KVR :: Hardware (Instruments and Effects) » Hardware DSP vs pure software plugins? [View Original Topic]
There are 64 posts in this topic.

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lfm - Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:54 am

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Hi

Hardware DSP - do they:

1. provide better quality effects
a) always
b) depends on the plugin using them
c) other

2. provide updates through flashmemory?

Or are what you buy is what you get, no updates?

3. consume a lot of cpu?
Or do they have onboard cpu that actually lower total cpu on computer?

4. What to look for not get disappointed?

a) are there different principles of the DSP systems today?
Meaning if some system have a ready reverb effect, and this is what you get as reverb?
And other systems are much lower level operations to speed up processing and the quality really depends on the plugin using the DSP system?

b) some vendors to avoid - because their drivers are poor?
c) vendor does not have x64 compatible drivers?
d) Are there some DSP that has 3rd party plugins or is it only DSP vendors own?

5. Are there synths based on DSP as well as effects?
Thinking that you might get higher quality oscillators in hardware and similar.


6. I only know about UAD.

Other good ones?



Thank you.

Best regards
Lars

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djanthonyw - Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:19 am

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The only difference what so ever is that they are a different architecture just like Intel vs PowerPC. Software is coded to run on a particular processor, and any software, if coded for it, can run on any modern native processor.

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jupiter8 - Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:34 am

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The sound is in the algorithms not the processing unit. Now i could come up with some examples to counter that but that's the general rule of thumb.

That would depend on the device.

The whole point of hardware is that they process the algorithms themselves so no drain on the CPU. When it comes to stuff like the UAD2 (as opposed to say a hardware reverb) things become a bit more complicated but the general principle is they don't consume any CPU.

That depends on the device. UAD2 for example comes with a stock reverb algorithm or 2 but you can purchase more.

I don't even know what that means.

b) Don't know.
c) Don't know. I think most if not all are 64 bit these days. The ones that aren't are discontinued.
d) Both exists.

Yes however the sound is in the algorithms not the processing hardware so you can't say a DSP synth will have higher quality.

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Mr Arkadin - Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:59 am

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Sonic Core XITE-1 and XITE-1D.

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lfm - Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:17 am

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You basically answered that in your other replies - you call higher level algorithms - meaning that lower level are simpler routines, like delayloop shiftregisters or similar.

Thank you for excellent replies.

I really have to study each vendor for these differences it seems.

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lfm - Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:19 am

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Excellent - thank you

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khanyz - Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:29 am

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There are also some audio interfaces which have effects. EMU cards have the PowerFX suite with VST wrapper. Even the old Mackie Spike had a Sharc based mastering suite, but no VST. You had to route it with audio.

BTW: Sharc is the DSP processor in the interface.

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khanyz - Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:29 am

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Duplicate Post Glitch.

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mkdr - Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:37 pm

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One good one to look out for is the TC Electronics Powercore.
It is discontinued, but that only means they are not making any new device designs for it. They just released 64bit drivers and everything works splendidly in Win7. You can get the basic plugin suite with the hardware VERY cheap right now. I just got mine for 80 euros(used). And the quality of the reverbs and synths is staggering

You can also buy the actual 100% copy of an Access Virus B synth for it. All the effects and synths work as VST.

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ZenPunkHippy - Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:16 am

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Check out this video I just found on Youtube. It's comparing 2 compressor plugins: the UAD 1176LN with Stillwell Rocket. The UAD plugin obviously requires the UAD hardware DSP system, the Rocket is a $50.00 plugin running native.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46qYev-ScSY

Can you hear a difference? I would say both plugins are so close it is almost impossible to hear any difference at all, but I did not watch the whole video so perhaps there are more extreme settings that cause some differences. Youtbue might not the ideal place to judge sound quality, but I think it's pretty obvious both plugins are performing a very similar job.

OTOH the latest UAD Apollo audio card seems to have very low latency (2 ms) when tracking through the plugins, so if you are recording live musicians that might be useful to you.

Peace,
Andy.

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EvilDragon - Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:28 am

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Stillwell plugins are da shit!

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ZenPunkHippy - Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:29 am

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Syncretia - Sun Apr 08, 2012 4:12 pm

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Before I answer these questions, try to think of an outboard digital synth like this:

An outboard synth is a very large dongle. A dongle is a piece of hardware which stops you from pirating software.

Essentially, an outboard synth is just a computer in an external box. You are paying for a whole new computer built in to a new box. There used to be a strong justification for this because it would take load off your existing computer and be able to do specialised stuff that your computer was too slow to do. These days i5s and i7s are plenty fast enough for synthesis.



b) The effects are ALL software. The software exists in the external box, but that box is just another computer.



That just depends on the manufacturer and how often they decide to pump out updates. Just check in to this before you buy anything.



They should reduce the CPU usage because the processing is done on an external computer.



