Why do musicians choose synthesizers over real instruments?

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I play the piano (classical and jazz, mainly) and have produced some electronic music in the past (many genres). As far as composing goes, on the piano it's natural, a kind of constant improvisation leading to order. Very intuitive and relaxing. With DAWs and synthesizers it's more of a planner's job. Cerebral. With the piano or the guitar, you're one with the instrument, with DAWs you're partnering up with the computer. Very different ways of making music, leading to different compositions, each with its own charm.

I was just thinking, it might be really interesting if the OP explored some of what he really liked or what was hitting the right angles for him in terms of music that had the right attack patterns. Meaning - if he's particularly musical and wanted to get into producing that might have some interesting results.

I also wonder if his positive point of reference might be something more like the example below, obvious from the name Goldie threw triangles in at the top of this track and keeps everything bright. As something of a given with triangles (like real xylophone) you'd kind of have to to leave the attack in place otherwise it doesn't work that well, particularly as a lead component.

Oh okay. Let's say I use a compose music that is instrument sample recoredings, and not actually someone playing the instruments. But what if I know a guitar player for example and got him to play the actual guitar for the parts where I want a guitar... Would the guitar stick out like a sore thumb on the score, if it was real, but every other instrument was just pre-recorded samples?

not necessarily esp. if there was a percussive backing.

Oh okay, by percussive backing, do you mean with the recorded samples, would have to sound percussive themselves?

if your synth background is extremely smooth like emulation of a string section, that would work also. or use recorded samples that sound smooth. or if the guitar is an acoustic or a dobro with prominent plectrum sounds you may wish to distract a bit from that with some percussive background. just my opinion, YMMV.

You'd just need to fill the mix with other sounds that have matching characteristics. There are way to balance that so that it's not too hard or abrasive, like still having the punch but keeping it right-sized or having it smaller in other places where the main or most important punch is supposed to have the foreground.

When you're mixing one of the challenges is realizing that all of the sounds are in zero-sum competition for space and that if you have a bunch of huge sounds none of them will be big, and sometimes a sound that's very anemic by itself can be huge if it's set right with the other elements.

Another component is the 'loudness war', where people have been trying to crank their tunes as close as possible to the 0Db line without distorting the mix, which means destruction of head room, and any 'pops' or 'punch' generally has to be drained out to achieve having the 'loudest' record.

That's actually changing now because streaming services are forcing normalization standards across music that's turning these really 'loud' tracks down and forcing head-room back into the mixes. I'll actually post a video on that in another thread.

Oh okay thanks for that, that's very interesting.

Another example, of whether or not to go for a real instrument or a synthesizer I found was this, in the Blade Runner soundtrack.

At 0:26:03 into the soundtrack, they have a synth sound of a saxophone it sounds like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3fz6CC45ok&t=1107s

But at 1:11:13 into the soundtrack, they choose to use a real saxophone. Why did they choose to to have a synth sax in one part of the movie but a real sax in another part?

remember a subplot of the movie involved real [human] versus replicant? it mighta had to do with that.

Oh okay, but the synth sax was played when Deckard was investigation the one replicant's apartment, and the real sax was played when Deckard and Rachel were at the Piano. So the instruments didn't really play at those points in the movie that involved that subplot therefore, did it?

doesn't necessarily have to be lockstep with replicant versus human scenes, it is a vibe or feel. also when deckard and rachel were together there was a feeling between the two, hence the romantic real sax. sax=sex.

Oh okay. Does the sax equal sex a lot though, since I wanted to use the sax in dark, non-sexy ways, if that's possible?

in american movies in any case, a sax is sexy, sultry, usually a tenor though as its tone resembles that of a contralto female.

Oh okay that's a good way of putting it. Perhaps I could use a duduk instead of a sax then, if the duduk can remove the sexiness then? The trumpet or cornet are options too, but they have more of a military type feel for me, unless that is just me thinking of them that way?

cornet can be very soulful as well. can be sexy if handled right.