In fact, it does. Knowing the technology means that my opinion is less subjective. This is, of course, a matter of degree, not an absolute. Moreover, it's not just about knowing "what chips", it's about having studied the technology and having built numerous circuits around the chips. Having owned multiple versions of synths with these technologies at the same time doesn't hurt either.

Further, statements about the technology are often fact, not opinion. There're not subject to the same kind of subjective debate that opinions about how a synth sounds can be. Of course, they can be incorrect statements of fact. In that case, however, they are still not an opinion, they are simply wrong.

I've owned the M6, twice, at the same time that I've owned high end synths, it's a mediocre architecture. Oberhiem has done a lot with it, but, it's still mediocre.

Knowing the technology tells me everything that I need to know about a synth.

It should you too.



Just like a CZ-101, it's still a mediocre synth. You see, that's what not understanding the technology does for you, it leaves you in a place where all you can say is things like "it's nice, and I like it." So what, that can be said about anything.

Of course the M1000 is a mediocre synth, just like the cheapest anything is often mediocre. It was not designed to be the best in its class, it was designed to be a cheap substitute for the real thing. It was designed to meet a price point for working musicians. The squire strats are mediocre guitars, spinet pianos are mediocre pianos, the cheapest atom based computers are mediocre computers etc. etc. It's true for pretty much all consumer products, just because the M1K has some analog circuitry doesn't mean that it's somehow above all of this.



Yeah, you've pretty much said nothing; you can say that about two dry sticks. The M1K came up in a discussion involving comparison, so, it makes sense to evaluate the validity of that comparison. I never asserted that one couldn't make music with any synth, nor would I, of course, that would be absolute nonsense.
Last edited by ghettosynth on Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:14 am; edited 3 times in total

That very well may be, I don't know enough about the internals of the A6 to say one way or the other. I'll just say that the criticisms/discussions that I'm referring to involved people who knew the technology reasonably well. What I remember about them was essentially that the VCO, which borrowed design from the 921B, missed the mark and had issues that, they felt, were partly responsible for a "thin" sound. Of course, there was disagreement.

To try and find these discussions would be a chore, and I'm not sure that it's worth the effort.

My only remark about it was to question, assuming the best possible case for the design, what might be responsible at the circuit level for the perception of clarity in the sound of the A6.

I've heard they commonly go for about $5,000 USD these days. Think about it though, what else is there that can give you a 16 voice poly-synth with that level of flexibility? I guess you could poly-chain 4 Tetr4s together. ($3,400) Add a Novation Remote 61 ($600) Add an Alesis Midiverb 4 to it. ($200)

You'd drop $4200 and not have the second filter, polyphonic aftertouch, VCOs and probably a not a whole lot of other things I don't even know about (note: I've never owned or even shopped for an Andromeda, just lusted after one) and you surely wouldn't have something that sounded anything like the A6.

So, if I were you I'd bone up on figuring out how Eric coaxed Andromedaesque sounds out of DCAM or start saving.

I believe making sounds with a synth, and reading it's manual tells me more about a synth, than knowing the boring details of it's chips or architecture.
That knowledge is mostly just interesting to a limited number of people that are into synths, from a different perspective. Devs, and gear heads etc.
Most know of a synth through making sounds, and music with it.
Sounds that are quite capable of surpassing the expectations of those placing limits on a synths capability, from looking at schematics and specs.
As far as I'm concerned, a developer/company making a good synth is only half complete. The other half comes from the sounds made using it.
Mostly made by people who can take it beyond the limits of what others place on it, with all the specs and charts, and technical things, that become meaningless when creating sounds for whatever synth.

It doesn't sound all that different, just a little crisper, though not less warm. Plus, the multithreading is a godsend. It makes a big difference to me on my ol' 2x Core 2 Duo 2.5 ghz. I'd be very curious to see how Diva informs Zebra in the future... Diva is already pretty insane on the CPU, even with multi-threading on, with it's simple architecture. I guess you could patch up an Andromeda architecture with it but me thinks it would bring most CPUs to a screeching halt.

On the other hand, Zebra's already no slouch at sounding pretty analog for a softsynth. Has anyone who's intimate with the Andromeda rigged up Zebra to do it? I wonder if it could get even closer than DCAM...

Believe what you like, since I'm capable of doing both effectively, I can assure that knowing the technology quickly tells you what the manual won't. It isn't as if understanding the technology means that you can't read manuals or program synths.