Go to music stores and try them out. Make sure you compare the sounds to your existing VSTs. Theoretically speaking, an outboard digital synth can't do anything that a VSTI can't, but it might just so happen that some outboard synth sounds better to your ears, and then the purchase WILL be justified.



Can't answer this one really, but my experience with M-Audio has been awful.



I don't really understand this question. DSP stands for Digital Signal Processing. So basically all VSTIs and anything that is processed digitally uses DSP. There's a raging debate about whether digital synths can sound as good as analog synths. But, any debate about whether a VSTI can sound as good as an outboard synth is ridiculous. They are literally the same thing. Just one comes in to a box external to your computer.



I've never used a UAD product.

My two cents is that outboard digital synths are worthless and should not be supported. The companies who make them only do it because it is profitable. They could port their products to VST or AU or whatever, but they choose not to because it's easier to make money from a physical object than a piece of software.

Building digital outboard synths is bad for many reasons. 1) They are bad for environment: they use materials unnecessarily 2) They take up space on your desk which is important if you want to save space 3) They make your workflow harder because you have to get to know and external system when you should be focusing on your DAW. There are many other reasons.

But, those are my principles. Just buy what sounds good to your ears!

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Mr Arkadin - Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:38 pm

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1) How many synths do you think are made compared to cars being made and planes being used to take you on nice holidays? How many old computers use plastics only to end up in landfills after a very short time? My Creamware DSP cards have served me well for nearly 12 years and are still going, probably longer than most people's fridges and washing machines.

2) ? Strange logic.

3) Hardware makes your worfkflow harder? What if you hate pushing a mouse around when you can just grab a knob? So you just woke up and knew how to use your software, but hardware has to be learned?

At least you said one good thing: buy what sounds good.

And DSP systems are more than just about synths, they can be whole environments including mixung desks and effects and routing. And no, they're not just computers in a box - DSPs are dedicated to one task - your CPU is trying to be a word processor, games machine and porn viewer as well as an audio machine.

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tapper mike - Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:39 pm

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You'll never get an exact audio reproduction with flash, Most if not all swf/flv encoding is done via mp3 and there is a limit. 16bit, 44,100, 128kbs fixed rate compression. Even at 128k stream it has a tendency to cut off the signal or clip. Usually with sorenson pulling the conversion (the type of hd conversion on youtube) it's actually much lower around 96kbpa.

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maleaco - Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:09 am

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Where would one buy one of these devices for the best price?

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mkdr - Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:27 am

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Haha.. so true. I've binned so many computers(and related hw) over the years and i still use my 1995 Nord Lead and 1991 TG77 synths.. If i've had those as software i would've needed even more processing power, more computers and more hazardous materials they contain! Case closed on the environmental aspects!!


+ there still isn't anything in software that could rival the for example the ancient Nord Lead.

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Syncretia - Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:52 am

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Yeah, as I said, outboard synths used to "be able to do specialised stuff that your computer was too slow to do". Outboard synths have things like a GPU which can be dedicated to one task rather than do many different tasks. It's similar to how you need to buy a fast video card to play the latest games. In a sense it's more efficient. This used to be a really big issue about 10 years ago. Now, most computers are more than powerful enough for this stuff. A quad core CPU can handle just about anything these days. Ask yourself this: are you constantly finding that your tracks are using too much CPU? Have you tried dithering some of your tracks down to audio so that the CPU doesn't have to work too hard? Have you got a decent CPU?

Anyway, it's probably helpful to think of why outboard digital synths exist. I don't know about the US, but in Japan, Roland has massive stores that sell nothing but keyboards. When the digital revolution occurred, they didn't simply say "Oh, ok, we'll port all our keyboards in to one software synth, close all our stores and watch people pirate what used to be much treasured physical objects". They knew that they had to replace what was there with something else. And, at the same time musicians had not really caught on to the idea of using a computer to make music. So, we got a slew of manufacturers doing the same thing. Even now, new hardware synths are being built. The main reason why it keeps on happening now is that companies make more money from hardware synths than software ones. It's that simple.

I'm not saying that these synths don't sound good. Perhaps some of them are actually superior to software synths. However, it is quite disgusting that the manufacturers force people in to buying physical hardware that people shouldn't need. With the exception of controllers and analog equipment, we should be moving to a hardware-less future. Even analog is pretty close to being redundant now with VA becoming so good.

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Mr Arkadin - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:07 am

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Wow - you have a lop-sided view of the world. Do the manufacturers of hardware have a gun to your head forcing you to buy their kit? No. So how is that 'disgusting'. If you don't want their hardware don't buy it. How do you know that people don't need hardware? Are you the government telling me how I should run my life? Why should we be moving to a hardware-less future?

Oh because it's good for the environment? What a laugh. Shame all that software has to run on a computer using three fans, components that are outdated in three years by the software developers who love the planet so much they change the OS every few years to make sure you have to change your hardware to keep up. If you want disgusting that's where the shame lies. Oh, and those computers still need electricity to run on.

