KVR Audio

Jigo · Post by **Jigo** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:46 pm

Hello there,

Can it be said or not that there are two categories of sofsynths : Vintage (Minimoog V / Imposcar ...) versus Modern (Vanguard / Rhino ...) ?

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:49 pm

Yeah, that's fair to say. Though I would say Vanguard is also at least attempting to emulate that type of subtractive analog sound, based on its design. Rhino, Tera, Cube, Absynth, Reaktor.. these ones are synths I'd consider to be more 'modern' in nature.

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:56 pm

You could say that. But I tend to call Vintage softsynths Emulations, and all others I just call . . . softsynths.

BTW, I'm waiting for the first VSTi emulation of the classic early VSTi's . . .

jplanet · Post by **jplanet** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:03 pm

You know, the new softsynths will never recapture the warmth of an old Pentium II...those really had character!

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:07 pm

jplanet wrote:You know, the new softsynths will never recapture the warmth of an old Pentium II...those really had character!

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:08 pm

I think there tend to be the "standard" emulations of subtractive vintage synths and there are also the "visionary" synths - i.e. Symptohm Mehloman, HG Fortune's, Absynth, etc., some of the additives and resynthesis synths, which seem to be pointing software synths in different directions than hardware synths. No judgement value placed on the words "standard" and "visionary" - I treasure both. They can all create sounds that I've never heard before and want to present to the world.

fred-hal · Post by **fred-hal** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:09 pm

jplanet wrote:You know, the new softsynths will never recapture the warmth of an old Pentium II...those really had character!

That's why I still have my old thinkpad with reaktor 2.3.. Old vintage sounds..

Rabid · Post by **Rabid** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:13 pm

Vintage softsynths - Reality, Rebirth

Modern softsynths - Reaktor, Z3ta+

I don't think emulations have much to do with it. You can emulate a simple structure like the MiniMoog or a huge modular unit. They are both hardware from the same period. Don't forget, additive and FM was done on those old modulars. Most of the progression we have made with digital has to do with manipulating samples. Most other stuff could be done if you have a few hundred thousand to drop into hardware back in the 70's, and the patience to record parts one note at a time.

To me vintage vs. modern has more to do with the quality of the code and amount of CPU that can be used to create smooth, full sound. The trait many vintage softsynths have in common is a thin, brittle sound.

Jafo · Post by **Jafo** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:18 pm

My spies inform me that jplanet wrote:You know, the new softsynths will never recapture the warmth of an old Pentium II...those really had character!

Heh. To go off on a tangent, I'm still nostalgic about my first 386 system, a DX/40... it was the biggest evolutionary jump in the whole series, ran DOS and Word Pervert (err, Pervect -- no, Perfect) at usable speeds, and I even had a smokin' 14400 baud modem to use with it.

Good times, man, good times.

Radek · Post by **Radek** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:26 pm

There are three kinds of synths - substractive ones like synth1 (not too complicated, basic dco->dca->dcf algorithm). Then more sophisticated and flexible such as rhino, sytrus, toxic or even additvie. And then pcm focused "rompler like" (SampleTank, Wusikstation, arguably any sampler) and finally some others what are hard to classify (Cronox3). Wait... there also so called physical modelled synths so we have really four types of synthesiser. This all is of course very fuzzy because any synth with filters can be called substractive, some classical VA have FM/AM too (thought very plain) and if there is option to load user's waveforms for oscs then we might call it even a sampler...

First "vintage" soft synth were a module trackers what were plain samplers without filters and need of manually caring about every note. For "vintage hardware computer based synths" there were SID, Pokey and the YM-2149 (C64, Atari 8 bit series, Atari ST). Later in the PC's realm we got GravisUltrasound and AWE32 and they are "vintage" of some sort now imho too. Hey! The infamous "Covox" could be called vintage also!

Bah... and all this isn't everything as there were the Yamaha's OPL series of sound chips and perhaps some others things what I don't remember...

The best were the trio of SID, Pokey and YM-2149. Many awesome results were achievied using those. Get proper emulators and hear yourselves. I think you might be surprised by some of the demos. No, they don't sounds "hi-fi" but not that bad and for sure they have lots of character!

jones-y · Post by **jones-y** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:47 pm

Vintage? As in Steinberg Neon?

Baniev · Post by **Baniev** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 7:47 pm

emdot_ambient wrote:You could say that. But I tend to call Vintage softsynths Emulations, and all others I just call . . . softsynths.

BTW, I'm waiting for the first VSTi emulation of the classic early VSTi's . . .

since when do we have softsynths, since 98 or since when? I really would be laugh if in 5 years or so people search emulations of old vst´s like today of TB303/Sh101(minimoog

opia · Post by **opia** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 7:58 pm

calling Dr El Zorro De Cortez
white courtesy telephone please

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:02 pm

Baniev wrote:since when do we have softsynths, since 98 or since when?

Pretty much as long as we've had computers.

But softsynths like we have them now (with contained, stylized GUIs and featuresets), at least since the 80s on computers like the Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum, etc. And for Windows, easily since the early 90s, circa Win 3.1.

Baniev · Post by **Baniev** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:18 pm

shamann wrote:
Baniev wrote:since when do we have softsynths, since 98 or since when?
Pretty much as long as we've had computers.

But softsynths like we have them now (with contained, stylized GUIs and featuresets), at least since the 80s on computers like the Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum, etc. And for Windows, easily since the early 90s, circa Win 3.1.

what we have had really vst´s in windows 3.11?

Vintage softsynths vs "modern" ones