How can I make my Vst's as "full" as hardware?

[Prototype]

People say its a matter of opinion but im not buying it. I've always mixed ITB, but I've never heard a soft synth as "full" as hardware. Ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never get a synth lead track in omnisphere to sound as if it was played on a virus ti. I can never get a soft synth piano to sound like a motif or a nord stage 2. I try layering, fx processing, camel phat distortion, it just doesnt sound the same. Theres something missing. I know how many pros use soft synths, and as far as i know the only real difference between me and them is that theyve got engineers getting down on their tracks with tens of thousands of dollars worth of outboard gear. So my question is how can i get my soft synths to pack that hardware punch? Can industry level pres and converters make that big of a difference? Would expensive hardware compressors and Eq's really do THAT much more damage than Stock Sonitus or fabfilter bundles? Or are there some powerful ITB mixing secrets that i just dont know about yet? Im desperate, i feel like nothing will satisfy my ears until i drop an arm and a leg on a rompler, and i really dont want to do that if i dont have to.

[kritikon]

Sounds to me it's more like you're picking the wrong synths. There are plenty of weedy and thin sounding h/w synths. Most digital ones sound thin to me. Almost every S&S synth made sounded thin unless you piled layer upon layer. Even the real character ones (and I still own one and love it) such as Wavestations sound pretty thin. As with any synth ever made, you can make it sound thicker by good use of FX (phasers, flangers, choruses etc) or various types of distortion. You can even make a h/w OSCar sound thin if you use it in additive mode with little filtering. Then you add the overdrive and it beefs up no end.

And you most definitely don't need heftily expensive h/w outboard to get decent sound. Of course some outboard is superb. But there are also some very good plugins. It's how you use them that is most important, and even that is less important than picking good sounds to use the FX on in the first place.

Personally, yes I use some h/w. I far prefer good VCA comps over most s/w comps. And the difference is quite noticeable when you drive them hard, but you don't and shouldn't be driving a compressor hard on every single channel anyway. But then I also use plenty of s/w other types of FX, such as delays and reverbs and modFX. And believe you me, I can make some pretty fat and thick sounds with s/w synths such as impOSCar. A decent impOSCar patch is always but always going to sound fatter, thicker and more characterful than some weedy synth like a Juno. And that's even with the Juno chorus on (and it's a very good chorus). And by the way, I have a Juno106, AlphaJuno2 and impOSCar. I'm not making it up. I will almost always choose impOSCar over any of the Junos for most sounds (although not all).

[discoDSP]

Sounds to me it's more like you're picking the wrong synths.

This.

[lfm]

I don't think it's about hardware/software synths as much as just different synths.

Some prefer Motif and some Clavia stuff as well - so hardware is not all the same either.

So you haven't found a softsynth VSTi that correspond to the hardware you layed hands on?

Just rent and loan a hardware synth and make recording with it and see how your mixing skills are. Most music stores let you try it at home. That will give you the answer how you do - compared to professional recordings out there.

Have you actually taken the hardware into the computer realm - or just listened with outboard gear and amps and stuff - which is quite anothere experience.

The Arturia stuff have something about them - if you haven't tried them.

Just how I see it....Merry Christmas to you.

[breakmixer]

Well I own a Mopho, Alpha Juno, DX-21, Plugiator, Ultranova, Miniak, Venom.

Software could replace the Ultranova(but I'm using it as my midi controller and running the audio of my Plugiator through it too because of low output level), too my ears this could maybe be replaced by Dune or Diversion maybe, it sounds quite close to them synths. I haven't been knocked out by Ultranova soundwise. It may get the chop soon.

My Plugiator moslty could be almost be replaced by VA's like Diva, Oxium, Lush-101 etc etc, but at the cost of CPU, plus my Plugiator has an awesome easy to use Vocoder.

Miniak again could be replaced by any number of VA VST's for it's sound(almost), for me this synth would be first to get the chop if I ever buy a Prophet 08/Mopho x4. But again it's not pulling any CPU.

Mopho, closest I've heard to it is Oxium, but I would say cannot be replaced in hardware IMHO.

Alpha Juno, could be almost replaced by Tal Uno LX 2. I have both. But still prefer the real analogue of the Roland.

Venom, nice phat sounding analog/digital sounding hardware synth - Alchemy to me is the closest if I had to find a software alternative. I love both equally.

DX-21, many FM VST synths out their, but to me don't sound as good as the real thing on the Bass side of things.

[Jace-BeOS]

Gotta say, I previously felt there was a subtle something more powerful about hardware, though I've not believed that it matters in a mix. However, just this week I've been spending some time with the Virus TI I bought in 2007 and never used... and I can't honestly stand by my original assessment. Granted, I might be monitoring at a lower volume than before (I've some extra hearing damage, so I treat my hearing even more carefully now), and that might have an effect on perception. But when I auditioned some commercial soft synths after running updaters I'd been neglecting, I had to ask myself if my earlier perception was correct because these soft synths sounded no less powerful than the Virus.

