Muzman on 12/6/2009 at 08:29

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You seem to be looking for something quite practical and performance based, or at least stuff with that as an option. I don't really know anything about that. I just make odd noises. I've tinkered with a fair few soft synths though. It's the sort of area where there's no magic bullet and you collect odds and ends for some unique character they have.
There's loads of free softsynths these days (although most of the good old ones have now moved up to being pay, and bundled with fruityloops etc), many of which are pretty much the same but fun to much around with now and then (see if they break in interesting ways). You're probably familiar with most of the big names;
Novation, Native Instruments etc, nice analogue copies (novation mostly hardware, of course). Waldorf have software takes on all their old synths now. (http://www.virsyn.de/en/E_Home/e_home.html) VirSyn also make some very nice hard core digital stuff that's not too alienating (I have an old copy of The Cube that is endlessly amusing and made me wish my real additive synth had a randomiser).

Mostly I just used to cruise around (http://www.synthzone.com/) Synthzone and (http://www.harmony-central.com/) Harmony Central trying out all the free stuff and demos. They're mostly vst, as you can imagine. But some people still make a standalone version. They're good sites for finding out about that sort of stuff generally (or they were), if you aren't aware of them.

edit: Also, I think you can get good old rebirth for free these days. I can't attest to its midi controlability however.

Martin Karne on 14/6/2009 at 01:48

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You might try using loudspeakers for guitar instruments, since they can keep with the pure tones generated by synths.
(i.e. acoustic suspension or versus pneumatic suspension)