Next after UNO-LX

[fmr]

Yamaha CS - two good emulations already - Arturia and Gunnar;

Arturia sound like crap. There are quite few threads of arguing about it and matters (there's no such threads about Diva, UNO/Bassline or Monark)

ME80 is ok, but I've heard quite a few zebra demos that sound better (yes, I have polyphonic aftertouch keyboard and vangelis in closet)

Another quick dismissal on Arturia. There are some who don't like it, but there many who do. I guess it's impossible to please everybody. But there are two emulations already. That's a fact. And, as you pointed, Zebra does a good job too (not only in this, in so much more). But Zebra is not emulating anything, and recreating a particular synth architecture in it is a painful job.

Polymoog - what's so interesting about it?

Polymoog: Divide down architecture + moog filter + resonator. Quite distinctive oftenly non string machine sound.

I was checking the Polymoog, and heard some sounds, and it could be interesting to develop something around it's basis - but it had to be much more extended in programability - a simple emulation would be disapointing, I guess. It would requeire a different approach, IMO.

ARPs with ARP filter. Gforce Oddity, Arturia ARP 2600V, WOW TimewARP. What's with these?

Timewarp demos are nice but but it doesn't sound like arp. Never heard Oddity.

So, we consider this checked, right? And again, the simplistic assertion "It doesn't sound like ARP". What ARP? I bet you would say that if I presented you a real ARP recorded, and told you it was a plug-in.

String Machine: WOK Cromina, Night Flight and Xils V+;

Do you have string machine? I have quite a few of records where arp omni sounds amazing. None of plugins are sounding close enought: they are too stable, they envs are respoding differently and filter doesn't sound the way hardware sound. They good only with phaser for certain jarre sounds, not further. For example on one of my favorite childhood vynils they are used as bellish eps, basic pads and harsh viola like sounds. Emus doesn't go further than basic string sound.

You lost me here - Do you have a string machine, or records of a string machine? Because I have lots of records with string machines, you know? And the emulations I mentioned get the specific genre well covered for me.

ARP Omni is not even THE string machine - that honour belongs to the Solina and the Eminent, AFAIK, or to the Roland VP-330, Crumar Performer and Elka Rhapsody. The Omni doesn't even qualify as a string machine (quoting VSE: "The Omni is an analog synth with preset Orchestral String sounds. It has polyphonic Violin and Viola waveforms as well as monophonic Bass and Cello waveforms. It is split into 3 sections: Strings, Synthesizer, and Bass synth - all simultaneously available."). Seems too limited to deserve an emulation, IMO. A sample library (and there are some) may get the job done good enough here. Specially if we could run it through a powerful synth engine like the ones in HALion or Mach Five.

EDIT: I was checking, and the Omni seems to not even catch the attention of the sample library producers Sorry, I understand you love it.

[david.beholder]

Another quick dismissal on Arturia. There are some who don't like it, but there many who do. I guess it's impossible to please everybody. But there are two emulations already. That's a fact. And, as you pointed, Zebra does a good job too (not only in this, in so much more). But Zebra is not emulating anything, and recreating a particular synth architecture in it is a painful job.

Well, I agree here, different crayons have different colors. Altho some plugins are getting damn close to actual box, some don't get close at all.

I was checking the Polymoog, and heard some sounds, and it could be interesting to develop something around it's basis - but it had to be much more extended in programability - a simple emulation would be disapointing, I guess. It would requeire a different approach, IMO.

Bassline 101 already have couple of features that were not in original one. It's good to add anything to Emulation as loong

And again, the simplistic assertion "It doesn't sound like ARP". What ARP? I bet you would say that if I presented you a real ARP recorded, and told you it was a plug-in.

ARP 2600 with arp oscs, arp filters, arp modulation etc.
Depends, really depends on record and what you gonna do with it. Do you have real ARP to try?

ARP Omni is not even THE string machine - that honour belongs to the Solina and the Eminent, AFAIK, or to the Roland VP-330, Crumar Performer and Elka Rhapsody. The Omni doesn't even qualify as a string machine (quoting VSE: "The Omni is an analog synth with preset Orchestral String sounds. It has polyphonic Violin and Viola waveforms as well as monophonic Bass and Cello waveforms. It is split into 3 sections: Strings, Synthesizer, and Bass synth - all simultaneously available.").

