The Gadget Fiend challenge

[Orbit-50]

Dude. You've come to a software forum and proclaimed hardware to be superior, specifically in terms of sound. The onus is on you here to demonstrate your claim.
Provide links to specific videos at least, lest we all assume you are talking shit.

How dare you speak in such a manner to the allmighty Gadget Fiend!!!!!! You must hearken to his word, or suffer his wrath of calling you a douche or a Low Rent KVRian or butt hurt. He is the allmighty son of God and he does not have to prove himself to anyone!!!!!!!! You shall be cast into the eternal hellfire for believing that software synthesizers sound good. You have been warned!

.-.

[Sendy]

I always felt KVR was somewhat anti EDM. One of it's many selling-points

The main ingredients in music are love (aka care, "being bothered", wanting a relationship with sound) and intent (knowing what you want to say and how you want to say it) - I'd rather hear a crappy chiptune hammered out with love than a boring synth noodle that most analog synth collectors (not all admittedly, but many) seem intent on putting out. "Listen to that filter sweep" ... yeah, well anyone can drop 2K on a synth and then turn a knob and have it sound good. Show me dedication to sound on ANY gear and you'll have my attention.

[aMUSEd]

They're just different. End of story.

Hardware devotees often ignore how much software is now doing that hardware never even tried to do. Software and iPads provide control paradigms, like Lemur and the Linnstrument, that hardware can't match, allowing for more expressiveness in performance. Kaivo and other physical modeling synths are producing insanely cool new 'impossible' instruments.

I think the much more interesting question is when software is going to successfully emulate acoustic instruments -- things like violins and the human voice are still very hard to produce in software, although they've made huge strides over the past few years.

I use hardware and software so have no particular 'side' to take here but I think it's true that things like the Linnstrument can be equally well used with hardware as software.

Also I am a huge PM fan but nothing get's closer to my VL70 and Z1 for many sounds, particularly acoustic brass and woodwinds, except for some things like modelled piano (Pianoteq) and percussion (Chromaphone) where the software is superior to the hardware synths, although not (yet) the actual hardware itself in terms of realism (but is arguably superior if you apply other standards such as customisability). And I think this is the real point when judging 'superiority' - there are multiple perspectives and standards one could apply.

[whyterabbyt]

When someone says "Im right because I say Im right, unless you can give me an counter-example that I'll accept" its pretty clear they're not actually going to accept any counter-examples in the first place.

[herodotus]

Too much passion, too few facts. Please, one of either sides do us (the viewers) a favor and post a riddle type recording with sounds of the two seemingly collided worlds so that we can understand the reason for this debate.

Many thanks.

OK, you are new here so you can be forgiven, but the audio A/B tests don't come until after at least 10 pages of chest pounding; and when they do come, no one will pay any attention to them.

The only exception I have ever seen was one thread to which Urs contributed at great length. There were still no conclusions, but not a single person was right about all of the audio files. The best guesser got 6 out of 10, which could easily have been the result of coin tosses rather than golden ears.

I realize that this won't change anything, but as the resident historian I thought that I should chime in.

[chk071]

When someone says "Im right because I say Im right, unless you can give me an counter-example that I'll accept" its pretty clear they're not actually going to accept any counter-examples in the first place.

Nail -> head. I don't think there's any way to convince the guy that he's not right, so why even bother. His insults and his post history on other audio related websites makes me think it's just an attempt to troll/to be controversial anyway. It all started this winter somehow.

[Nielzie]

Hands up if you sold your some of your hardware and replaced it with software

[trimph1]

Hands up if you sold your some of your hardware and replaced it with software

Yes!!!

[hakey]

Sold everything but my Waldorf Pulse.

https://soundcloud.com/gryke/waldorf-pulse-2

See if you can do that with a soft synth.

[basslinemaster]

I can agree with Ingonator here.

I do have a Yamaha MU-15, it's predecessor the DB50XG and the software equivalents of these modules. They all sound completely different in comparison with each other. The MU-15 is an outboard module (therefore, it has it's own DAC), The DB50XG's sound was declared by the DAC you used, and the software is also heavily reliant on the used DAC. So things are bound to sound different. But in the mix, I don't care.

I beg to differ, but they don't sound "completely different" to each other. When I had a DB50XG, I made wav recordings of many of my favourite XG MIDI files, and then when I found the SYXG50 would work in Windows 8.1, I replayed the same MIDI files through it, and they sound exactly the same as the DB50XG. You would have to have considerably varying DACs to actually hear any difference because of that part of the sound as well.

[herodotus]

Hands up if you sold your some of your hardware and replaced it with software

Never!!!!!

[trimph1]

Sold everything but my Waldorf Pulse.

https://soundcloud.com/gryke/waldorf-pulse-2

See if you can do that with a soft synth.

My Waldorf Pulse will never be sold.

[Compyfox]

Wasn't the SYXG50 in 22kHz? Or was it already the 44kHz version? The 2MB, the 4MB or 8MB version?

Man, so many versions back in the day. Can't even find a more recent one on the web.


And I only speak from personal experience here. To me, the sound was different. Not drastic, but slightly.
In the end, I didn't care in a mix. Then again, it's been a while that I used my XG synth.

[robogone]

So, did everyone have an enjoyable Christmas day?

[Mushy Mushy]

So, did everyone have an enjoyable Christmas day?

I did, thanks man.
Got lots of hardware and software.

Can't quite work out which I prefer though