Digital Emulation of Analogue - Who Cares?

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Instruments Discussion
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I care deeply - it's important to talk to about

It's somewhat important to me
83
45%
I don't care at all / it's not important to me
100
55%
 
Total votes: 183

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Old gear becomes a reference point. So for your ears it can be a useful starting point even if the goal is not to make a retro analogue composition. Without a close emulation reference there would be little to judge what has come after cause 99.9pct of people cannot own the original analogue synths to compare.

Curious really. There was a time a decade or more ago where we simply moaned about digital synths not sounding like the analogue versions they were emulating. Now we take it for granted that they are pretty much nailed. :D

A good example is some synths make nice warm FM sounds which are not analogue at all but cause I know how analogue can sound it gives a reference point on which to position a type of sound in your sonic palette and aural mindscape.

So I don't concern overly from the perspective that I need something to sound incredibly authentic in my music activities but it is educational and helps me assess and judge other synth sounds.That aspect is quite important to me cause I don't have a Moog, a Pro-1, Pro-5, SH-101, TB-303 etc. available.

We all like to think and show we know it all. But maybe we should understand that knowing it all or maybe knowing it well enough to be able to share something of tangible value with others is usually a thing related to time, experience and accumulated knowledge. I think in this modern world people think knowledge is repeating something they read on a website.

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For synths I don't really care one way or the other, at least not after getting Diva and Monark which covers already a lot of ground. However, on the FX front there are some absolutely unique awesome units that would be awesome to have properly emulated as plugins. Too bad it's still very costly (CPU wise) to get some of these older units to be as close as Diva/Monark is to the real deal.

We are getting there though.. at an astonishingly rapid pace.
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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yes, who cares ? especially for synthesizers

as bmanic said, there are some interesting fx units.
would love to get the "jaw" wavefolder effect from Repro1, tried various similar vst fx plugs today and not amused.

anyway

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Good topic.

For some users at KVR it seems getting the MiniMoog sound is all that matters :P

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I only care if it sounds better.
I will take the Lord's name in vain, whenever I want. Hail Satan! And his little goblins too. :lol:

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It's all about analog emulation of digital stuff now. WMD Synchrodyne is my second favorite piece of analog gear right now, and it aliases more than any 90s VA ever did. I'm also thinking about a Bastl Tromsø, which implements an analog version of "sample rate" reduction.

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Tbh I don't really give a shit about analog because I don't own, nor have I used, any high end analog synths. I wouldn't know how to compare them.

That said, u-he synths -- apparently one of the finest at emulating analog synths -- definitely sound and behave different than other VSTi and there are a plethora of sounds that I'd make on a u-he synth before anything else for that reason.

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foosnark wrote:It's all about analog emulation of digital stuff now. WMD Synchrodyne is my second favorite piece of analog gear right now, and it aliases more than any 90s VA ever did. I'm also thinking about a Bastl Tromsø, which implements an analog version of "sample rate" reduction.
Yep, and even before those products, there was the Bin-N-Tic (switched cap filter), Doepfer A-196 (PLL) and the Malgorithm (audio rate sample and hold). I'm sure that there are even earlier examples, but the intention probably wasn't to emulate DSP at the time.

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I started out in 1977 with electronic music and so I have used many analogue synths and effects that were out there during that time. I was always buying and selling gear over the decades. I still own a number of analogue synths and effects. So this is one reason I look to plugins that are good emulations of analogue. Whether it be a digital tool that is intended to emulate a specific analogue product, or do something analogue-like, that's important to me.

But also important to me are digital tools that are purely digital and make use of technology to do interesting and musical things.

But, for me, accurate analogue emulation is an important consideration in purchase decisions for me.

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At the end of the day if you're paying audience boos you for using a VA then you're doing something wrong.
:borg:

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V0RT3X wrote:At the end of the day if you're paying audience boos you for using a VA then you're doing something wrong.
At the end of the day, if you're choosing your instruments because of audience boos/woohs instead of because you think/feel it serves your music and/or joy of playing best , you might do something wrong as well :shrug:
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V0RT3X wrote:At the end of the day if you're paying audience boos you for using a VA then you're doing something wrong.
On studio recordings, nobody notices, and live it is all playback, anyway :hihi:

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It has no moment in my life. I know what the sound is, but there are synths that give you warm analog, including synths that many people believe are strictly from cold digital, and it just isn't that difficult to saturate with this or another plugin. It was time for me to embrace the actual technology some time ago. It seems very boring to me to A/B with an old synth. I'm not very enamored of any of them, except Moog, and I'm happy with Monark for the mini. :shrug:

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It's more relevant to those who grew up with analog and have internalized its sounds. Less relevant to the new kids that started mixing/creating music strictly from DAWs however.

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I think that U-he, Synapse, and Xils have definitely raised the bar for analog emulation. Now, as a developer, if you are going to call it an analog emulation it damn well better sound like it! However, synths like Largo, Spire, Serum, and Icarus don't pretend to emulate analog synths...they are different, and they sound just as awesome on their own. I think it's great to have both! There is a lot of modern music that doesn't really benefit from having a "pure" analog sound...and that's ok. It works the other way too. It's funny because I approach a plugin now as to whether, or not it has "balls". Whether it produces a pure analog emulation, or not is less important to me now. Does it have "balls"? I can remove bottom end with a bandpass filter to make a synth sit in a mix but. Trying to add it with EQ, or compression doesn't always produce satisfactory results. That's a radical oversimplification, I know but, it's not a bad yardstick to measure by.

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