It's definitely string machine because it's polyphonic and have registers based on divide down circuit. (I'm quite serious about it)

Seems too limited to deserve an emulation, IMO. A sample library (and there are some) may get the job done good enough here. Specially if we could run it through a powerful synth engine like the ones in HALion or Mach Five.

EDIT: I was checking, and the Omni seems to not even catch the attention of the sample library producers Sorry, I understand you love it.

Sampling wouldn't work with string machine - all notes should be 100% phase locked, haven't seen sampler allowing that. If they aren't phase locked it's gonna lead to different sound. Not better or worse, just different.

[EvilDragon]

There were three revisions of ARP 2600 and they all sound different. So, WayOutWare probably nailed ONE out of those three revisions.

[Uncle E]

Another quick dismissal on Arturia. There are some who don't like it, but there many who do. I guess it's impossible to please everybody.

With all due respect to my friends at Arturia, there doesn't exist software that sounds like a Jupiter 8 in side-by-side comparisons.

So, we consider this checked, right? And again, the simplistic assertion "It doesn't sound like ARP". What ARP? I bet you would say that if I presented you a real ARP recorded, and told you it was a plug-in.

I've owned a couple 2600's, one of them a Blue Meanie. The Timewarp really sounds quite different.

[fmr]

Another quick dismissal on Arturia. There are some who don't like it, but there many who do. I guess it's impossible to please everybody.

With all due respect to my friends at Arturia, there doesn't exist software that sounds like a Jupiter 8 in side-by-side comparisons.

Hi, Uncle E. I rspect your opinion, but, as I said previouly, I was able to recreate original patches from the Jupiter-8, using patch sheets, in the Jupiter-8V, and compared the sound with the recordings in Synthmania, and they sounded close enough. In a side by side comparioson, I admit there might exist small differences in sound, specially at extreme values (envelopes, resonance, etc.) but bear in mind there are no two analogue synths that sound alike, and if you could pick half a dozen Jupiter-8 and put them side by side, you'd probably noticed differences in sound from one to the other.

So, we consider this checked, right? And again, the simplistic assertion "It doesn't sound like ARP". What ARP? I bet you would say that if I presented you a real ARP recorded, and told you it was a plug-in.

I've owned a couple 2600's, one of them a Blue Meanie. The Timewarp really sounds quite different.

What I said about the Jupiter-8 also serves to the ARP-2600, specially considering the many hardware revisions this one had (four main versions, if I'm not mistaken, with different components in key elements like the filters, for example). The TimewARP really sounds different from the Arturia ARP 2600v, but both are excellent virtual synths (although I must confess the Arturia 2600 is perhaps the one I like least from them).

[EvilDragon]

Arturia's JP-8 doesn't seem to be using a ZDF filter design, and that definitely impacts the behaviour of the filter with high resonance. That kind of behaviour is not found on an actual JP-8 for sure, no matter how two instances of JP-8 can sound alike - there just isn't that kind of behaviour on a real analog synth.

[BlackWinny]

In analogue electronics, all the passive components (resistors, capacitors, inductors...) were all having (and are still having) a large tolerance (generally 20% or 10%) around their nominal value. All! None was warrantied to provide exactly its nominal value.

And I even don't mention the drift due to the aging of the capacitors, the thermal noise of the resistors, etc.

All that added has three big consequences:

1. a very large range of possible values from -20% to +20% in the total tolerance of the electronic instrument... and a quite random discrepancy regarding a mathematical normal value at the output.
2. an inevitable difference in the ending signals (and their waveforms and their amplitudes, etc.) produced at the output of all the instruments made yet on the same technical datasheet and the same scope statement.
3. a very random drift for each instrument along the duration of its life.

So, an analogue electronic device, particularly an analogue electronic musical instrument, can't never produce exactly the same result as another, even in the same model and even in the same serial range. And this difference will inevitably be wider and wider with the time... meaning that even itself will sound a bit different at another age of its own life.

Digital electronics have minimize (not completely but drastically) all these effects which are very often forgotten in the analogue electronics musical instrument discussions.

So wanting an analogue hardware synth sounding exactly as another even of the same model and the same series is a nonsense... and wanting to get a software VA emulation sounding exactly as its hardware model is also a nonsense since it's yet impossible to have a hardware analogue instrument sounding exactly as written in its scope statement and even sounding exactly as itself three years sooner.

[knowix]

Now would be a good time for Mr. Kunz to mess people around by borrowing a bunch of analogs, putting them in his studio, then uploading a photo

[fmr]

Arturia's JP-8 doesn't seem to be using a ZDF filter design, and that definitely impacts the behaviour of the filter with high resonance. That kind of behaviour is not found on an actual JP-8 for sure, no matter how two instances of JP-8 can sound alike - there just isn't that kind of behaviour on a real analog synth.

