Hello to everyone,
before the discussion goes in the wrong way. I know that no softsynth can ever sound as or more analog than a REAL analog synth. I already used real analog gear. Another thing is that samples of analog gear are nice but not what i want to speak about. I think more about modelled synths which simulate analog circuits.
My opinion is that before e.g. softsynths like Tassman 4, Zebra 2, Lennar Digital Sylenth 1 and Poly-Ana, which means around 2 years ago there was no softsynth (my opinion) which was even close to a real analog sound. In my opinion this is radically changed now. My intention was to see how close it really is and which softsynths are closest to real analogues. Besides that it is clear to me that most of the softsynths we already discussed can do more than "just simple analog sounds". That's obvious with synths like e.g. Massive or Zebra 2.
Most analog sounding softsynth
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 12522 posts since 21 Mar, 2008 from Hannover, Germany
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1
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- Banned
- 4072 posts since 7 Nov, 2007
yikes. Vaz has been around a long time. Virsyn Tera is amazing. Reaktor has been around fer a while as well.
Synths in the last two years are not anywhere closer to analog.
imho, Massive is about as analog as my puppy dog. and Tassman 4 has got to be the fourth version of Tassman, which I am gonna guess has been around longer than two years.
Besides that, I agree with Arksun, once something is a digital recording, ones and zeroes if you will, analog begins to loose its feel. I think the solution is not to worry it too much, and just use the synths your enjoy.
cheers
( edit ) sorry if that sounded slightly rude, I am not trying to be rude.
Synths in the last two years are not anywhere closer to analog.
imho, Massive is about as analog as my puppy dog. and Tassman 4 has got to be the fourth version of Tassman, which I am gonna guess has been around longer than two years.
Besides that, I agree with Arksun, once something is a digital recording, ones and zeroes if you will, analog begins to loose its feel. I think the solution is not to worry it too much, and just use the synths your enjoy.
cheers
( edit ) sorry if that sounded slightly rude, I am not trying to be rude.
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Naive Teen Idol Naive Teen Idol https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=157768
- KVRist
- 112 posts since 16 Aug, 2007
I sometimes wonder if this analog softsynth debate will ever be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
As I said in another thread I started about Reaktor hardware emulations, if you want to try this out yourself, it doesn't hurt to use old tutorials and patch sheets on analog emulators to see if the results are similar. I used Roger Powell's patch tutorials for the ARP Odyssey and found that Gmedia's Oddity was pretty much able to create the sounds he was describing. And they sounded pretty analog to me.
As I said in another thread I started about Reaktor hardware emulations, if you want to try this out yourself, it doesn't hurt to use old tutorials and patch sheets on analog emulators to see if the results are similar. I used Roger Powell's patch tutorials for the ARP Odyssey and found that Gmedia's Oddity was pretty much able to create the sounds he was describing. And they sounded pretty analog to me.
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- KVRian
- 926 posts since 29 May, 2002 from UK
Well my point was more that there was no law of physics or other magical property of analogue sound that could ever prevent it being closely modelled when comparing a digital recording of one as its all 1's and 0's.ckatrun411 wrote:yikes. Vaz has been around a long time. Virsyn Tera is amazing. Reaktor has been around fer a while as well.
Synths in the last two years are not anywhere closer to analog.
O K? Massive is about as analog as my puppy dog. and Tassman 4 has got to be the fourth version of Tassman, which I am gonna guess has been around longer than two years.
Besides that, I agree with Arksun, once something is a digital recording, ones and zeroes if you will, analog begins to loose its feel. I think the solution is not to worry it too much, and just use the synths your enjoy.
cheers
But we'll have to disagree on how analogue the best of todays soft-synths can sound. It was already wonderfully demonstrated in the infamous analogue bass thread that people can be easily fooled (or even prefer the richness of a soft-synth raw oscillator thinking that was the analogue one!).
As someone brought up on hardware synths first I'll happily stick my neck out and say soft-synths more than match the quality of digital VA hardware synths with no additional processing and as for emulating pure analogue, they're really not as far off as you think.
Thats more down to a rather rose-tinted view of analogue synths, or listening to an old vinyl thinking that finished end product sound is solely down to such pure analogue synths imho.
...I told myself I wasn't going to get involved this time... NOOOOOOOOoooooo
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- KVRAF
- 14992 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
I agree completely! I love how these threads go. Reminds me of religion. I PRAY TO THE GOD OF ANALOG!
