KVR Audio

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 8:35 pm

budweiser wrote:Old harware samplers, mostly 8 & 12 bit with analog filters & analog adsr. Found nothing in the software world that sounds like my mirage (ensoniq), emax (1 - emu) or asr (even if the asr is 16 bit fully digital). A single soft synth bass note resampled in the mirage is just whou-ou

Just being a nit, the Mirage has software envelopes. Analogue filters, yes, analogue eg, no. Even the famous Emu Emulator which preceded the Mirage and, IIRC, cost more than twice as much on release, used software envelopes. Believe it or not, even the Fairlight CMI uses software envelopes. I might be mistaken, but I can't recall a single production sampler that didn't use software envelopes.

By 1982, some analog synths had software envelopes, e.g., the Prophet 600. By 1984, they were fast/cheap enough such that they were satisfactory for almost all analog synths. For example, the Jupiter 6 came out in 1983, the Juno 106 in 1984. The Jupiter 8 was Roland's last flagship synth with hardware envelopes and Moog stuck with hardware envelopes until the end. But samplers were much more dependent on computer hardware speed so I suspect that software envelopes were largely viewed as a "no-brainer."

Perhaps a production hardware eg sampler existed, and I'm missing it, but, of the ones that immediately come to mind, Ensoniq Mirage, SCI P2k, P3k, Korg DSI, DSM all used software envelopes.

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 8:51 pm

^^ Are you sure about that ? The mirage manual clearly specified : "digitally controled amplifier" (dca), which in my mind means analog under digital control. And they're really sweet to the ears... The emax eg is clearly a soft, on the other hand (but it sounds damn good

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 3:18 am

budweiser wrote:^^ Are you sure about that ? The mirage manual clearly specified : "digitally controled amplifier" (dca), which in my mind means analog under digital control. And they're really sweet to the ears... The emax eg is clearly a soft, on the other hand (but it sounds damn good

Yes, I'm absolutely positive. I've owned three. The last one was a basket case and I just parted it out. I know very well which end of the soldering iron gets hot and if there were any analog EG chips in there they would be in my bag of synth chips like the CEM3328 filter chips that I took from it.

Here's the block diagram, you can see that the output from the Q chip is multiplexed into the CEM 3328 filters by the 4051. The only analog control voltages feeding the the 3328 are cutoff and resonance which are taken from two additional 4051s driven by a DAC. Now, I know the CEM3328 fairly well, it does not have a separate VCA on the output like many of the later CEM chips do. You can see the datasheet here: http://www.synthtech.com/cem/c3328pdf.pdf

The point is, there is no, per voice VCA so no way to do, per voice, analog control of the level, only the output VCA which is a CEM3360 in the DSK, I suspect that this is really only there primarily to control the output while sampling, because, the sampling input goes through one of the filters.

So the filter actually comes after the "DCA" which is internal to the Q chip. The DCA terminology is a bit unfortunate, but it's simply familiar language, it's really just a DA, or, in fact, a multiply operation. All control signals are summed in software and multiplied by the output waveform which is then fed into the filters. The Advanced Sampling Guide shows you that the DCA feeds the filters, not the other way around as is typically done. If there were analog envelopes, you would have to have a VCA because analog envelopes provide a voltage and/or current. There would be virtually no point to taking an analog envelope, digitizing its level (quickly), and then using that to control the level of a digital multiply operation.

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 4:27 pm

^^ Hou, your knowledge of this old beast goes far beyond mine ! I'm not very familiar with schematics but this one is clear enough. Thanks for those explanations. And as long as to be off topic, let me ask you something i never clearly understood : the relationship between voice and wavesample. The manual is not loquacious about that. I never found a way to change a wavesample assignement, for example. Is it memory related ? (i mean are the memory pages allocated for sampling voice locked ?) Despite some experimentations this was never clear to me.

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 6:16 pm

Sjefke wrote:How many pieces of hardware are still unreplacable by software in your setup.

In my case it would be Kronos, and not even for its sounds, but mostly for Karma, which is my ultimate tool for getting inspiration...

Now i am just wondering if anyone still has hardware they deem unreplacable by software because of its unique sound.

But Karma can be used as software with several Korg and Yamaha synths, so in a sense it IS "replaceable"...

crystalmsc · Post by **crystalmsc** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:26 am

MS-20mini
Technosaurus Microcon 2
miniBrute
Pulse+
uWaveXT
the Volcas

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:58 am

budweiser wrote:^^ Hou, your knowledge of this old beast goes far beyond mine ! I'm not very familiar with schematics but this one is clear enough. Thanks for those explanations. And as long as to be off topic, let me ask you something i never clearly understood : the relationship between voice and wavesample. The manual is not loquacious about that. I never found a way to change a wavesample assignement, for example. Is it memory related ? (i mean are the memory pages allocated for sampling voice locked ?) Despite some experimentations this was never clear to me.

