KVR Audio

dcfac73 · Post by **dcfac73** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:09 pm

Is this thread in the right place?

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:15 pm

Having grown up in the "golden age" of synths, Oberheims in general were the only synths that I wanted to own really bad. Moogs bored me to tears, ARPs I flat out hated the sound, Sequential Circuits was meh and the MS 20 was just too much trouble to get anything decent out of it, though today I do love the emulation and am having a ball with it. But Oberheims, I owned two of their synths and I can't say that about any other company between 1979 and today.

As far as the emulations go, meh. They're okay. I was never a big fan of the Jupiters either and the emu is fine. It doesn't blow me away but its usable. The M12 I didn't even buy because the sound and interface is just an insult to the original. Yes, my opinion. In fact, I wouldn't even use the M12V if somebody gave it to me for free.

But all of that aside, why are we even comparing two synths that sound nothing alike and have nothing in common? It's like comparing an EMS VCS 3 to a kazoo. I don't see the point. They're two different synths with two different sounds. One isn't better than the other but neither is as good as the original hardware. And no, I'm not a hardware snob. In fact, I've sold all my hardware because I feel that soft synths have come far enough along that hardware doesn't give you that much more in terms of quality and certainly not at their prices and storage space requirements. But these two emus are not as good as their hardware counterparts. However, I will take a Zebra 2 over a hardware JP-8 or M12 any day.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:41 pm

It's more because of the experience between this different (Arturia) synth.

It seems some preferring more the Matrix some the JP8. Yes, both are different synth it's not really a 1:1 comparison it's more the personal taste.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:48 pm

4damind wrote:It's more because of the experience between this different (Arturia) synth.

It seems some preferring more the Matrix some the JP8. Yes, both are different synth it's not really a 1:1 comparison it's more the personal taste.

Right, I thought that the OP was asking which to buy, and that depends. Do you want progamability, the M12v is the better choice, do you want the sound of the Jupiter, then supposedly, the J8v is the better choice.

The reason that the conversation has turned to comparing these synths is because some of us were saying that, hey, no matter what you want, there are probably better choices than Arturia.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:49 pm

4damind wrote:It's more because of the experience between this different (Arturia) synth.

It seems some preferring more the Matrix some the JP8. Yes, both are different synth it's not really a 1:1 comparison it's more the personal taste.

Well then personal taste as it is, I'll take the J8V over the M12V because at least it's less insulting to the original.

FTR, I have no problem with the Arturia synths sounds for sound sake alone. But aside from the SEM, if you want to talk faithful to the original synths, forget it. And the CS80 is the biggest insult of all. Don't even get me started on that one. Of course I hated the sound of the real CS80 anyway, but that's another kettle of fish. I never understood the fascination with that thin sounding washed out piece of garbage. But shame on me for even buying a CS in the first place. One of the first synths I bought and sold almost immediately. A friend of mine who loved the sound took it off my hands.

Still trying to figure out why.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:50 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
4damind wrote:It's more because of the experience between this different (Arturia) synth.

It seems some preferring more the Matrix some the JP8. Yes, both are different synth it's not really a 1:1 comparison it's more the personal taste.
Right, I thought that the OP was asking which to buy, and that depends. Do you want progamability, the M12v is the better choice, do you want the sound of the Jupiter, then supposedly, the J8v is the better choice.

The reason that the conversation has turned to comparing these synths is because some of us were saying that, hey, no matter what you want, there are probably better choices than Arturia.

Amen to that.

fluffy_little_something · Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:56 pm

So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:00 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?

Somebody's trying to be funny

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:06 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
fluffy_little_something wrote:So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?
Somebody's trying to be funny

Hehe, he is too fluffy... ehm.. funny

dcfac73 · Post by **dcfac73** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:14 pm

To me, they both have the Arturia TAE sound - ie flat , and life/textureless. Ditto re: ui. Just really confusing. Can't be arsed trying to coax a good sound out of them. Cpu hogs too, for no good reason, seeing as the emulations are so unconvincing. Sorry to Arturia fans out there , but I'm one of u guys too. I like Spark, and their hardware synths, but the emulations don't cut it either as emulations or as characterful synths.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:23 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?

The Jupiter 8 modules in U-He Diva. Besides that and the Arturia one there only seem to be some Synth Edit craeations that are not even close to those and the real thing.

