Synth Effect vs external effect

[Dasheesh]

repro is a completely different animal without fx. it's a totally different beast.

[himalaya]

Dunno. Are you always right?

My wife would say, no.

But then she leaves me be with my synths, resigned and says: "you do know your synths better than your kids..".

It's not about being 'right', I'd hope you would realise it on your own. Right now, it's more about exchanging information that is based on one's direct experience. A conversation like this can not be meaningful if people wilfully post "we need to agree to disagree" when they don't know about the items being discussed, having never used them.

[chk071]

Well, OK. But, you don't know about the synths i have tried as well. And, i don't know which external effects you have used in your life either, and what you compare with what. I can only state my opinion, based on my experience, and you can only do that too.

No worries.

[himalaya]

Well, OK. But, you don't know about the synths i have tried as well. And, i don't know which external effects you have used in your life either, and what you compare with what. I can only state my opinion, based on my experience, and you can only do that too.

No worries.

I don't need to know about the synths you have used. This topic is not about that.

But you are right: you can only state your opinion based on your experience, and yet you have shown in this thread that you are willing to enter a conversation and provide opinion without having any experience (of the items being discussed). You can't have it both ways.

[himalaya]

By the way:

Dunno about the ensemble effect (isn't that a "simple" unison effect?).

The 'ensemble' effect in ElectraX has the Yamaha SPX90 'Ensemble' effect vibe about it.
This SPX 'ensemble' effect is an iconic effect and ElectraX gives us a version of it. That's rather nice! Definitely on par with a good external effect, even one in hardware. Go figure!

[chk071]

Well, OK. But, you don't know about the synths i have tried as well. And, i don't know which external effects you have used in your life either, and what you compare with what. I can only state my opinion, based on my experience, and you can only do that too.

No worries.

I don't need to know about the synths you have used. This topic is not about that.

But you are right: you can only state your opinion based on your experience, and yet you have shown in this thread that you are willing to enter a conversation and provide opinion without having any experience (of the items being discussed). You can't have it both ways.

Well... i guess that's the issue. You claim for yourself that you know about everything out there. How can YOU claim that internal synth fx are on par with everything external out there? Hint: You can't, because you don't know that generally. You can't know that generally. All you can present is your opinion, based on your experience with the stuff you tried. Just like me. Time to get off that high horse.

[himalaya]

Now you are being rude. You have learnt nothing.

I do not claim that I know about everything out there. And I do not claim that "internal synth fx are on par with everything external out there". The way you are twisting this is embarrassing. Please stop.

I claim that *some* synths have effects on par with external effects, and more and more do so. Then I have provided examples that I have used which definitaly are on par with good external effects and you conversly said, no these are no good, having never used them!
And now, you’ve proceeded to show some very immature attitudes.

All you can present is your opinion, based on your experience with the stuff you tried

Exactly!

Just like me

Not like you. You have expressed an opinion about synths you've never used. You admitted this much yourself when pushed, and then proceeded to school me about these synths (that you've never used).

I gave you my time, but it seems it's been wasted. Good night.

[chk071]

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

I'll just leave it at that, as discussing further seems to be pretty pointless, especially when your attitude is to teach people. Hubris much?

[himalaya]

Life will teach you many things, but you have to be open to learn. I’m merely conversing about synths I have used, ones which you claim do not have effects on par with good external plugins, even though you’ve never used these synths. It’s rather unhelpful in our conversation. And by pointing this fact you get all rude with me? Really?

Simply shouting ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’ does not bring any merit to your stance.

[BONES]

I don't know any synth which has effects which are on par with good dedicated effect plugins though.

DUNE, RePro-1 and Thorn all have excellent effects, easily as good as most dedicated plugins.

The biggest advantage to using internal effects is that once they are stored within the preset and the synth, the same preset will work in whichever DAW or OS you choose to use, and won’t suddenly break if the effects become unsupported or you decide to sell them

A bit of a non-issue, really, as the effects that work in one piece probably won't work in another anyway.

So, more or less one or two good effects per synth. How does that defeat the argument, though, that no synth has effects which are on par with good external effects?

Because it does. You said no synth had good effects, which is an absolute, and he listed several synths that do have good effects, thereby nullifying your hypothesis. If you had said "most synths" or "don't always have a full suite of good effects", then you'd be right but you didn't so you're not.

In the sum, they're not nearly as good. And, i also doubt that RePro's are as good as external effects.

But you don't know that for a fact, yet I could point you to dozens of standalone effects that aren't in the same league as Thorn's effects. It's like anything, there are better and worse examples of built-in and standalone effects, which is why your absolute statement was absolutely ridiculous.

There are so good external reverbs out there, for example.