I have analogue synths that are over thirty years old - how's that for helping the environment? Are you still using a thirty year old computer? And no, VA is not as good as analogue. Do you actually own any analogue?

Tell me, do you own a car? If so, have you owned the same one for over thirty years?

The best selling synth of all time (M1) managed in the order of 250,000 units - this is when no software solutions existed. Do you think synth manufacturers are selling anything like that many these days? Oh and a lot of those M1's are still being happily used (or recycled would be another way to think of it).

Wow, the synth industry as the evil world-polluter, who'da thunk it? Forget cars, planes, power stations, nuclear tests, mercury dumping in the sea, China's industries etc. It was staring us in the face all the time, the axis of evil was Roland, Moog, Korg, Yamaha etc. Burn down their factories (well dismantle them slowly, because burning would be bad for the envirnoment, m'kay).

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:49 am

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I think hardware synths exist due to the demand for musicians performing live. They are built robust and can take a lot of abuse before breaking.

Computers are not that reliable - yet. You have no time to reboot a computer during a live session because it freezes.

So all hardware are evil - I don't think so. It's musical instruments.

And nowadays since piracy is widely spread musicians/artists perform more live to make a living doing what they love the most. So demand for hardware instruments to perform live are increasing.

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Burillo - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:57 am

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if i was given a penny every time i heard this...

funny thing is this argument is false on so many levels. Our CPU is a general purpose processing unit. "General purpose" doesn't mean "nothing in particular", it means "everything and the kitchen sink". It can literally do everything. All software is math. It doesn't matter if this math produces a word processor or an audio plugin. It's still math.

Do you know why your computer cannot run games without a GPU? Truth is - it can. It perfectly can! It just will be slow as hell, because a GPU is so much more powerful than CPU in certain specialized tasks, but CPU absolutely can run games. It's the other way around, actually - GPU can't do everything a CPU can do, because it's a specialized unit geared towards massive parallelism and graphics-specific tasks. Also, recently with technologies like CUDA/OpenCL GPU's can be used as very fast and (mostly) general purpose processing units, but CPU is still universal while a GPU is geared towards parallelism. It doesn't mean GPU can do things CPU can't, it just means that GPU does them faster.

And same thing for DSP cards. As has been said earlier, this used to be justified long time ago when CPU's weren't so powerful and running an OS put an unbearable strain on the system already, but this is no longer the case. Hell, i can run a project with tens of channels with tens of FX on each of them and still browse the net and maybe watch a movie. That means CPU is general purpose enough to do everything i throw at it, and it is fast enough to do it without hickups.

That being said, there can be reasons to buy hardware DSP and synths. If you like the sound and you can't replicate it with any other software - why not?

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Mr Arkadin - Tue Apr 10, 2012 5:22 am

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Doesn't that strengthen the case for DSP? You just said a dedicated GPU will make the sytem run faster than a CPU on its own. You don't get rid of the GPU because in theory the CPU can do it all do you? Likewise I don't get rid of my DSP (in fact I only recently bought more) just because in theory the CPU can do what my XITE-1 can do. I think currebt CPUs would run very slowly trying to run the Scope/XITE environment and all it plug-ins.

My DSP can't do what a CPU does sure - but I'm not bothered that my XITE-1 can't run Windows.



If I had a penny for every time someone said this...

For me it's nothing to do with CPU overhead - it's about flexibility and sound foremost. If native can ever do what my XITE-1 box can do I will jump at it. However to say that CPU can do what DSP does, in theory yes it can, no argument from me there, but I have yet to hear a Minimoog emultion as good as Minimax in native. In theory it should be possible, but it just hasn't been done in my opinion.

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Burillo - Tue Apr 10, 2012 5:52 am

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Not really. Take a look at the specs of your DSP card. What's the CPU there? Probably some kind of RISC/ARM/8086-derived thingie with up to 1GHz, maybe dual core. What's an i7? A quad-core CPU with 2GHz per core, coupled with HyperThreading and all these instruction sets like SSEx and AVXx. Do you *really* think a decent CPU like i7 won't be able to run all your Scope/XITE stuff?

Also, keep in mind that the GPU example in this case is not entirely valid (not to mention GPU's are 50+ core beasts, which isn't the case with DSP cards). Graphics can be parallelized to a great extent (which is why they have assload of cores), DSP for the most part can't, so DSP cards are a lot closer to general purpose CPU's - and some even *are* general purpose CPU's, just with specialized OS and software on them.

The DSP only helps when you have a lot of processing going on. Other than that, native processing can do the same.

Ah, but that's not the problem with CPU being general-purpose either - it's just the quality of algorithms, which comes down to the developer talent and expertise, really. All this crap about "UAD can handle more processing load than ordinary CPU and thus algorithms can be made better" is bullshit. They just have more money to attract decent developers and DSP coders to work on their products.

