MOTM

Simon writes:
>>It wasn't clear to me exactly what the Poly-VL was, what the Yamaha 
SoftSynthesizer was, whether actual hardware was required, if so what that 
hardware actually was, etc. I couldn't find any information on pricing and 
current availability. It seems that it maybe needs some sort of Yamaha 
SoftSynthesizer soundcard or sound module that has a connector for the Poly-VL 
plugin board. Just doesn't seem to be a software solution, as I was expecting, 
but more a hardware solution that uses the host CPU for extra DSP power.<<

I tried to search some Japanese sites for pricing a couple of weeks ago, but 
not being able to read Japanese, I wasn't able to navigate to a price. I was 
also a bit confused as to whether it was software only. But from what I read it 
sounded as if it was a software only solution. The following quotes from the 
press release seem to support that.

"Yamaha SoftSynthesizer embodies software technology that enables the playback 
of MIDI data even without dedicated hardware such as an external tone generator 
or a sound card."

"The Poly-VL, a plug-in module for the SoftSynthesizer S-YXG100" (if it's a 
module for a software based synth, it should be a software plug-in much like a 
VST plug-in)

"is designed to take advantage of the performance of Intel\ufffd s Pentium\ufffd III 
processor." (since it needs the power of a Pentium III's parallel floating 
point unit, it's most likely not hardware based)

-Elhardt