Plasticky sound -- so what?

[fluffy_little_something]

I read it again and again here, people say certain synths sound plasticky, for instance Tone2 gear. I am not sure I can put my finger on what plasticky sound actually sounds like. But I get the impression that it means polished and clean, smooth as opposed to sizzling.

What can I say, I like plasticky sound When I listen to 80's music, most of it had a plasticky sound to it in my view. To me polished and clean is actually what I want my finished music to sound like. So plasticky-sounding plugins might help me get there faster.

Nor does plasticky mean cheap and light as is the case with most plastics products. The DX7 basses for instance sounded very plasticky some say, but they had a nice punch and sounded, well, good and pleasant in my view

I assume non-plasticky means typical analog hardware, right?

Is the difference also about the weight of certain frequency spectra?


Apart from Tone2 stuff, which other quality synths have a decidedly plasticky sound?

[wagtunes]

I read it again and again here, people say certain synths sound plasticky, for instance Tone2 gear. I am not sure I can put my finger on what plasticky sound actually sounds like. But I get the impression that it means polished and clean, smooth as opposed to sizzling.

What can I say, I like plasticky sound When I listen to 80's music, most of it had a plasticky sound to it in my view. To me polished and clean is actually what I want my finished music to sound like. So plasticky-sounding plugins might help me get there faster.

Nor does plasticky mean cheap and light as is the case with most plastics products. The DX7 basses for instance sounded very plasticky some say, but they had a nice punch and sounded, well, good and pleasant in my view

I assume non-plasticky means typical analog hardware, right?

Is the difference also about the weight of certain frequency spectra?


Apart from Tone2 stuff, which other quality synths have a decidedly plasticky sound?

For certain sounds I like a plastic sound as well, which is why I got Electra 2 and Rayblaster.

Other synths that I say have a somewhat plastic sound?

A.N.A.
ABSynth5

And then there are a lot of synths that are somewhere in the middle. They don't have that analog richness but they're not so polished that you can see yourself shine in them.

There are varying degrees and you can drive yourself nuts trying to quantify each one so I won't.

[Passing Bye]

Spire, one of the reasons why I like it, clean digital plastic bite, like Nord Lead and Virus, you can't expect that fat Moog-a-like bass with them without sounding somehow clicky, plastic and thin/sharp, really bass-es ain't their thing, but everything else because of that is cutting trough like warm knife trough butter IMHO.

[She Changed Her Mind]

Weird. I hardly listen to presets but yesterday I looked for presets and listened to some synths. Funny enough I liked the Dark Toxic presets of Saurus. Now I see someone has called Spire. Like that one as well. It has indeed a somewhat candy sound which is very pleasant. Reminds me of Italo disco. Typical.

[BBFG#]

Omnisphere; LuSH101; TB303, as well as many other Roland/Sonar and any emu of Casio, Elka or 4 OP FM.

But worse than plastic, is the shrill sound that some have in every program that can't seem to even be EQ'd out that likens to having listened to Fran Drescher in an 8 hour mini-series.

[Yorrrrrr]

Spire, definitely. Thin, bright, cutting. But that's not a bad thing...somehow I am loving its sound now (didn't think the same before). So much that I bought it as a complement to DUNE 2, which is my absolute favorite synth. To me they sound very different from each other. I think DUNE 2 is smoother, deeper, rounder. Spire does some things a bit better than the other, and viceversa.

[chk071]

What can I say, I like plasticky sound

Me too. For me, plasticky sound has a lot to do with filter envelopes. For example, if you compare Dune 1's filter with envelope mod to Z3TA's, you will find that Dune sounds pretty plasticky. But somehow, that can be a pretty pleasing character compared to the quite stump/dull filter envelope character of Z3TA. If that makes sense. Anway, agree with Yorrrrrr, Spire has that kind of characterstic too. LuSH-101 obviously too.

[synzh]

To me plasticky relates to cheap/thin/toy sounding like one of those little casio keyboards; or some of the freebie vsts that don't have a lot of extra work put into them. I have nothing against free vsts there are many of them that are nice/usable but also many that don't quite meet expectations

[Yorrrrrr]

If that is plasticky, then Spire it's not that. Nowhere near as being cheap or toyish. So, let's try to define plasticky accurately.

[synzh]

Agreed - but obviously plasticky means different things to different folks (what else is new?)
also there are gradations of it; with the right ears you can pick out varying amounts of what might be called "plasticky" in almost any vst

[Yorrrrrr]

Maybe plasticky is part of the charm of modern softsynths.

[chk071]

As far as i can judge from sound demos, the Virus sounds pretty plasticky too. At least in the sense of how i understand plasticky.

[synzh]

plasticky might be an adjective that gets applied to a particular vst for one particular person while trying to identify what it sounds like; probably we don't have enough adjectives for sound, and because of that the ones we do have are very broadly and ambiguously defined.

[Frantz]

I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world
Life in plastic, it's fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis509A

[wagtunes]

Plastic synths are like porn. I can't really define 'em but I know 'em when I hear 'em.