So, as i said earlier - if you like the sound of it, why not, no argument from me. Just keep in mind that it's not the DSP that counts, and the same can and will be achieved in native. Maybe in a few years, maybe tomorrow, maybe it's already there and you just missed it.

As a glaring example - take commercial amp simulations of 6-7 years ago (both software and hardware), and today's free amp simulators. The freebies we have today blow the kings of yesteryear out of the water. Today we have free Variety of Sound plugins that can put to shame whatever was the hottest thing back in the day. Progress never stops.

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UltraJv - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:06 am

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Just to add to the fun, PCs already have a dedicated DSP chip onboard. The graphics card/GPU. There is some software around that already uses this for reverbs etc :


http://www.liquidsonics.com/software_reverberate_le.htm

http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11&Itemid=123

http://gpuimpulsereverb.de/?tag=cuda

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Mr Arkadin - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:22 am

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No CPU or dual cores here - all Sharc DSPs: 6x60MHz DSPs for backward compatibilty and 12x333Mhz DSPs for more power than before, hence it's not really comparable to a computer, which was what my original statement was about. I doubt many computers have such an odd spec and as can be seen, they're not even in the Ghz range, yet are amazingly powerful - due in part to the algorithm programming no doubt.



Trust me, I certainly don't think DSPs have 'a sound' .

I have definitely not 'missed it' arriving in a native platform. I think most of us would have heard about something like Scope in native in a news announcement somewhere. Hasn't happened yet (but as you say, maybe one day).

I don't give a Monkey's what makes the sound (as you say, it's all maths), but I do care about my workflow and at the moment that workflow happens to only exist on DSPs so I use them purely because that's where that platform exists. In 12 years I have yet to see a comparable native solution. Maybe the CPU power isn't there yet. Maybe the programmers aren't there. Maybe no-one in native-land thinks it would be worth it. Who knows? All I do know is that it isn't there.

I also use analogue and digital hardware, as well as native solutions just so you're aware I'm no DSP snob or something.

Oh and to Syncretia, I play guitars made of wood. They chopped down trees to make them.

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Burillo - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:09 am

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I wasn't implying you were a snob or anything (quite on the contrary, actually), it's just common misconception that DSP cards somehow magically make everything better. Oh, and they are "amazingly powerful" because those cores do little other than audio processing. If you run your CPU for audio only (e.g. code everything in assembly/low-level C and run it on a small footprint realtime OS), you'd be amazed how much power you can squeeze out of even modest hardware, let alone top of the line CPU's.

You like your workflow with DSP cards, you like the sound of the stuff in there - balls to you, i understand and respect that. I'm not saying DSP cards suck, i'm just saying that there's really no need for them and they provide no benefit aside from offloading some processing and providing different plugins that you might or might not like. If you remember, what had me started in this thread was the statement about how DSP cards are specialized audio processing units and thus can do a better job than a "CPU that tries to be a word processor and a porn viewer".

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Mr Arkadin - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:42 am

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So can we agree that although CPUs have the power, because the code written for them has to work within a general use OS (say Windows) rather than being a low level code that DSPs use that actually there is still good reason to use DSPs?

If I could boot a computer to use Scope and nothing else (well maybe also the porn viewer) then I would be a happy bunny.

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mkdr - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:46 am

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Haha! Lol
That's so much faster than current cpu chips. I7 trails far behind an Xite rig. Not that it matters though, because, like mentioned before, for example the synth algos on it are superb.



But sure, you can do everything with Omnisphere too.

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UltraJv - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:47 am

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Modern operating systems these days take up RAM more than CPU. If you look at whats being used, its less than 1% while idling - thats without any tweaking. You can of course make a highly tweaked OS but IMHO its just not worth it.

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:49 am

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But aren't there certain shortcuts developers use not to make plugins too cpu-heavy?

Not allowing too long delay loops, and not that many - as you could do with a hardwarebased DSP - distributing the load to other cpu. Thinking of reverbs could be made much higher quality with hardware DSP.

The obvious disadvantage with hardware DSP is maybe that it might be obsolete unless drivers are upgrades for each new OS-version and new technology for buses in computers etc.

PCI-based slots are not so common anymore, to mention one thing.

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jupiter8 - Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:06 am

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What makes you think DSP developers doesn't have to worry about efficiency ?

Case in point: The Lexicon PCM96 does 4 channels of reverb,the plugin with the same algorithm does several hundred on a modern CPU.

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Mr Arkadin - Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:21 am

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This is my favourite modern phrase. If I say I have a Fizmo, someone will say, "You can do all that in with Omnisphere". JD-800? "You can do all that in with Omnisphere" etc.