More importantly, the presets vary a lot on some synths. There are times when, trawling through the ROM set on the Virus, I wonder why I chose to buy it in the first place (actually, I was out of my mind at the time, so that has something to do with it). But I realize pretty swiftly upon the next fat analog emulation patch that the Virus' true value might be its versatility. It sounds digital if that's what you want. It sounds analog if that's what you want. I don't know what a truly analog synth sounds like. I didn't buy any on my spending spree. But from what I can tell as an owner of three hardware synths with analog modeling and the professional recordings I enjoy listening to, it doesn't actually matter what the difference is.

Gary Numan was an analog synth user when he established himself. Yet in a behind the stage interview, when pressed for explanations for having no classic synths in his current live setup, he seemed kinda frustrated with the preoccupation the interviewer had with such old equipment. He pointed to a Virus TI and said "this can do all of the same stuff those could do. Why bother with the maintenance?" This same argument can be used for software vs hardware. In my mind, the real difference is convenience vs stability. Hardware is more reliable (unless it's not true dedicated hardware; see the postings about Korg Kronos and Oasys). Software is more convenient (when it's working).

My reason for wanting to own hardware comes down to the following:

• dedicated controls for hands-on operation
• reliability and stability

Sound isn't in that list as much as I previously thought it might be. Even my V-Synth XT can be somewhat equalled or surpassed by a couple pieces of software (several, if we're going feature by feature). But no level of control mapping to generic controllers feels as ... direct(?)... as "real" hardware. And no computer configuration that includes more than an OS and one single audio device and soft synth is as reliable as hardware (let's not even talk about boot and app start time).

But again... Sound isn't on my list. If you want to donate impressive hardware to me, I'll happily spend more time comparing. But no one will and it doesn't matter once a song is done.

[lfm]

It sounds analog if that's what you want. I don't know what a truly analog synth sounds like.

One thing that is often forgotten is that Real Analog synths with analog oscillators are unstable and have to be tuned every couple of seconds until the machine is fully warm - in a couple of hours or so.

Have a friend that had such a thingy in the 70's and before he went on stage hade to go out in complete darkness and tune the synth to be able to play when entering stage in a few minutes.

Even if sounding lovely that is a drawback compared to hybrid synths of today.

Had a Roland SH-32 that had plenty settings for destabilizing oscillator a bit to sound more analog. I guess that is what these good sounding synths of today do.

[Emerald Tablet]

You can find numerous YouTube videos in which comparisons are made between analogue hardware synths and digital emulations in which studio pro's find no significant differences. But let's say you can spot the difference. Does it matter if you can always create the illusion of analogue? :
When you see Thin or Full are mere colors on your pallet you can use them to create contrast. A filter sounds more present on a distorted signal. A clean sound comes across even more clean after an overdriven signal. When you detune a synth and mix it with the original signal you will hear a fat sound (and believe me I have played tau through a detuner and tau as it is, to a pro asking him which sound was the analogue one, and he obviously pointed at the detuned version) . When you strip a signal of its stereo spread and perhaps even of its bit depth you will hear a thin sound. You can play with the way people perceive sound to create auditive illusions. Even up down and left right and in front and behind you and far and near are subjective perceptions of your listeners. For instance, if you place a low note in the left upper corner of a mix someone will perceive it as low (left under corner) because we are wired to perceive low sounds in our belly and not in our heads. Any sound distortion and sound character and even its unpredictable components can be mimicked digitally. And this means you can always create the illusion of analogue.

And that my friend is called psycho acoustics

[hebb]

It sounds fuller b/c left and right channels are slightly different from each other - it's pretty obvious if you look at the waveforms. This is why it sounds so fat and full, and wide, I think.

[kmonkey]

I started with hardware, liked software, invested a lot of time (years) to get sound from my software to sound like hardware. It was an empty adventure. You are beating dead horse. I had what is considered best plugins on todays market. Nebula, UAD, Powercore.. whatever. I never could get that sound.

I talked with a lot of people. Generally some said that it's my mixing skills, some said i am stupid and that i should not try to imitate hardware synths with software.

But i believed that it's my mixing fault. I've spent ridiculous amount of time, saw quite a lot of books but i couldn't get it. Now i am switching to hardware. Sound is full(call it whatever you like) again, i don't spend hours and hours on "mixing" to get sound which i want. It's just there. With so less time. It's kinda "who the f*** removed blanket from my speakers" sound.

Look i really readed all crazy shit. I learned a lot because of this particular (i even created name by myself, i call it "perceptional issue")issue, I do realize that most of my hardware is software, and that sine wave is sine wave, i do know about nyquist, i do know about limits of sampling frequencies, i do know for oversampling i do know for volterra kernels, different converters, harmonic distortion of several orders i learned a lot of technical stuff but nothing really helped.