Recently, I had a friend come over with is shiney new ANALOG synth. A Dave Smith Prophet '08. Sounded f**king great.
I was initially on guitar duty and left the synth to him. However a bit later I decided to spark up a few of my software synths.
Sounded f**king great. More importantly, when side by side there was no sense of all that one was being created by software and the other by discrete analog circuitry.
NONE NONE NONE.
I was also taking both his and my signals and looping them with Mobius so even when they were layered on a loop together there wasn't a feeling of "oh now they're being represented digitally." or "Oh you can really hear which one is the pure analog synth. I've owned analog synths before. Roland Juno 106, Korg Poly 800... Good riddens to them, I'm sure neither of them probably work at this point.
Recently on a guitarampmodeling.com someone spit out a bunch of wav files of digitally modeled guitar amps and one real tube amp. Of all the people who answered the poll, only a few got the tube amp. I'd like to see someone do that here with soft synths and an analog one.
Mark
Recently, I had a friend come over with is shiney new ANALOG synth. A Dave Smith Prophet '08. Sounded f**king great.
I was initially on guitar duty and left the synth to him. However a bit later I decided to spark up a few of my software synths.
Sounded f**king great. More importantly, when side by side there was no sense of all that one was being created by software and the other by discrete analog circuitry.
NONE NONE NONE.
I was also taking both his and my signals and looping them with Mobius so even when they were layered on a loop together there wasn't a feeling of "oh now they're being represented digitally." or "Oh you can really hear which one is the pure analog synth. I've owned analog synths before. Roland Juno 106, Korg Poly 800... Good riddens to them, I'm sure neither of them probably work at this point.
Recently on a guitarampmodeling.com someone spit out a bunch of wav files of digitally modeled guitar amps and one real tube amp. Of all the people who answered the poll, only a few got the tube amp. I'd like to see someone do that here with soft synths and an analog one.
Mark
Arksun wrote:Well my point was more that there was no law of physics or other magical property of analogue sound that could ever prevent it being closely modelled when comparing a digital recording of one as its all 1's and 0's.ckatrun411 wrote:yikes. Vaz has been around a long time. Virsyn Tera is amazing. Reaktor has been around fer a while as well.
Synths in the last two years are not anywhere closer to analog.
O K? Massive is about as analog as my puppy dog. and Tassman 4 has got to be the fourth version of Tassman, which I am gonna guess has been around longer than two years.
Besides that, I agree with Arksun, once something is a digital recording, ones and zeroes if you will, analog begins to loose its feel. I think the solution is not to worry it too much, and just use the synths your enjoy.
cheers
But we'll have to disagree on how analogue the best of todays soft-synths can sound. It was already wonderfully demonstrated in the infamous analogue bass thread that people can be easily fooled (or even prefer the richness of a soft-synth raw oscillator thinking that was the analogue one!).
As someone brought up on hardware synths to being with I'll happily stick my neck out and say soft-synths more than match the quality of digital VA hardware synths with no additional processing and as for emulating pure analogue, they're really not as far off as you think.
Thats more down to a rather rose-tinted view of analogue synths, or listening to an old vinyl thinking that finished end product sound is solely down to such pure analogue synths imho.
...I told myself I wasn't going to get involved this time... NOOOOOOOOoooooo
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- KVRist
- 131 posts since 7 Jan, 2004
I think stuff like this is missguided...and i dont mean to take this OT, so in advance i apologise and i will be quick,...my point is....before there was a choice...people picked by what had the sound they wanted and the best sound for them....
...why has this changed with digital, to me it hasnt i listen to each on its merits...i own a moog, a virus. and a load of soft synths...each has there own sopund to me i aint really looked for a softsynth that sounds as good or better than my moog....
It would be like having a painting...and searching desperately for a good fake of it...even when you found that fake, it would still be different.
So lets not look for fakes....lets let these talented artists paint there own pictures!!!
Matt.
...why has this changed with digital, to me it hasnt i listen to each on its merits...i own a moog, a virus. and a load of soft synths...each has there own sopund to me i aint really looked for a softsynth that sounds as good or better than my moog....
It would be like having a painting...and searching desperately for a good fake of it...even when you found that fake, it would still be different.
So lets not look for fakes....lets let these talented artists paint there own pictures!!!
Matt.