Well that goes for any new technology hardware or software - even native software. Someone still has to update all that software code to work with new OSs - look at the complaints for 64-bit updates of plug-ins. I suppose with Scope I have been lucky. I had my system around 1999/2000 and it's been updated ever since to the point where it can be used on 64-bit systems. I only stopped using it when I got my XITE-1 (same software, much more power, plus nice I/O options for hardware interfacing). The XITE-1 uses PCIe but could be adapted to use whatever developers come along with if PCIe became extinct.

My point is I was using the same PCI cards for nearly 12 years - they've lived through Mac OS9 on G4, and at least three Pentium computers with numerous Windows OSes, so really those fears are unfounded as they've lasted longer than any computer or OS I have had.

PCI slots are not that difficult to find: I recently got an ASUS board with two in (the other ASUS board died) just for my Scope cards. Again the cards outlived the ASUS board and the hard drives. Hardware built to last (I believe the Sharc chips were design to be military grade for example).

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aMUSEd - Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:30 am

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Creamware/Scope has been mentioned - that focusses on synths and effects but the synths are imho what is best about it (though there are some good fx too and its really en entire music production system)

Apart from that TC Powercore - mainly fx and now defunct

SSL Duende - all fx, dsp powered versions of SSL's hardware - not sure is that is still going

also you might have heard of a relatively unknown product by the name of Pro Tools? (ProTools HD systems to be precise - in the process of being replaced by HD-X)

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:51 pm

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I didn't know I implied that - it's definately not what I meant.

But developers using hardware DSP can allow using the absolutely best algorithms(and often most time/cpu-consuming) since some calculations are distributed to hardware.

But it might be overruled now that main CPU are multicores and stuff, I don't know - that is part reason I started this thread.

Do hardware DSP based plugins excel in most implementations?

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JimmiG - Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:49 pm

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CPUs are many times more powerful than DSP chips these days.

Something like the Diva filter algorithms would probably be impossible to do on a simple DSP chip. Same with other more demanding synthesis engines that use a lot of CPU. Even a basic filter emulation with a few saturation stages, like the "analog mode" in the Virus eats a lot of polyphony.

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aMUSEd - Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:25 am

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I don't think this is true - DIVA is great but synths like the Minimax and Proph@t on the Scope platform have just as good filters. Same is true of the UAD Moog. I would say DIVA is one of the first synths to equal the dsp powered synths I have had for many years.

That being said the main downside for me of dsp is its cost - my main Scope card broke a few months back and I can't afford to replace it.

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rod_zero - Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:24 am

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People that state DSP card have more processing power that modern CPU just don't know a shit about computers.

DSP card made sense ten years ago, now they are obsolete technology. GPU probably will face the same fate in 3-5 years, modern CPU bring integrated GPU that can compete with low end GPU cards. That's why Nvidia is going to new markets using their chips as CPU's for other plataforms.

Do you think those DSP developers can compete with Intel upgrade schedule? And all the plug in developers in win/mac platform?

Now on the other hand hardware synth/romplers's makes sense because they are used to perform live and are more convenient for that task. There is also some people to prefer the workflow of doing music with hardware, it's just a preference and many manufacturers target those musicians since they make more profit from them. It's bad? No, it's just preference and a bussiness model. If you dont like that you could just but a daw and use freebies or komplete 8 and be done.

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whyterabbyt - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:34 am

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Its not a causal relationship. Developers using general purpose processors can also utilise the 'absolutely best algorithms'. The 'quality' of the algorithnm is not related to where they're done, or what platform they're implemented on.
The only actual difference would be if an implementation of an algorithm was affected by architectural constraints that prevented the implentation from producing the same results on a different platform. If that's the case, though, the implementation is broken.

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mkdr - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:35 am

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That has been said about GPU's for at least ten years now.


If you integrate a GPU to the CPU, isn't it called a GPU anymore?

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whyterabbyt - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:45 am

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Integration at the low end isnt necessarily a predictor of what's going to occur in future.

10-Core Xeon Westmere CPU : 2,600,000,000 transistors
NVidia 400 series GPU : 3,000,000,000 transistors
Radeon 7000 series GPU : 4,300,000,000 transistors

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BertKoor - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:48 am

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CPU - GPU - ARM... Use them what they are designed for, horses for courses. For instance GPUs can do parallel computing at relatively low clock rates. CPUs with much higher clock rates and core counts are struggling to compete with that efficiency.

This is totally unrelated to the algorithms. Given enough power, you can do anything with everything. Even emulate a 32-bit CPU using an 8-bit CPU. It will just take half a day to get booted
And computing power is usually not the problem. That Lexicon hardware processor could run more effects engines simultaneously, it's just that adding the extra 32-channel AD/DA chip with periferals makes it too expensive to be interesting.

Was it the Cream card, which is effectively a GPU chip without the VGA connector?

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whyterabbyt - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:51 am

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Think you're probably thinking of the original UAD, which used the MPACT-2 MPU.

