Repro-1 (out now)

[bmrzycki]

My god, an actual readable & understandable research paper - High five Urs

That's not fair to academia. There's at least one other paper that's actually readable.

https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

[.jon]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

[AnX]

Ouch!

[.jon]

My god, an actual readable & understandable research paper - High five Urs

[KingTuck]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No, the difference is probably in the subjective traits that people attribute to sounding "analog". Also, it's odd to attribute a quantity being the "vast majority" to a pool with 5 different options. If this were a poll between 2 different options, you'd have a point. But again it's still probably most fair to attribute it to what exactly people think "analog" sound is.

[beely]

isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No, there are many other conclusions that you could infer from it, including the obvious one that everyone has their own subjective opinion as to what "analog" means, related to their preferences and experiences, and other biases that attribute entirely the wrong things at times, together with a lack of experience of testing things, and understanding what kinds of stresses you need to do, and how to juge the results.

[pdxindy]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

[wagtunes]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

Here's the ironic thing, and yes, maybe things have improved over the last 40 years, but I grew up with analog and it sounded like crap. My synths were always going out of tune. Pots and sliders would get noisy as hell. There were no programmed patches to stores. It sucked. I would never want to go back to those days for all the money in the world.

Just recently, I finally sold my Moog and Oberheims because I knew I would never use them again.

I think the people who look at this era with rose colored glasses either never lived through it or forgot how horrible it was.

[pdxindy]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

Here's the ironic thing, and yes, maybe things have improved over the last 40 years, but I grew up with analog and it sounded like crap. My synths were always going out of tune. Pots and sliders would get noisy as hell. There were no programmed patches to stores. It sucked. I would never want to go back to those days for all the money in the world.

Just recently, I finally sold my Moog and Oberheims because I knew I would never use them again.

I think the people who look at this era with rose colored glasses either never lived through it or forgot how horrible it was.

New analog synths today are not like that...

[.jon]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

You can't conclude anything like that from the results. You'd need to assume there is a generally accepted "analog sound" (against the results of this poll) and that there was a right answer to an opinion poll (against the method of the poll).

If you serve people five variants of a dish and ask "which one of these tastes most french to you", and most people don't choose #3, it's not most french according to the people you asked.

[louderr]

isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No, there are many other conclusions that you could infer from it, including the obvious one that everyone has their own subjective opinion as to what "analog" means, related to their preferences and experiences, and other biases that attribute entirely the wrong things at times, together with a lack of experience of testing things, and understanding what kinds of stresses you need to do, and how to juge the results.

I would second this, insofar as it applies to me. I have 40+ years producing and engineering records but never owned any anaolg synths (couldnt afford them so my reaction was that #3 made my "heart" feel happy and my ears detected what seemed like highter-res sampling. But I still went with #1 because it seemed versatile and had a very nice top and bottom. The artifcts? Well, I like Skrillex, what can I say?

[ImNotDedYet]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

Here's the ironic thing, and yes, maybe things have improved over the last 40 years, but I grew up with analog and it sounded like crap. My synths were always going out of tune. Pots and sliders would get noisy as hell. There were no programmed patches to stores. It sucked. I would never want to go back to those days for all the money in the world.

Just recently, I finally sold my Moog and Oberheims because I knew I would never use them again.

I think the people who look at this era with rose colored glasses either never lived through it or forgot how horrible it was.

Ironic how you talk about those mean, close-minded analog geeks and how you just ignore them when you have been close minded enough not to try an analog synth in 40 years?

Things have changed a lot, but you can't be bothered to check for yourself apparently.

Don't worry though - you get to keep your street cred for owning 40 year old synths.

[louderr]

My god, an actual readable & understandable research paper - High five Urs

That's not fair to academia. There's at least one other paper that's actually readable.

https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

OMG thanks for posting that! I am distributing it to staff as we speak.

[pdxindy]

So, when vast majority regarded other options more "analog", isn't the only conclusion that the most expensive and well behaving algo isn't very good at sounding "analog"?

No... one could instead conclude that many people are not good at knowing what analog sounds like.

Personally, I think the preponderance of evidence on KVR over the years supports the later conclusion.

You can't conclude anything like that from the results. You'd need to assume there is a generally accepted "analog sound" (against the results of this poll) and that there was a right answer to an opinion poll (against the method of the poll).

If you serve people five variants of a dish and ask "which one of these tastes most french to you", and most people don't choose #3, it's not most french according to the people you asked.

You can pretend that every answer is of equal merit if you want to... But the thing is, there is actual french food. If you asked 20 people who have never had french food and 15 answered that the Pad Thai was most french, the obvious conclusion is that they do not know what french food is. Duh....

[EnGee]

My god, an actual readable & understandable research paper - High five Urs

That's not fair to academia. There's at least one other paper that's actually readable.

https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

Sorry I don't speak Chickenese!