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- KVRist
- 131 posts since 7 Jan, 2004
also....thought it best to add i love my moog 10x more than anything else i have....but its because of so many smalls thing and people will need to be told and learn all the small things that make the moog sound good(note i didnt say analog synths) before..people can create digital synths with some of those little things which make stuff sound sweet.
Matt.
Matt.
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- KVRian
- 1024 posts since 25 Apr, 2002
No disrespect to anyone, but you should all close your browsers and start making music...
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- KVRAF
- 10260 posts since 19 Feb, 2004 from Paris
Most analog sounding (imvho) :
Ie closest to the vintage Hw synths
ImpOscar
Korg Legacy Analog Ed
Vaz
Minimonster
Tassmann 4
Surge
Scope synths
Pro 53
another one who seems promising Minimoon if I remember well.(just by the audio demos)
A lot of other synths can make good analoguish sounds too of course. And I for sure forget to name a lot of equally capable synths.
But with the ones mentioned above you can't really go wrong imo (or have very little risk lest's say
)
LtZ
Ie closest to the vintage Hw synths
ImpOscar
Korg Legacy Analog Ed
Vaz
Minimonster
Tassmann 4
Surge
Scope synths
Pro 53
another one who seems promising Minimoon if I remember well.(just by the audio demos)
A lot of other synths can make good analoguish sounds too of course. And I for sure forget to name a lot of equally capable synths.
But with the ones mentioned above you can't really go wrong imo (or have very little risk lest's say
)LtZ
http://www.lelotusbleu.fr Synth Presets
77 Exclusive Soundbanks for 23 synths, 8 Sound Designers, Hours of audio Demos. The Sound you miss might be there
77 Exclusive Soundbanks for 23 synths, 8 Sound Designers, Hours of audio Demos. The Sound you miss might be there
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- KVRAF
- 1718 posts since 3 Sep, 2003
I've only played with analogs in stores and stuff, but only thing that struck me as being different is is a certain non linearity in the frequency response. As you crank the volume highs responded a bit less than the lows and the low mids jumped out. That was with the korg MS-something.
( Psycho acoustic-ly speaking you would expect the opposite. IE. the loudness effect is a perceived increase in highs and low lows.)
Assuming that the effect is in the synth and not in the headphone amp, it would for example make enveloped sound differently, making attacks sound a bit softer and so on.
Such things can have a lot of impact in how a sound is perceived, but then, they are easily modeled too if one was to bother.
( Psycho acoustic-ly speaking you would expect the opposite. IE. the loudness effect is a perceived increase in highs and low lows.)
Assuming that the effect is in the synth and not in the headphone amp, it would for example make enveloped sound differently, making attacks sound a bit softer and so on.
Such things can have a lot of impact in how a sound is perceived, but then, they are easily modeled too if one was to bother.
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- KVRist
- 173 posts since 3 Sep, 2007 from CT
By the time an analog is recorded on a DAW and compressed, limited, chorused, reverbed, time-stretched, fattened, and glitched to death it doesn't sound like 'real' analogue any more.
Live use? Real knobs that are truly continuous and the low end on the best analogues are superior to the digital emulations. If you don't use the knobs, or the low end, or the continous ramps, glides, tracking, etc it boils down to the 'warmth' factor and some other Filter or FM(Poly mod) implementations.
I also like the G-Force stuff.
Live use? Real knobs that are truly continuous and the low end on the best analogues are superior to the digital emulations. If you don't use the knobs, or the low end, or the continous ramps, glides, tracking, etc it boils down to the 'warmth' factor and some other Filter or FM(Poly mod) implementations.
I also like the G-Force stuff.
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- Banned
- 990 posts since 10 May, 2005 from Anywhere but here
Hi there
Wife and kid is sleeping and I see a thread about emulations at KVR. Mind if I throw in a couple of perspectives?
I joined the synth madness in the 80s and have carried on ever since. Have owned or played synths like the Juno 4, SH101, Juno 60, Polysix and Oberheim.
To me, the keyword for emulation is simply "unsteadiness". Many emus (Arturia and Korg) have built in unsteadiness, but it is often quite simple and can be achieved by other means: Make very small and hardly hearable changes in pitch and/or filters in your sound as far as you are not using the LFO's for other purposes, often with slow phases. Then insert random noise. An easy way to get randomness is by using the LFO's noise- or random- waves, but even a very slow free running sine wave can do it. Mix it to a leve where you almost can not hear it. You can try to add up further with random freq drops outs, especially in the lower part of the sound by adding chorus or phasers, which likewise are mixed to a nearly unhearable level. You can try to emulate voice pr voice instability by having three different instances of the same synth for chords and pitching them slighty different and so forth. Always remember to let the LFO's run free and if you are about to sync them, then do not use tempobased sync (no such thing on most analogue synth, if any!), use only the key-trig and adjust them manually, if you for instance retriggers over a bar, there will be minimal changes in the phases of the sync and therefore further unsteadiness.