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Syncretia - Thu Apr 12, 2012 4:15 pm

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There will always be a place for outboard digital synths. However, the need for this will diminish over time.

My message to KVR users: use a digital outboard synth/effect if:

a) It makes some sound that software can't
b) You want to perform with it, but don't want to take your laptop
c) You don't have a fast enough computer
d) If you absolutely need more grunt, go for a PCI card before an outboard synth. This allows you to add to your existing system rather than buying a completely redundant system.

Of course, if the answer is a), please write the manufacturer and request a VST version. If the answer is c), you're probably better off buying a fast computer than an outboard synth because you'll be able to do more with it anyway.

My message to manufacturers:

a) Stop disingenuous marketting campaigns. You don't need to manufacture hardware anymore. CPUs are fast enough.
b) Stop bamboozling people with GPU talk. Yes, GPUs are better at specialised tasks, but again, it's not necessary anyway - as evidenced by the myriad of quality software synths out there
c) Software is far more convenient for people. You're only confusing them by telling that they need stuff that they don't

If a manufacturer tells you to buy an outboard synth because of the "build quality", or "sturdiness", just say "OK, build a simple midi controller and a separate VSTI, and I'll buy them both!".

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Mr Arkadin - Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:35 am

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Which bit of "not everyone wants to run everything on a computer" are you not getting? Plenty of live players do not trust computers live - plus they like something tactile to tweak.

If you're going to have a big keyboard on stage it might as well make a sound in its own right rather than just be a controller attached to a computer.

There are many other reasons but you obviously think your way is the only way.

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lfm - Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:28 am

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I guess you are right- technically you can.

But is the cost to high on cpu and reported latency for the plugin to really be useful?

Isn't that where you start simplifying(making shortcuts) as a developer?

Yes, you freeze tracks to save cpu, but still need to at least run one instance of the plug.

That's part of the main reason I started this thread, to understand that better.

Is hardware allowing stuff to be implemented that is hard to accomplish otherwise?

Or a said elsewhere - it's obsolete with todays multicores
cpu's?

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Mr Arkadin - Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:08 am

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If you find a use and sound that you can't find elsewhere, how is anything obsolete? For example there is no equivalent of the flexibility of Scope in native land that I have seen, and for my money not the equivalent sound (it has always run at 32-bit since 1999) and Minimax has yet to be surpassed by a native Minimoog emulation.

Quoting Ghz and multicores only tells part of the story. Personally I trust my ears when it comes to sound, not someone's claim that multicores makes everything (including hardware synths apparently) obsolete. Even if native could do everything claimed of it, is it necessarily the way you want to work? Perhaps for you it is. For me I like to mix it up a bit with native, DSP, analogue hardware and digital hardware.

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lfm - Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:27 am

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Thanks.

But it's such a large investment after all with hardware based DSP, so it's good to check out how people feel about it.

And there is plenty more to check out, with vendors and what principles apply for each, if any 3rd party stuff or how limited you are with that particular product.

And doing more communications over the buses in computer might introduce new problems like had in general trying firewire soundcards etc.

It's very much a trend now emulating vintage hardware and many vendors claim to have one, or several.

And some praise UAD versions and pretty much bash anything else and some are happy with software based VST's.

So this thread came about. Should I go with a larger bundle with Waves(already got a couple smaller) or invest in hardware based plugs?

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EvilDragon - Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:30 am

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Diva easily trumps Minimax IMHO.

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Mr Arkadin - Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:06 am

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Well, as you can tell, I'm passionate about my system. And Syncretia thinks everyone should VST and no hardware should exist. Personally I think you should always choose what you want - I am not about to force my view on you. Since I discovered Scope in 1999 (Pulsar as it was then) and I have not seen a comparable system in DSP or native. It's funny to me that UAD are making such a big thing about Apollo having 2ms latency. I've had 3ms latency since 1999.

So for me it's less about whether it's hardware, software, DSP or CPU - it's about Scope. I like the way it works and sounds. What format it comes in is irrelevant to me (except in as much as I also get really noce I/O options, great if you like to integrate hardware.

Unfortunately the only way to know if any of these systems would add anything to your sound or workflow is to try them - perhaps you could try a smaller second-hand card or something. I can't say whether you'd like UAD, Scope or any other DSP system or not. You might just find them irritating. Scope for example is definitely not for everyone.

I would always take claims of "this sounds as good as that" or "this trumps that" with a pinch of salt. I find the Arturia Minimoog emulation frankly awful, yet others claim it sounds exactly like one. Who you gonna believe?

For me Scope is the best system, for others UAD, for others native or a mix of these (some people run Scope and UAD cards together for instance).

Unfortunately none of this really helps you decide. Ask yourself this: all those people that claim that the software emulations of hardware are exact, have they really owned all that hardware? Has EvilDragon really done a side-by-side comparison of Minimax to Diva for instance, or is it all hot air? People need to back these claims up.

