Will there ever be any new hardware digital synths that aren't "virtual analog"?

Anything about hardware musical instruments.
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I'm talking about the likes of the yamaha dx7 or ppg wave that don't even pretend to sound like analogue. They wear their digital badge with pride. I didn't think to snatch a yamaha dx200 before they became extinct. Now you're lucky to find one on ebay that's not beat to shit for under $400. I've also been looking at dx7s on ebay but most of them have been refurbished or have had stuff replaced on them by god knows who...

I just kind of wish there was a modern digital-sounding synth with USB patch management/updates. I know a lot of people are going to wonder what's the point of a synth like that since it can be mostly recreated in software, but like most hardware synths the tactile feel is a huge part of the experience. Does this make sense it am I missing a piece of the puzzle? Was the dx200 not successful for yamaha? Or does nobody like that sound anymore?

-Sam

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The last one I can think of may have been the V-Synth - which is wonderful

I guess the Nord G2 probably counts too - although it can do VA (so can the V-Synth) it can also do much more including great FM and physical modelling synthesis, and even additive

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Actually thinking about it (and ironically) the Virus Ti is probably a good example of a modern digital synth - yes it does have a huge VA aspect, but it is also a very capable wavetable, graintable and formant based synth.

Then of course there is also Waldorf Blofeld which is also a wavetable synth so unashamedly digital.

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Yep, the blofeld. Digital all day long.

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Well there are more rompler-type sampler workstations than you can shake a stick at, and the niche most likely won't go away because they are so dang useful and flexible. Most of them have samples of analog sounds, samples of additive sounds, yadda yadda. And such as the Roland FA or Jupiter or Korg Kronos have VA modules if you want the VA, with slightly better options than mixing a bunch of waves and applying a simulated filter. Though there are IMO lots of sounds that are nice, which come from mixing a bunch of waves and applying a simulated filter.

It doesn't seem absurd that a rompler could have a ppg-style wave scanning feature added. Most of what is necessary for vector synthesis is already in there in the engine, except the vector synthesis control software. Or maybe Kronos already has that. I had a Kronos but it arrived defective. Case was in perfect shape and it sounded fine but crashed every 10 minutes, so sent it back after a few days and didn't learn everything about it. Was gunshy about getting another.

I really like my Yammie TX-416 and Kawai K5m. Did a truckload of programming on both in the dim past. They are special-case instruments, as are analog axes. A rompler can get close to all the special-case axes, at least for canned sounds. I may be remembering wrong, but the K5000 was basically the same K5 additive engine plus rompler features. I wasn't knocked out by the sampled sounds in the K5000 so never bothered to get one.

Both additive synthesis and FM synthesis programming are not for the faint of heart, and it is said that very few musicians ever go beyond the presets that come from the factory. Maybe VA or analog is more popular because there is more instant gratification twisting the knobs, compared to FM or additive programming?

A new additive synth perhaps closer to the old synergy than the K5? Or a "vastly expanded" synth laid out like the K5. Which would make it even more a bear to program. One big thing the K5 lacked-- A single voice had two 63 harmonic oscillators, and each oscillator had a pitch envelope that would smack all 63 harmonics the same amount. Then there were four amplitude envelopes per oscillator, and you could assign assortments of the harmonics among the four amplitude envelopes. Then envelopes controlling a filter and amp section. I believe the filter worked by manipulating the individual harmonics rather than being any kind of emulated analog or IIR filter, but could be mistaken.

However, to be a real kewl additive synth, the thang really needs separate multi-segment pitch and amplitude envelopes for every single harmonic. Anything less than that forces compromises which don't live up to the promise of additive. But such a thang is a beast to program.

It is so difficult to make transients and noises with additive, would also be good to have an extra section good for making transients and noise, either synthetic or sample->filter based.

It would be great for the additive synth to be able to auto-analyze samples input from the puter, so you could quickly get a prototype patch to further modify, from a real sound. Back in the old days I wrote a program on the freakin commodore 64 that would get sounds out of my ensoniq mirage sampler, FFT them, and transmit the harmonics to the K5 for further work. It was sorta helpful sometimes. :)

A top of the line modern additive synth, if done right, would be a beast.

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The "not VA" stuff that's really great are things like Wavegenerator, String Studio, chipsounds (partially), some sample libraries. And none of this stuff is gonna be released as a proprietary hardware-bound product, and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Touch interfaces, modular physical knob / fader controllers, well featured non-modular controllers that you can be comfortable enough with. That's what's left, and it's not such a bad thing. The really interesting stuff is in native software now, that's it, no point in fighting it. Better modular controllers should be made, and probably will be.
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Claudio Monteverdi

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Shy wrote:The "not VA" stuff that's really great are things like Wavegenerator, String Studio, chipsounds (partially), some sample libraries. And none of this stuff is gonna be released as a proprietary hardware-bound product, and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Touch interfaces, modular physical knob / fader controllers, well featured non-modular controllers that you can be comfortable enough with. That's what's left, and it's not such a bad thing. The really interesting stuff is in native software now, that's it, no point in fighting it. Better modular controllers should be made, and probably will be.
Excellent points. One compelling advantage of well made dedicated hardware is longevity. I still have my K5 after all these years, it still works, I still like it. If the K5 had been released as software for the commodore 64 (impossible yeah, but for sake of example), I wouldn't have the K5 anymore. It would have died long ago with the platform.

Music is a tough biz. Tough on musicians, tough on hardware companies, tough on software developers. Lots of em go out of biz or move on to "bigger and better" or at least "different" products. When software gets orphaned and its gone next time a new OS release comes out. Unless you want to start a museum of obsolete computers to run the old stuff on.

For instance, there are folks with thousands of dollars and hundreds or thousands hours invested in gigastudio, who have to make do either keeping ancient machines running somehow, or playing the sounds on a couple of replacement players, or going to even more trouble porting the sounds to some other sampler software, and NO software company or product is immune from going belly up or deciding it is unprofitable to continue program maintenance. So it is merely delaying the inevitable to port the sounds to a new sampler software.

Hardware certainly isn't immortal, but good hardware seems to have a longer usable lifetime.

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foosnark wrote:Image
That looks nice - pity its a kit

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The Ploytec PL2 is a digital synth with an actual analog filter. I don't think this would be classified as VA:

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The Korg Triton Taktile keyboards are interesting in that they have more controllers than the original Tritons ever had:

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masterhiggins wrote:...but like most hardware synths the tactile feel is a huge part of the experience. Does this make sense it am I missing a piece of the puzzle?

-Sam
I'm also drawn to hardware synths for their tactile feel, however, my own definition of what constitutes 'tactile' does not include synths like DX7, Kawai K5, et al. Pressing buttons and navigating menus is not my idea of fun (and I grew up on pressing such buttons and diving deep into menus on my SY77). For this reason, I love my Nord Lead 3, which despite being a (digital sounding) VA with some FM, the 'knobular' design makes it one of the best, if not the best full hands-on digital synths (albeit based on the VA-paradigm).

On the other scale is the Kronos, which has a superb Physical Modeling synthesis engine, but the tactile feel is non-existent. Obviously, making all those parameters available via direct access knobs would be the stuff of fantasy, so the question is, how to make such a complex synth engine available via a better hands-on design. One instrument that comes to mind is Jon Bowen's Solaris, which offers a nice compromise between complexity and direct access via knobs. In fact, the Solaris has enough options to take it away from its dominant VA approach, into pure digital synthesis (via its Waldorf-sourced wavetables, Prophet VS waves, 2 Rotors, comb filter options, etc).
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