After all these years i can say that yes software is getting better but it's not the same thing and it shouldn't be. Look there are ton of features which you can find for example in Reaktor or Zebra but you can not find them in hardware. Ok with that. Software is cool.

But long story short after so many time i can say this: use both! Do not try to imitate well known hardware with software. That is just stupid because you will never get that sound. MAybe, just maybe you will nail it but time you wasted to nail it is going to be absurd. Instead use whatever technology you use, use hardware and with software fill gaps in between and vice versa.

There is no other way. End of story.

[lfm]

After all these years i can say that yes software is getting better but it's not the same thing and it shouldn't be. Look there are ton of features which you can find for example in Reaktor or Zebra but you can not find them in hardware. Ok with that. Software is cool.

But long story short after so many time i can say this: use both! Do not try to imitate well known hardware with software. That is just stupid because you will never get that sound. MAybe, just maybe you will nail it but time you wasted to nail it is going to be absurd. Instead use whatever technology you use, use hardware and with software fill gaps in between and vice versa.

There is no other way. End of story.

I wonder it has to do with dynamics - that we run the software too much up to the digital zero, rather than -50dB on the oscillators giving them headroom.

I really think that is part of it.

Hardware is probably designed with this in perspective - you need dynamics, both for output levels but also for filters to work with high Q-factors.

If you run oscillators at -12dB level, there is not much left to work with. And in todays EDM you probably run a compressor/limiter to keep it the same all the way through.

When systems were 16-bit, keeping levels up were kind of crucial. But now with 24-bit, or 32-bit or even 64-bit float you can go crazy if you want.

So work with really low levels on oscillators is my tip.

[Prototype]

thanks for all the responses. Amazing answers. I shouldve gave more details. What im working with Are omnisphere, camel audios alchemy and camel phat,Big Fish audio's RiG, Dune by Synapse,addictive keys, and hoping to get into Sylenth and Nexus 2 soon. the hardware i have been heavily considering is the motif, nord stage 2, and virus ti (i do hear often that the virus's real power is in the hands on versatility as opposed to in the box parameters). i havent really invested much in hardware and im going to need to do that soon anyways so im wondering if getting some high end pre's or channel strips to run my synth tracks out and then back in through would at that fullness im looking for. or do you guys still believe its just all in my head and that some soft synths are really identical to those keyboards i mentioned?

[Prototype]

loved kmonkeys post too, even if i manage to perfectly emulate hardware with software, at what cost? how much time and money will i have wasted that i couldve invested into developing other areas of my studio and career?

[djanthonyw]

Diva
Lush
U-No-Lx

No more exuses, these type of threads are moot now.

[danbroad]

I wonder it has to do with dynamics - that we run the software too much up to the digital zero, rather than -50dB on the oscillators giving them headroom.

I really think that is part of it.

Hardware is probably designed with this in perspective - you need dynamics, both for output levels but also for filters to work with high Q-factors.

If you run oscillators at -12dB level, there is not much left to work with. And in todays EDM you probably run a compressor/limiter to keep it the same all the way through.

When systems were 16-bit, keeping levels up were kind of crucial. But now with 24-bit, or 32-bit or even 64-bit float you can go crazy if you want.

So work with really low levels on oscillators is my tip.

this +1000. There's an awful lot of internet psychology at work.

how many people wrongly assume an analogue synth is more powerful because it's mono? Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, take your ['weak' VA] Nord Lead, run it as 4 separate Mono outs thereby defeating the stereo soundstage, learn to mix those signals properly in terms of loudness and pan, and all of a sudden each output sounds far 'meatier'. If you have a DSI synth [with a naturally stereo output] amp it in mono and you'll see what I mean. It's a lie, of course, it's just a perception change, but so many folks listen to a cross-delay and a stereo reverb-drenched preset and think 'weak' when compared to a dry mono signal, even if oscillator phase and drift aren't part of the equation.

Likewise, people run their DAW levels way too hot. Driving an older analogue signal to bring out the levels and up the headroom resulted in a warm saturation given the tech of the time. Misty eyed analogue reminiscence is in my opinion a misplaced love of vintage saturation - the sort that analogue consoles and Studer decks gave you, rather than the synths themselves. The answer to 'getting that Vangelis sound' is to turn off the quantise and learn to use saturation creatively rather than to buy a fookin' CS-80.

Then we're into the 'hardware hysteria' perpetuated by other forums. There is a snowball effect out there. Experienced voices [and I've always considered Muff's to be the forum with the least BS in all of this, even though it's based in the hardest hardware of them all, the beardy world of the patch cable] seem to embrace the hybrid and the possible, rather than trying to endlessly recreate the sort of imperfections that engineers were paid to get rid of 30 years ago.