Quite a poor example, as DUNE's reverb is excellent and there have been plenty of people over the years asking Synapse to release it as a standalone effect. Just do a search of their forums if you doubt me.

And, i have never heard a phaser effect which is as good as some external phasers either.

You said "some", indicating that there may be those that are better than most. So it is very likely that a good on-board phaser is going to do a better job than 99% of standalone phasers, which means unless you have tried every other phaser in existence, you may find that on-board phaser better than any other you have used. Again, that's the problem with making absolute statements, they fall over if there is even a single exception.

Also no delay which sounds as good as Replika XT.

Seriously? How does a delay "sound"? Shouldn't it just sound like whatever you input to it? That's what it's for, after all. If it doesn't, might you not consider it broken?

And many synth's onboard compressors outright SUCK.

That's because synths don't need compressors, you can make changes to modulation, envelopes. etc. to achieve the same result. In any event, my idea of a good compressor is one that is completely transparent which I find easy to achieve with pretty much any compressor I can think of. A compressor is not something I'd pay even $1 for, the one's in my host work perfectly well.

Well, i still disagree. Even the best synth internal effect wasn't as good as a great external effect. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

As you seem to have all the best VST effects, perhaps you could compile a list of them so we can do some comparisons? Then perhaps we could see some merit in your argument. As it stands, though, I don't have any VST (or Orion native) effects that are noticeably better than the best on-board effects in several of my favourite VSTi.

[Spencer Maddox]

Honestly Repro, Serum, Synthmaster, And Especially Falcon.

I don’t use many external effects for any of those...
Ana 2 as well...
Alchemy has wicked fx
Sometimes Sylenth1 too.
And the chorus on Diva is amazing:

They’re just good enough for me.
Same thing with stock plugins from DAWs (to an extent)
I mean...
I really don’t buy too far into the idea that certain plugins can really improve your sound THAT much, and Is THAT noticable from mixing with stock plugins and internal effects, but that’s for a different day/inevitable flamewar.

One exception is Eq and compressors. Typically even if a synth has one I won’t use it, not that it sounds terrible but rather I just prefer my familiar environment with compressors and eqs.

That and for some reason when I use Ableton I use stock plugins more compared to internal Efx. I think that’s just more how my workflow has grown to love abletons workflow and bottom screen interface and the drag and drop aspect. That and some Most of Live’s stock effects are Absolutely awesome

[BONES]

But the factory presets belong to the real world and are used by real people.

Except they aren't. As someone else pointed out in another thread yesterday, it can be very hard to fit those sounds into a mix and that's because they are designed to sound good on their own. It's often quite time consuming trying to tame them so they play nicely with the things around them in a mix. Usually the quickest fix is to turn off all the on-board effects, which probably leads a lot of people to discount them entirely. I used to do that but lately I have come to appreciate how good the effects on some VSTi are, so I use them where it makes sense and I don't where it doesn't. e.g. a single reverb plugin in a send makes a lot more sense than a separate reverb on each channel, so that's what I tend to do, no matter how good the on-board reverb might be. Ditto for delay. But other types of effect, like distortion/overdrive, phaser/flanger, etc., are more part of the instrument's sound so using on-board effects for those things makes a lot more sense, assuming they aren't woefully bad.

To be honest, though, the only effects I really put any thought or effort into are distortion/overdrive things (and I have a couple of dozen different ones). I don't have a favourite reverb or delay or phaser or compressor, I just use whatever's most convenient. Most of the time that ends up being Orion's native effects so they are overwhelmingly what I use. Lately, though, I've been using on-board effects quite a bit. With some instruments, they have become as much a part of patch creation as envelopes and LFOs. e.g. In DUNE, where you can modulate their parameters using the synth's modulation system.

I couldn't imagine spending more than $20 on an effect plugin, I just don't see their worth. I have spent more than that on a few multi-effects but most of my VST effects are free or under $10. For me, that's about all they are worth.

[bmanic]

But the factory presets belong to the real world and are used by real people.

Except they aren't. As someone else pointed out in another thread yesterday, it can be very hard to fit those sounds into a mix and that's because they are designed to sound good on their own.

.. that's where this small thing called "mixing" comes in to play. Just saying.

[AnX]

remember folks, synths have fx to make factory presets sound good, not to actually be of use in the real world

But the factory presets belong to the real world and are used by real people.

not anyone i know

[BONES]

But the factory presets belong to the real world and are used by real people.

Except they aren't. As someone else pointed out in another thread yesterday, it can be very hard to fit those sounds into a mix and that's because they are designed to sound good on their own.

.. that's where this small thing called "mixing" comes in to play. Just saying.

Are you stupid? The hard work I was talking about is clearly the mixing process, which can be easy or hard, depending on what you're dealing with.