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EvilDragon - Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:11 am

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I had a play with Minimax ASB, and after that Minimax in Plugiator, and Diva. While I don't own a real vintage Mini, I had several chances to play one so I do know how it behaves. Diva just clicked right there. I'm not saying that Minimax is bad, but to me, Diva has nailed that filter, bar none. I'm not saying 100% exact, but for sure it's the most faithful native solution there is.

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sounddesigner - Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:27 am

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A 5 minute play with a plugiator and ASB may not be all that revealing as i stated to you before. I've played with and used SCOPE and Native synths side by side for years and own both and usually Native has a harshness/hardness to them or some other flaw, even the newer ones. For me its never been about accuracy of emulations just higher quality vs lower. But minimax is regarded by some authorities as being the most accurate minimoog emulation.

When Native synths do improve they become less of a instrument and more of a computer you program due to more latency and extremely high cpu use. I would not want my main instrument tied to a variable buffer-size. Getting Native plugins to do things in a 'timely manner' often requires far more power usage and in some cases is impossible.

Often people even say Native is just as good as dsp and never truly heard what's available for dsp just wishfull thinking, meanwhile those of us who use dsp use both platforms and base our judgement off that. People who are interested in dsp really do need to try it out for themselves cause you never know who your getting advice from on a forum, often it's just fanboy warfare for the purpose of attacking dsp platforms. Usually its Native fanboys who jump into dsp threads attacking, i myself never go in Native synth threads attacking and promoting dsp cause its negative, childish and a desparate way of advertising dsp. If one is truly secure about their platform's quality and its future there is no need to jump in thread after thread hateing but yet many do it (and this shows me their platform must not be as good as they make it out to be cause obviously they fear dsp; why the need to try to force feed Native to people if its so good is my question?). My belief is let the curiouse people demo both and let both platforms speak for themselves, that is the main testimony. Opinions are fine and great but hateing is not (not speaking about anyone in specific just giving my thoughts and observations on the subject).

Sometimes i forget the subtleties the dsp synths have that i prefer and i think a Native synth may be just as good then i do another side by side for awhile and the dsp is definitely prefered. You do need quality tools for reference because the ear does get forgetful is what i have learned, and sometime it takes time to see flaws or strenghths. That's why many Native synths are only hyped up flavour of the week cause after time has passed people start to see the synths flaws (especially when better comes along and then the endless cycle continues). Meanwhile many of us who use dsp use synths that have stood the test of time and still prefer them to this day simply cause they where built to a truly high standard from the start and are arguably timeless. I do alot less spending money on gear since i got Sonic Core SCOPE dsp system. Just my thoughts and opinions.

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sounddesigner - Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:48 am

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I don't see why the arguement is false when there are many benchmarks that show the affects of Windows/Mac O/S on computers in terms of core scaling with plugins (some O/S's and different versions of them perform better then others), also the various DAW hosts that run on those O/S's. The performance hit of the O/S can be seen in terms of number of plugins and it worsens as buffer-size decrease. And everytime the UAD-2 quad was compared to the fastest computer using plugins that run on both platforms the computer won but not to the degree it should have due to the O/S. In one test the computer was 3 1/2-5 times more powerful but the gflops it has stated it should've been 10x (keep in mind this was only one uad quad; 4 quads can be stacked since dsp's are usually a stackable system thus the complete system is all cards combined that are allowed). When looking at the small 9.6 gflops a UAD-2 Quad has and the load it handles the load states it is powerful for its size and efficient (and expandable).

The biggest tell-tale is the ever incresing buffer-size; the more tasks done the larger the latency becomes with the cumulative-latency-enviroment computers have (and people try to do everything with Native, e.g. synths, DAW, effects, internet, automation, samplers, audio streaming, Video, etc plus backgroung Windows maintanance). Computers have to run a general purpose O/S dsp's don't and thus can remain true REALtime platforms aka zero-latency. My dpc latency increases when internet and other programs are running, once dpc latency increases then running your DAW at ultra-low-latency becomes impossible. My SCOPE XITE-1 keeps me in REALtime threw-out all stages of music production and allows for all to be done simultaneously (mixing, tracking, composing, etc). DSP's are still needed for ultra-low-latency and this may forever be the case, even my super duper i7 don't help much in this regard.