Of course the new Roland JP-08 module is another option while that one is hardware. That one seems to sound quite close to the real thing.

It is also possible to recreate Jupiter 8 patches with other synths like it was done with e.g. OP-X Pro II (as a free bank) and Xils Lab Oxium but recreating those patches there involved a serious amount of tweaking and sound design skills and sme patches were difficult or not possible to be recreated properly.
I had tried to recreate Jupiter 8 patches in Jupiter 8V using original patch sheets and even in that dedivcated emulation some tweaking was needed to make it sound properly.

My own patches and the two banks i mentioned mostly seemed to be based on teh patch sheets and teh audio demos posted here (patch sheets download at the end of the page):
http://www.synthmania.com/jupiter-8.htm
Like with many audio demos at the web a problem with those is that a Reverb was used in the demos.

A video about the Jupiter 8 factory sounds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq4XOVde1Yk

Another video with the factory presets recreated in OP-X Pro II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MC1dIOBFuc

The fact that you could recreate a certain amount of patches with another synth does not mena it is a proper emulation. This is especially true whentalking about advanced Jupiter 8 features like e.g. PWM, Sync, Cross modulation, the additional HPF, Unison etc.
Besides that like with other synths of course it is not easy to properly emulate the filter. It is possible to come close but to realy nail that filter is very difficult.

FWIW i got some patches inspired by the Jupiter 8 in my bank for the Waldorf Blofeld (where i used the PPG filter mode for most patches which is not included with Largo). Anyway i would not claim that the Blofeld is a proper Jupiter 8 emulation. Same is true about a few patches i had created in Tone2 Saurus.

My own recreation of some Jupiter 8 patches/presets are included with the 3rd party folder at the factory presets of U-He Diva. Those were created during the first public beta of Diva.

dcfac73 · Post by **dcfac73** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:42 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?

Ditto jp 08. Man if they ab'd with my eyes closed, I couldn't tell you which was which. Only, that they were SLIGHTLY different.
Roland are really onto something with their ACB tech. Not just a gimmick.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 3:14 pm

I rarely use Jupiter 8V and Matrix-12V without any external FXs but with them, especially a Bass enhancement plugin and a nice Reverb (+ a Chorus and/or Delay if necessary), they could sound really great.

With Diva adding external FXs is not so much necessary but could be nice too.

dcfac73 · Post by **dcfac73** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 3:17 pm

Ingonator wrote:I rarely use Jupiter 8V and Matrix-12V without any external FXs but with them, especially a Bass enhancement plugin and a nice Reverb (+ a Chorus and/or Delay if necessary), they could sound really great.

With Diva adding external FXs is not so much necessary but could be nice too.

That's the thing isn't it. Even a freeware synth could sound fantastic with the right application of fx.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 3:21 pm

Ingonator wrote:
fluffy_little_something wrote:So, which non-Arturia synth is the best J8 emulation (in terms of sound, not necessarily an intended emulation)?
The Jupiter 8 modules in U-He Diva. Besides that and the Arturia one there only seem to be some Synth Edit craeations that are not even close to those and the real thing.

Of course the new Roland JP-08 module is another option while that one is hardware. That one seems to sound quite close to the real thing.

Agreed, they're definitely improving the products in that line. That said, those sliders are just stupidly small. They must be targeting all the eight year old synthesists.

The fact that you could recreate a certain amount of patches with another synth does not mena it is a proper emulation. This is especially true whentalking about advanced Jupiter 8 features like e.g. PWM, Sync, Cross modulation, the additional HPF, Unison etc.
Besides that like with other synths of course it is not easy to properly emulate the filter. It is possible to come close but to realy nail that filter is very difficult.

Agreed. The thing with the arturia stuff is that they get most of the detail right in terms of the architecture, but they don't nail the filter. I don't think that they don't know how, the SEM is decent, I think that their read of the market is that their customers don't want to pay the necessary high CPU hit.

I can see that really, because I think that there is some correlation between the type of customer who critically evaluates the filter and the type of customer who often dismisses pure emulations. That's just my opinion from observing conversations here and elsewhere. I've noticed that those of us who put a high premium on the quality of filter emulation tend to put less value on small differences in synth architecture.

Arturia Matrix 12 vs Jupiter 8?