Horrible memories. IIRC, you can't change a wavesample number of a sample in memory because they are indexes into the consecutive list of start and end pages. So, if your sample is on wavesample 1, to move it to 8, you probably have to resample/reload. Please don't ask me the detail about how to do that, it's been years.

The Mirage has two oscillators for each of the 8 voices. Each oscillator can play back one wavesample at a time. So, you can theoretically hear up to 16 different wave samples at the same time, but, each pair of oscillators will share the same voice parameters, e.g., the filter cutoff will be the same the envelopes will be the same etc.

The thing is, you really have to plan your wavesample assignment because the Mirage is old technology and uses simple ideas for wave assignment. For example, in mix mode, where you hear both wavesamples for each voice, the wavesamples must be consecutively numbered. So, unlike with a modern synth, it's a bit of an exercise to change your mind about which two samples you're going to hear.

So, you can have more wavesamples than voices, this is good for multissamnples. I'm certain that the Mirage Piano is multisampled. Of course it's alsu useful for different sounding samples across the keys. But, no matter how many multisamples that you set up, there are always a maximum of 8 voices, or 8 keys down at once, each voice having it's own filter and envelopes.

I hope that this helps. Believe it or not I still have a paper copy of the advanced sampler's guide.

BTW: If you like this kind of sampler, and you have the space, keep your eyes open for a Korg DSS-1, they have wonderful filters.

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:56 am

^^ Hmm... not really, but i have to dig this voice thing anyway. I'm a 8/12 bit samplers whore so i don't really need another 8/12 bit sampler but i'll have a look if i can find a dss 1 for cheap.. Thanks for the explanations !

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 12:21 pm

My guitars, flutes, harmonicas, sax, trumpet, mandolin, banjo. I can't replace any of them with software and get the same results.

Try creative feedback, tongue flutter, fast draw/blow, a good sax tone, a good trumpet tone, tremolo picking, frailing - incredibly difficult if not impossible with software.

whitecloud · Post by **whitecloud** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 1:33 pm

My electric guitars and tube amps, all of my acoustic guitars. Analogs synths I own or have owned, sorry VA's aren't the same too me but not saying I don't use them. Waldorf XT, Kawai K5000. Sherman Filter bank

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 4:01 pm

Irreplaceable:
Korg Kronos X
Roland V-Synth GT
Almost replaceable except for a couple of sounds:
Yamaha Motif XSr

Much of my software searches deal with looking for replacements for those that will do it to my liking. So Zebra fills the V-Synth GT sound for about 85-90% while AAS String Studio and Chromaphone get another 2-5% of it down for me.
XLN AKeys is pretty close to the pianos I get in Kronos and the Motif, but I still prefer them over XLN. (Except for the Electric Grand which I have to give XLN the edge to.) But Kronos has the nine engines and only two are completely covered in their KLC VIs. So the search continues...
For me, Gladiator 2 fills the Radias-r more than adequately and gives me everything I ever wanted out of a D-50 too.
The Motifs still do the guitar work, and the jazz flute is the only one I can stand from anything I've found available.
But as someone else mentioned, the boards are about the play-ability as much as the sounds. The V-Synth-GT APS with foot trigger has become essential to my style and 'Elastic Audio' seems to be the only thing that breaks free of that 'Roland philosophy' of 'compress and truncate' everything before you add it to the machine.
I do have two controllers and am actively looking at foot pedals like the PKs too. Can't figure out why they haven't added a USB to them yet?
So yeah, because they aren't merely keyboards and play like instruments, I plan on keeping my Kronos and V-Synth GT in the mix as long as possible.

Bronto Scorpio · Post by **Bronto Scorpio** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 4:24 pm

budweiser wrote:Old harware samplers, mostly 8 & 12 bit with analog filters & analog adsr. Found nothing in the software world that sounds like my mirage (ensoniq), emax (1 - emu) or asr (even if the asr is 16 bit fully digital). A single soft synth bass note resampled in the mirage is just whou-ou

Sonic Charge Cyclone is quite nice to emulate the sound of old samplers! It's a really fun tool, at least I already had a lot of fun with it!

Somehow, it doesn't get mentioned here very often, though!

Cheers
Dennis

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:32 pm

Oddly enough, Push is now my irreplaceable hardware...

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:00 pm

pdxindy wrote:Oddly enough, Push is now my irreplaceable hardware...

No doubt. Which makes Live sort of irreplaceable software, ATM.

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:34 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
pdxindy wrote:Oddly enough, Push is now my irreplaceable hardware...
No doubt. Which makes Live sort of irreplaceable software, ATM.

Yeah... it was clever of them actually...

Unreplacable hardware