True power aka High-end power is about how much of a load that's done at the lowest latency. The lower the latency a processor is running at the higher-end it is. When computer buffer-sizes get lower the load becomes heavier AND IT IS SEEN THAT REAL MUSCLE IS NEEDED FOR LOWER LATENCY PERFORMANCE. Some plugins have to be given latency intentionally by the developers to avoide extreme hunger like Ozone's reverb at 96khz. Computers don't run at latencies as low as dsp's thus comparisons are'nt fair when people do tout how much of a larger load their computer can handle; as the buffer-size decrease the load must become smaller and to run as low as dsp's is to not run at all cause they can't get that low. If you want a fair comparison then run them both at the same latency with real-world projects. In my view the dsp's are the higher end processor cause they get lower latency and cause they stay fixed at that latency. Even maintaining the smallest buffer-size computers can get wich is 32 samples usually, with a complete set of tools (quality instruments, effects, processors, etc) is near impossible unless you start doing compromises (turning off oversampling, avoiding certain plugins, etc). DSP systems offers more no-compromise thus is more high-end. And the fact that a dsp system is a hybrid system that includes a computer is what makes it even more no-compromise.

With a dsp + Native hybrid in many ways i do much much less compromising then using Native alone. So for REALtime operation (mixing, routing, plugins, etc) dsp's are still needed. This is why UA released Apollo recently cause they knew dsp's are still needed for REALtime, this is why Sonic Core had no fear of releasing XITE-1, this is why Avid released Protools HDX recently despite watching many NON-REALtime-dsp platforms perish. Even the makers of Native interfaces such as RME have gotten into REALtime dsp effects cause they know the importance of dsp's (even as computers get faster more use of REALtime dsp is growing).

Some will argue that computers can run at as low-latency as dsp's and stay there if you design a O/S to do so, but like always the problem here is that this is theorhetical but in practice all we have is dsp. Fantasy technology is no good for real world use and needs. Even Merging Technologies Pyramix Masscore is not a fully REALtime system and it bypasses the Windows O/S, plus its extremely niche, limited and isolated from interoperability with standards.

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Uncle E - Fri Apr 13, 2012 12:16 pm

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I've owned two Minimoog's and the Minimax is more accurate to both of them than DIVA is. DIVA is absolutely my favorite native softsynth and I think its MS-20 bits are unsurpassed (its MS-20 oscillators through its Minimoog filter is incredible! ), and I feel very fortunate to get to use it beside my Scope Minimax and Pro-12.

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mkdr - Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:45 am

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One thing to add.. the performance of DSP systems grows linearly when you add more processing power. That doesn't happen with computers. For example, i can do alot more with my Core2Duo, which measures at 8 GFlops than i can with half of my AMD Phenom2 that's doing 38 GFlops. There's just too many bottlenecks in computer systems.

And btw my pci-e GPU does 480 GFlops with 30 GB/s memory bandwidth
My laptop 0.45 GFlops, and it has a 30 GB HD... LOL

(btw, even that laptop can do hundreds of voices of SampleTank.. that really doesn't scale up with my desktop AMD)

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EvilDragon - Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:54 am

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It was definitely not a 5-minute play. But ok.


Besides, Minimax is not modeling some stuff (something related to the VCA?) that Diva is, as Urs has discovered.

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mkdr - Sat Apr 14, 2012 11:13 am

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Modeling which, by looking at peoples comments, isn't doing anything.


But i really don't care which one is the closest.. id just wish Diva would stop being the new Omnisphere around here.

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EvilDragon - Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:25 pm

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That isn't gonna happen

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sounddesigner - Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:10 pm

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When i stated 5 minutes regarding testing Minimax, i was using a figure of speech. Did'nt mean literally 5 minutes just meant a short time.

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Syncretia - Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:39 am

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Totally fair enough. If you just prefer an outboard synth, that's totally cool. I'm really only saying this because a lot of people get confused and think outboard synths are naturally better. I've worked with computers all my life - I understand them, you understand them, but not everybody does. So, when someone comes to them and says "Buy, this big box of stuff, it's better than your computer - it's got knobs and 57 GPUS! GPU make your music sound better!", I want them to understand that what they are being told is complete rubbish.

.

Why?

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Uncle E - Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:38 am

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Personally, I'm a total Minimax fanboi AND a total DIVA fanboi, that's why I'm so perplexed by your statement that "Diva easily trumps Minimax". To me, this is like comparing a Jupiter 8 to a Prophet-5, there are certain areas where one may excel over the other but one does not trump the other. They're both incredible instruments!

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EvilDragon - Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:17 pm

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That goes without saying

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Mr Arkadin - Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:53 am

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Sorry, I thought you were the one bothered by using the earth's resources? A keyboard that makes a sound = one piece of manufacturing, one lot of cross-world shipping, plus one plug using electricity at the gig versus a controller keyboard plus laptop which is two pieces of manufacturing including two lots of separate cross-world shipping, plus two mains plugs at the gig.

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vurt - Mon Apr 16, 2012 12:30 pm

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who gives a shit about the environment, i wanna make noises.

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mkdr - Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:51 am

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And I just got a mobile phone that's got a 2000 MIPS ARM processor(same as Iphone4) plus a 8 GFlop DSP and a 2,5 GFlop GPU.

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There are 64 posts in this topic.