Precisely. I hope Arturia update their models with the most modern achievements in this area, and then we may have a version 3.0 of their synths with these problems solved. But, again, it's just at extreme values. Overall, the models seem to be well done.

[david.beholder]

Hi, Uncle E. I rspect your opinion, but, as I said previouly, I was able to recreate original patches from the Jupiter-8, using patch sheets, in the Jupiter-8V, and compared the sound with the recordings in Synthmania, and they sounded close enough. In a side by side comparioson, I admit there might exist small differences in sound, specially at extreme values (envelopes, resonance, etc.)

At the certain extend it means: take any good bread and butter synth, take jp8 patch sheets and voila they are sounding somehow close. I thought we're talking about emulations here and details of behavior are really important because they are defining sound.

but bear in mind there are no two analogue synths that sound alike, and if you could pick half a dozen Jupiter-8 and put them side by side, you'd probably noticed differences in sound from one to the other.

Which doesn't mean anything... dozen of any analog synths would sound different (even overstable and digitally controlled to death) because of components tolerance, wear off etc. But the difference is tiny and no moog would sound like jupiter.

[knowix]

Funnily enough, bearing in mind recent announcements, I was going to suggest the Odyssey as a sensible emulation choice, but I considered the higher European prices for them a bit of a downer.

Would having a remake of the synth actually make it harder to get a new emulation done for legal reasons, I wonder? I can imagine that although Korg would have no express right to say whether you can emulate a 40 year old synth, they could still mess you around with their legal department.

[Uncle E]

I think they can only raise issues if trademarks are infringed on. I imagine a company could trademark an aspect of their look, like how Gibson and Fender have done with their guitar headstocks, but I haven't heard of that happening yet.

[BlackWinny]

Hum... Maybe I missed a step but wasn't David Fiend (the Korg chief advisor for this project) the former president of ARP Instruments and designer of the Odyssey?

So in this case he is probably the owner of all the rights, therefore allowed (by himself) to make what he wants with it.

[fmr]

At the certain extend it means: take any good bread and butter synth, take jp8 patch sheets and voila they are sounding somehow close. I thought we're talking about emulations here and details of behavior are really important because they are defining sound.

Is that so? Can you make a demonstration of this? You may just try it with the first two or three patches of the patch sheet. If you don't have them, I can send you a link to download.

I'll be curious of which synth would you pick to use a Jupiter-8 patch sheet and create a patch that sounds "somehow close" to the original using the same parameters

And we are talking about details of behaviour, indeed. That's why it's important for me to take a patch sheet of the original and be able to recreate the same sounds in an emulation. And I am not talking of "somehow close". I'm talking of very close.

And that's where many emulations fail.

[fluffy_little_something]

In analogue electronics, all the passive components (resistors, capacitors, inductors...) were all having (and are still having) a large tolerance (generally 20% or 10%) around their nominal value. All! None was warrantied to provide exactly its nominal value.

And I even don't mention the drift due to the aging of the capacitors, the thermal noise of the resistors, etc.

All that added has three big consequences:

1. a very large range of possible values from -20% to +20% in the total tolerance of the electronic instrument... and a quite random discrepancy regarding a mathematical normal value at the output.
2. an inevitable difference in the ending signals (and their waveforms and their amplitudes, etc.) produced at the output of all the instruments made yet on the same technical datasheet and the same scope statement.
3. a very random drift for each instrument along the duration of its life.

So, an analogue electronic device, particularly an analogue electronic musical instrument, can't never produce exactly the same result as another, even in the same model and even in the same serial range. And this difference will inevitably be wider and wider with the time... meaning that even itself will sound a bit different at another age of its own life.

Digital electronics have minimize (not completely but drastically) all these effects which are very often forgotten in the analogue electronics musical instrument discussions.

So wanting an analogue hardware synth sounding exactly as another even of the same model and the same series is a nonsense... and wanting to get a software VA emulation sounding exactly as its hardware model is also a nonsense since it's yet impossible to have a hardware analogue instrument sounding exactly as written in its scope statement and even sounding exactly as itself three years sooner.

I read somewhere that the Matrix 12 was actually built on rather mediocre components, whereas Yamaha's DX1 was built using only premium components (I know the latter is not analog as such, but still).