I posted this on another forum in response to some questions someone had asked. I though I'd re-post here so people searching for info on the Snow would get something back.
I bought a Snow recently. The first one died within a few days. Sweetwater rushed me a replacement.
I love the sound of the Snow. With the sound sets you can download free it can about be any synth I ever wanted. It sounds so good to me... no regrets there.
I use a midi cable and an Arturia 61 key controller, btw.
I had it connected to my laptop Core i7 w 8GB's RAM and Windows 8 and I was having problems with it connecting via USB. It would crash and randomly fail to connect, or disconnect. So I moved all my studio stuff over to my Core i7 w/16 GB's RAM desktop running Windows 7. After some trail and error with USB controllers it's all working reliably now.
I think the laptop didn't have enough data carrying ability on the USB bus and the Snow was overloading it - not so much a Windows 8 problem. My laptop only has 3 USB ports and the desktop has 10.
I also switched from the Lite version of Abelton to the Pro version of Studio One, and the Snow plugin is working with no problems. It does make it easy for me to review and add sound sets, and I can tweak the patches to my liking easily.
Sooo...... The downside - You have to pay attention to how much processing power the patch you're using is taking; there's a little indicator on the display. I've had to learn what makes it crash and how to avoid it. There's enough oomph to do some serious sonics, but not what I'd ask out of it if it had it to give.
When it's all said and done it's the best synth I ever bought. I owned a B3 once, but never had the real synths of my youth. This is an affordable way to make me feel like I got a real instrument - not just another VR-09
I bought a Snow recently. The first one died within a few days. Sweetwater rushed me a replacement.
I love the sound of the Snow. With the sound sets you can download free it can about be any synth I ever wanted. It sounds so good to me... no regrets there.
I use a midi cable and an Arturia 61 key controller, btw.
I had it connected to my laptop Core i7 w 8GB's RAM and Windows 8 and I was having problems with it connecting via USB. It would crash and randomly fail to connect, or disconnect. So I moved all my studio stuff over to my Core i7 w/16 GB's RAM desktop running Windows 7. After some trail and error with USB controllers it's all working reliably now.
I think the laptop didn't have enough data carrying ability on the USB bus and the Snow was overloading it - not so much a Windows 8 problem. My laptop only has 3 USB ports and the desktop has 10.
I also switched from the Lite version of Abelton to the Pro version of Studio One, and the Snow plugin is working with no problems. It does make it easy for me to review and add sound sets, and I can tweak the patches to my liking easily.
Sooo...... The downside - You have to pay attention to how much processing power the patch you're using is taking; there's a little indicator on the display. I've had to learn what makes it crash and how to avoid it. There's enough oomph to do some serious sonics, but not what I'd ask out of it if it had it to give.
When it's all said and done it's the best synth I ever bought. I owned a B3 once, but never had the real synths of my youth. This is an affordable way to make me feel like I got a real instrument - not just another VR-09