this point very much depends on if metal bands use the soft or hard route. With the soft route, I'm thinking that I could simply use the keyboard as a midi controller, and then connect it up to another midi controller with the fundamental controls to save myself some money. It's not exactly the easiest set up, I'd have to buy a rack to have the controls directly in front of me, but it would be cheaper, and seeing as I'm happy with the actual keyboard, seems sensible. How would I go about chaining these keyboards to a midi controller? Can I only do it with the PSR – E303, due to it having a midi out and in, or can the E403 connect up in a MIDI chain using a usb to midi converter cable? And if I did have an additional midi controller, which would enter my computer, the keyboard or the new midi controller? I'm rather confused as to the matter, any help would be great.

Alternatively, I could cast aside my keyboards, and invest in a proper midi controller such as the Keystation Pro 88. It would be more compact having it all in one device, I imagine its more robust for gigging and easier to connect than the method with the keyboards, but it would cost more. Is it worth going this route? And what midi controllers would people recommend?

Our band already has a mixer, although I doubt it doubles as an audio interface as some do, and we have a PA system. I'm pretty confused as to how many inputs I need from an audio interface, and how many cables I need to plug into the mixer. What’s typical for the kinds of sounds I'm going for? I'm certainly not using drum machines or the like, so I'm rather unsure. However, the laptop I have doesn't have a firewire port. Are the USB offerings any worse than the USB audio interfaces? I really have no idea what I need from this bit of equipment, how many inputs I need and the like. When playing synths in a band like this, how many should I be aiming for? And I'm interested to hear about what a singer could do with an audio interface, because I don't know if the audio interface is purely just a soundcard for your laptop.

Failing the soft synth route, would something like a MicroKorg be useful for playing in metal? I hear great things about it, but I have no idea if it can create the sounds I want. Anyone able to comment?

Any help would be absolutely fantastic. My budget for investing in a new midi controller and an audio interface is around £270 ($440), and I'm more than happy to buy used for the audio interface, less so for the midi controllers.

I know alot of bands with synth player use a keyboard iwth the effects in it, but then can download more osunds onto the keyboard, which will then store them and can be recalled for later use. I'm not sure how much help it is, but htat's how a few of my friends do it. Less things that can break, less likely it'll happen, y'know?

For live situations, you don't want to have a laptop on stage as an essential piece of gear. It's simply not reliable enough; sooner or later windows would crash during a song, and you'd have an embarrassing moment waiting for it to boot up again

Like Phase said, the clearly best solution would be to download some nice sounds to your existing keyboards and use them (if this is possible with those models, I don't know). This is cheap and reliable, as you'd be using the gear you already have and are familiar with.

The reason big bands usually don't specify what sound they might be using is that they're so heavily tweaked/modified and probably combined from different sounds that it would simply get too complicated. It's not possible to get that exact sound... your best bet is to carefully listen to what the synths sound like and try to create similar stuff with whatever resources you have available.

The reason big bands usually don't specify what sound they might be using is that they're so heavily tweaked/modified and probably combined from different sounds that it would simply get too complicated. It's not possible to get that exact sound... your best bet is to carefully listen to what the synths sound like and try to create similar stuff with whatever resources you have available.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that! I've been getting some infomation as to what is useful for my pricerange, and hard synths seem to be the way to go for the reasons you two have said.

Does anyone have any recommendation for the hardsynths? I've been recommended the Korg X-50 and the Roland Juno-D, and I'm leaning towards the X-50 for the capabilities it has. Anyone know what metal bands use them? I know Underoath definately use the X-50.

Does anyone have any recommendation for the hardsynths? I've been recommended the Korg X-50 and the Roland Juno-D, and I'm leaning towards the X-50 for the capabilities it has. Anyone know what metal bands use them? I know Underoath definately use the X-50.

I wouldn't know, I guess that depends on what specific sounds you want. If I were you I'd make sure it has onboard memory so you can put your own or downloaded soundpatches on it.

I'd like to find what patches/soundbanks SYL used for the ambient sounds in Alien, they are just brilliant.

For live situations, you don't want to have a laptop on stage as an essential piece of gear. It's simply not reliable enough; sooner or later windows would crash during a song, and you'd have an embarrassing moment waiting for it to boot up again

I think most popular laptops used by musicians have the glowing apple on them, so crashing windows must be rather rare phenomenon. But yeah, hardware synths should be more reliable (few days ago I've read about quite recent Sybreed's gig getting raped by crashing macbook, what a failure).

If you're into sound design then most of analogue/virtual analogue synths should present possibilites of programming of tons of sounds. I've seen the clip somewhere with realistic trumpet and telecaster-ish twangy guitar programmed from scratch on Alesis Ion (I think it has more compact and cheaper version called Micron), very impressive.

I think most popular laptops used by musicians have the glowing apple on them

True... but it doesn't help much, I remember last year at a show The Ocean had to stop in the middle of a song to reboot their macbook which they were using for some backing tracks.