Compared to what?
Softsynth similar to Pulse 2?
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- KVRian
- 711 posts since 25 Aug, 2019
- KVRAF
- 14943 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
I was unaware that some synths are naturally occurring. Which ones are they? Are they hunted or is it more like a farming thing?roman.i wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:15 amEveryone loves to talk about aliasing because it's easy, it's math, we can measure it. But no one talks about software synths sound unnatural. While most people on the internet talking about this topic never had an analog synth in their hands. These who have an analog synth know how they sound, this really pops up when we push them to extreme modulation, the electricity "screaming" to get out. There is nothing close to this in software world. Because what we hear in analog synths is coming from the nature, it sounds appealing to our ears and it has a natural variation in the sound, but the software in it's basic algorithms sounds awful, clinically dead, like comparing a toy guitar with a real one. For software synth it's really hard to emulate this behaviour, and ones that had some degree of success in doing that are still used until today as most popular synths even they were released more than ten years ago. So in terms of sound in software we are still "light years" from the natural sound.
There are some aspects of an analog sound that are “hard” to get right. By hard, I mean CPU intensive, because I have heard digital do an excellent job. (My Kemper Amp Profiler, UAD Apollo and Torcido are excellent) It’s just more rare in software because developers know that you’re trying to run a DAW and other instruments and effects at the same time. Those aspects are things like distortion/drive, audio rate modulation and feedback. Now, even those things have been done pretty well by plugins like Legend and RePro. The distortion in the Roland plugins is very good, as is Massive X’s. It’s not magic, though. It’s a matter of oversampling enough to eliminate aliasing in the audible range. I fully expect that we’ll eventually get to a point where CPUs are fast enough to do all of this in real time.
The truth is, the sounds that I’m talking about are a small subset of what I hear on most tracks. I suspect that one could go their entire musical life without ever really hitting that wall. If you make 80s sounding Synthwave you’re probably fine without any “naturally occurring” instruments. As someone who’s owned a Juno 106, I’d use the Roland software before I’d use the flat and lifeless sounding Deepmind. Here’s an incomplete list of synths that I think are very good at emulating most analog synth style sounds:
RePro
Legend
Oddity
Diva
Monark
Super 8
Reaktor Blocks
Softube Modular
Roland plugins
Syntronix (More of a ROMpler than a full synth emulation, but it does an excellent job of giving a classic synth sound)
There are also a bunch of synths like Dune 3 and Massive X that have some analog filter models that I thing are really good, but we could be here all day. There are a lot of great sounding plugins these days. That said, if you make music that is a bit more aggressive or makes use of distressed and distorted kinds of sounds, a good analog is your friend. That’s what I’m interested in, so I ended up with a bunch of hardware instruments, both analog and hybrid.
I had a Pulse 2 for a while, but I had to downsize and I liked the sound of the Bass Station 2 a bit more so I sold it. Great synth, though. I recommend buying one if that’s the sound you crave. In my experience, it’s fairly futile to try to get instruments to match each other if the sound has a special place in your world. I tried to do the same thing with a Prophet 08, and in the end, I just went and ordered the REV2 because there just isn’t a software replacement. Not that there couldn’t be, but no one is doing it and it’s doubtful that it’s going to happen any time soon. Life’s too short. If you have the money and space, go for it. Trust me, there are dozens of instruments I wish I had that I don’t have space for, and software is a great way to get a little taste, but it’s rarely the exact same thing.
Zerocrossing Media
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
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- addled muppet weed
- 105553 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
- KVRAF
- 14943 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
Behringer really is removing the obstacles that analog synths used to have. I mean, you still have to deal with work-flow issues, and you’ll need analog inputs in your audio interface, but there’s little excuse not to get one if that’s the sound you want. Frankly, my issue with them is that they’re a little too close to the originals, in terms of features. The most desirable one to me is the Poly D (though not really polyphonic) but I don’t really have the room for another synth with a keyboard and my Dominion 1 (my workhorse analog mono) isn’t going anywhere. That thing is amazing. For classic filter types, I have an ATC-X that has Moog, ARP, 303 and SEM clones on board, and it was $800 and that’s a bargain if you think about how much range it covers in a small package. It has a good software editor as well.
Zerocrossing Media
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
- KVRAF
- 14943 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
Behringer is working on a Cat too, aren’t they?
