Well, I think it's not always psychological, at least not in the way you're thinking about it. Here's my take on it. If the ___________ (insert name hardware synth here) is a cornerstone of your "sound," then get one. No plug-in will probably do it for you. If you kind of dig the sound of a synth like the Virus from time to time, any of the mentioned synths will probably get you most of the way there. I'm in the second camp. I had a Virus C. I liked it plenty, but frankly found I was fine replacing it with Sylenth1, z3ta+, even Zebra 2.chk071 wrote:Not that i want to start a discussion about this kind of thing... but i find it interesting that there are loads of threads like these, asking for software equivalents for hardware synths, while there's only very few threads in the other direction. The most mentioned soft synth in that regard would be Sylenth, which many want to replace, especially due to its lack of development, and 64-bit mac version. It's interesting how certain hardware synths get this kind of "legendary" status, while the same doesn't really apply to soft synths. I know that it's not exactly the case here, as the OP just seems to be eager to have a replacement for doing sketches mostly, but to me, there seems to be some sort of "psychological" thing involved in most cases. Hardware always seems to have some "legend status" potential, even though in most cases, there's software which is on par, or even better. Don't get me wrong, i don't want to criticize that, and i don't think anyone including me is immune to that, just find it interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iav45egrmo
Hell, I guess with Zebra being a modular you could actually patch the identical architecture of a Virus in it. So, even though the OP already said he found his synth, I'm stepping in and telling him he's wrong.
I bet you could do it with VAZ Modular too.The reason this doesn't go the other way is that most VSTs are so cheap that no one is sitting around trying to duplicate the sound of a $179 plug in $1799 hardware. Chances are the hardware will probably do a bit better especially in the areas of resonance. For comparisons I've done Discovery Pro sounds in my Nord Lead 2x. It was interesting. The Nord aliased a bit more giving it a brighter grittier sound but the Nord also had true unison that Discovery Pro did not. The latest build of Discovery Pro does now have unison. I tried it and it didn't strike me as sounding as good as the Nord's unison, but I no longer have the Nord around. Like I said, it wasn't the "cornerstone" of my sound, so it wasn't worth the money or space it was taking up in my studio when I can get Discovery Pro almost all the way there when I want that sound. I also tried to get some Diva patches to sound the same as my KingKORG, and I found the KingKORG actually sounded a bit better. Warmer, yet also at the same time more present. I'm not selling Diva any time soon, as it's awesome in it's own way but I wanted to have at least one hardware VA around and I like the sound of the KingKORG more than the Virus. Hell, I'd probably own a Nord Lead A1 rack instead of the KingKORG if they releaed a firmware update that allowed me to assign aftertouch to various parameters. I dig it's sound more than the Lead 4 and I like the smaller form factor.
The Virus patch import is broken tho.