Unsteadiness, Instability = fun experiments.
That said the best "analogue" sounds I have ever heard on my own equipment is from my JP8000 which is a Virtual Analogue. I think no one should be fooled by the "hype" of analogue synths, they sounded great, but the VAs of 90s can sound much brighter and can be more swelling and dynamical with respect to their filters and envelopes in my ears. Besides they have tempo sync and lots of programming options. It is like the best from two worlds to me. Softsynth are great as far as I can carry them around in a computer. Soft-emus are even greater if I want to emulate, cause a lot of the work above is already done and you are ready to go.
By the way: Try this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQqHR1HIelE
would any of you think you could hear the difference in a mix?
Best Regards
Wife and kid is sleeping and I see a thread about emulations at KVR. Mind if I throw in a couple of perspectives?
I joined the synth madness in the 80s and have carried on ever since. Have owned or played synths like the Juno 4, SH101, Juno 60, Polysix and Oberheim.
To me, the keyword for emulation is simply "unsteadiness". Many emus (Arturia and Korg) have built in unsteadiness, but it is often quite simple and can be achieved by other means: Make very small and hardly hearable changes in pitch and/or filters in your sound as far as you are not using the LFO's for other purposes, often with slow phases. Then insert random noise. An easy way to get randomness is by using the LFO's noise- or random- waves, but even a very slow free running sine wave can do it. Mix it to a leve where you almost can not hear it. You can try to add up further with random freq drops outs, especially in the lower part of the sound by adding chorus or phasers, which likewise are mixed to a nearly unhearable level. You can try to emulate voice pr voice instability by having three different instances of the same synth for chords and pitching them slighty different and so forth. Always remember to let the LFO's run free and if you are about to sync them, then do not use tempobased sync (no such thing on most analogue synth, if any!), use only the key-trig and adjust them manually, if you for instance retriggers over a bar, there will be minimal changes in the phases of the sync and therefore further unsteadiness.
Unsteadiness, Instability = fun experiments.
That said the best "analogue" sounds I have ever heard on my own equipment is from my JP8000 which is a Virtual Analogue. I think no one should be fooled by the "hype" of analogue synths, they sounded great, but the VAs of 90s can sound much brighter and can be more swelling and dynamical with respect to their filters and envelopes in my ears. Besides they have tempo sync and lots of programming options. It is like the best from two worlds to me. Softsynth are great as far as I can carry them around in a computer. Soft-emus are even greater if I want to emulate, cause a lot of the work above is already done and you are ready to go.
By the way: Try this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQqHR1HIelE
would any of you think you could hear the difference in a mix?
Best Regards
Last edited by Locus M on Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint."
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- KVRAF
- 12555 posts since 7 Dec, 2004
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- KVRAF
- 12555 posts since 7 Dec, 2004
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/sh-09_sawsub.wav
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/xhip_sawsub.wav
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/sawsub.adxi
one major difference in analog gear is that the people using it generally know how to patch it, and are not a bunch of sissy little patch kiddies.
the other difference is that everything just plain works: no aliasing and no limited frequency range, no issues with processing power, a neat and direct interface tied right into the circuit, no latency. "By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody."
there are many synthesizers out there, one of which will remain unnamed (:hihi:) that can do almost all the sounds you want no problem. i cant say "all" because even some analog hardware wont do everything you want, it'll probably do less than the average software. the number one thing you need to do is learn to patch and learn to write music, not a collection of sound.
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/xhip_sawsub.wav
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/sawsub.adxi
one major difference in analog gear is that the people using it generally know how to patch it, and are not a bunch of sissy little patch kiddies.
the other difference is that everything just plain works: no aliasing and no limited frequency range, no issues with processing power, a neat and direct interface tied right into the circuit, no latency. "By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody."
there are many synthesizers out there, one of which will remain unnamed (:hihi:) that can do almost all the sounds you want no problem. i cant say "all" because even some analog hardware wont do everything you want, it'll probably do less than the average software. the number one thing you need to do is learn to patch and learn to write music, not a collection of sound.