Zerocrossing Media
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
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- KVRAF
- 5664 posts since 7 Feb, 2013
They should collab with Akai and make a Timbre Cat
You may think you can fly ... but you better not try
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- KVRian
- 711 posts since 25 Aug, 2019
Fishing. Route an electric eel to your vcf thing, you'll be amazed how the natural saw wave sounds. Fat and punchy.zerocrossing wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:59 pm
I was unaware that some synths are naturally occurring. Which ones are they? Are they hunted or is it more like a farming thing?
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- KVRAF
- 35262 posts since 11 Apr, 2010 from Germany
Soft synths are close enough for me, especially some of the ones zerocrossing mentioned. Plus they don't break the bank. Plus the other lots of in-the-box workflow advantages.
Nothing you can argue about, just my opinion.
Nothing you can argue about, just my opinion.
- KVRAF
- 14943 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
That is not your opinion!
Seriously though, isn’t this topic moot? I mean, I understood it a bit when a OG Model D was $5K or more on the used market. Now with analogs starting at $200, it’s really a personal choice more than anything else. You can get a Pulse 2 used for $500. Why you wouldn’t just buy one if that’s what you want is beyond me. It’s going to be especially hard to emulate due to the feedback circuit. That’s the thing that’s really not easily done in software... but it can be done. You could probably make a pretty decent Pulse 2 using Reaktor Blocks. Would it satisfy the most picky of us? Probably not, but I reason that you could get close enough for 80% of the sounds you need. Depending on your style of music, maybe more. Warning though, to get “analog” quality out of Reaktor, you’ll need to run it at 96 khz, and that isn’t without a significant CPU hit. Any decent analog emulation is going to be pretty CPU heavy. That’s where I’d start, though. If you can’t get it exact, at least you can add things that Waldorf never considered. Hell, at a wavetable oscillator to it.
Zerocrossing Media
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
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- KVRer
- 21 posts since 5 Oct, 2019
Nonsense and pseudoscience. I bet you'd fail a blind test.roman.i wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:15 amEveryone loves to talk about aliasing because it's easy, it's math, we can measure it. But no one talks about software synths sound unnatural. While most people on the internet talking about this topic never had an analog synth in their hands. These who have an analog synth know how they sound, this really pops up when we push them to extreme modulation, the electricity "screaming" to get out. There is nothing close to this in software world. Because what we hear in analog synths is coming from the nature, it sounds appealing to our ears and it has a natural variation in the sound, but the software in it's basic algorithms sounds awful, clinically dead, like comparing a toy guitar with a real one. For software synth it's really hard to emulate this behaviour, and ones that had some degree of success in doing that are still used until today as most popular synths even they were released more than ten years ago. So in terms of sound in software we are still "light years" from the natural sound.
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Distorted Horizon Distorted Horizon https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=392076
- Banned
- 3882 posts since 17 Jan, 2017 from Planet of cats
Akai tom cat doesn't satisfy you?recursive one wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:31 pmThey should collab with Akai and make a Timbre Cat
https://www.akaipro.com/tom-cat
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- addled muppet weed
- 105553 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
a synth with no balls if youre a responsible owner?Distorted Horizon wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:48 pmAkai tom cat doesn't satisfy you?recursive one wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:31 pmThey should collab with Akai and make a Timbre Cat
https://www.akaipro.com/tom-cat
- KVRAF
- 11093 posts since 16 Mar, 2003 from Porto - Portugal
I would bet too And I own several analog synths, and I am old enough to have watched them appear (was already active when MIDI was born).Nightshade03 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:36 pmNonsense and pseudoscience. I bet you'd fail a blind test.roman.i wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:15 amEveryone loves to talk about aliasing because it's easy, it's math, we can measure it. But no one talks about software synths sound unnatural. While most people on the internet talking about this topic never had an analog synth in their hands. These who have an analog synth know how they sound, this really pops up when we push them to extreme modulation, the electricity "screaming" to get out. There is nothing close to this in software world. Because what we hear in analog synths is coming from the nature, it sounds appealing to our ears and it has a natural variation in the sound, but the software in it's basic algorithms sounds awful, clinically dead, like comparing a toy guitar with a real one. For software synth it's really hard to emulate this behaviour, and ones that had some degree of success in doing that are still used until today as most popular synths even they were released more than ten years ago. So in terms of sound in software we are still "light years" from the natural sound.
Maybe that's why. Analog synths are not new to me. Neither any of the digital synths. I've owned, still own and use several. And in my all time favorites, only one is analog. The other two are proudly digital.
Fernando (FMR)