The manuals can tell you a lot about the macro architecture, but they seldom describe the differences in underlying technology that can really make the difference in the sound. You won't, for example, find a discussion of the 20ms hold in the minimoog's EG discussed in the manual. Similarly, you're not going to see any differences between the Roland JX filter and the Juno 6/60 filter discussed in their respective manuals but knowing that the technologies are fundamentally different explains why one won't sound like the other.

Studying the technology is the next step beyond reading the manual. I can assure you that the good softsynth devs know this. Urs understands the technology and has used it extensively to build Diva.

In the case of the 3396 based synths, knowing that they are 3396 based is all that you need to know to understand the synth's basic architecture. Similarly, or in fact, even more so with the 3394 (Sixtrack, Multitrack, AX73, VX90, some drum synths).

So I don't dislike Zebra, per se, but I don't get that excited by it either. I think that you can get similar quality out of the recent core based filters in Reaktor. You have to turn the sample rates up, of course.

Now, if Zebra gets the Diva algorithms, then all bets are off.

I still think that it will be a bit of a challenge though. With cascade filters the in-authenticity of the first might be exaggerated by the second. The current level of technology might not be enough for the most complex patches.

Obviously you care a lot about how a synthesizer works. No problem with that at all. I can appreciate a good "geek out" fest in regards to technology. I know I've done it plenty over the years. The technology is the technology. You're right, it is more based on factual points. I'm not arguing that. What I find interesting though is your entire focus is on the tools and this tool is better than that tool. But if technology makes you feel good, warm and fuzzy, who am I to argue? But I do wonder, do you care about music, or just what synthesizer is better from a technical aspect?

What do I care about? Can I write music with a particular piece of equipment that I'm happy with? Yes or no? At the end of the day, that's what matters to me. I doubt I'm the only one that feels that way either. A good musician can make quality music no matter the quality of the instrument.

And to me, quality is more about WHAT quality an instrument has (like the lady has blond hair or black hair), not THE quality of the instrument (as in Lady A is more beautiful than Lady B.) There are far too many people who like 8 or 12 bit samplers over 16 or 24 bit for me to ever believe that higher spec = better. It's just different.

Devon

I think that I'm not being clear about something. I care about how a synthesizer sounds to make music. I really care about how a filter sweep is going to sound when the resonance is turned up, or how animated and alive a filter appears when you push it to the edge.

I can get a very quick idea about how a synth is going to sound by understanding the underlying technology. Of course, some are more predictable than others. In particular, the vast numbers of late model CEM synth on a chip based synths from the mid to late 80s.

For many of these synths there are very few choices that a designer can make and, consequently, very little variety in sound from one synth, based on a particular chip, to another.



Again, I'm not being clear here. It isn't about "knowing the technology", it's about what "knowing the technology tells us about sound." True, I like to play with synth circuits, but that's to get interesting sounds. My home built modular is quite small by most standards, I don't spend days and nights building this stuff.



Of course, don't be ridiculous. For me, the entire point is music. Understanding technology allows me to not waste my time with products that don't have anything significant to offer.



Nobody is arguing with you on that. Of course that's true. My point was not that the M1000 isn't a useful musical tool, my point was that it is a sonically limited musical tool that can be bested by more convenient to use software.




Exactly. Which is why knowing that the M6 and M1k both have a particular chip (brown hair), that is associated with a particular sound (sterile), then you know what qualities to expect of the instrument.

In fact, in terms of build quality, the Oberheim instruments are second to none. The M1K/M6 are, however, targeted at a price sensitive audience. That should not be interpreted as elitist, that's not what I meant. I simply meant that because they targeted a particular price point that they must necessarily be missing certain features. Hence, the qualities associated with real VCOs, better quality filters, hardware envelopes, etc, will be missing from that synth.



Again, I never said anything about a particular "spec." It is about the qualities expressible with a particular set of features. When one is talking about an "analog" sound, then that necessarily implies that analog features will be necessary.

I seem to remember that happening with Cypher, as well, where I was turning the oscillators low to match the Andromeda patches and that had a similar impact on the sound to what you're describing. The Cypher oscillators were much lower than what you'll find in most of the factory presets.

It could be that what they perceived as thin is what makes others of us perceive it as clean and crisp. It doesn't sound like a Moog to me.

No, exactly. I agree. Going back to an earlier point, it just might not be possible to create bad opamps in modern ASICS. I dunno.

how are you guys uploading MP3s on here??
I have an A6 and could post examples etc

https://www.box.com/
It's free, and works great.

I just realized that this is probably misleading. Only the Matrix 6/6R have multiple LC master oscillators. The M1000 derives all frequencies from the same crystal controlled clock that drives the CPU. In essence this means that there will be long term drift discernible by human ears in the M1000.