In the past many people used to say that for instance Roland Junos had a typical Japanese/European sound, whereas the Korg PolySix was said to have a typical American sound.

What exactly did they mean by American sound or Japanese sound, and have those differences somehow been carried over into the world of software synths? I have noticed that a whole lot of the software synth makers are from places like Germany, Britain and other European countries these days, which have a strong synth pop tradition. Do their synth plugins sound inherently different on average than plugins from American suppliers? For instance because the filters are programmed differently in order to achieve a certain sound a developer is used to, maybe even without knowing it?

Or are any differences only limited to the way presets are programmed, if at all?

I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole...(no pun intended)

Your examples are a little off, Korg is Japanese. Also, it's more about Roland's having a certain sound, Korg's having a certain sound, Moog's having a certain sound, etc., than about countries. Furthermore, even within companies, Jupiter 4's really don't sound much like Alpha Juno's and MS-20's really don't sound much like PolySix's (Moog's are actually fairly consistent, with different models basically sounding like better or worse versions of the same sound).

Personally, I like:

Minimoog, Micromoog, Source, and Minitaur
Jupiter 8, MKS-80, MKS-70
MS-10, MS-20
Prophet 5, ProOne
black and orange Odyssey
All Waldorf's except the Q and Micro Q (the Q+ was phenomenal)
Andromeda

Personally, I don't like:

Any Moog's not on the list above
Any Roland's not on the list above
Any Korg's not on the list above
Any Sequential Circuits' not on the list above
Any ARP's not on the list above
Any Doepfer's
Any MOTM's
Any Vermona's

As you can see, there's really no consistencies there regarding continents of origin.

Please kill this thread with fire.

It's hard to put your finger on, but I'd say European synths sound more civilised somehow.*
















* Only joking.

yes, american women go OH MY GOD! while japanese woman go AIIEEE!

They go "kimochi".

Don't forget that you have west coast and east coast differences in the US as well.

Moog in the East, Buchla in the West, for example.

I've always thought that Japanese software synths sounded more analog when running on a 64-bit Mac. Only works in Cubase, though, no chance in Reaper.

Lots of funny guys here

This is dating things a bit.
Back in the 80's when your sound came from your hardware there were decisions made at the top level concerning how much of a workstation you would get in a keyboard. Americans would opt for fewer sounds but higher quality pcm's Japanese would opt for lower quality yet more sounds. European designers would opt for sounds that may have not been "popular" but they felt the sound deserved a place on the soundcard nonetheless. Like glockenspiel.

Memory was expensive back then. Way expensive workstation type keyboards reflected how much someone would feasibly pay for a a quality sound or many less then quality sounds.

None of that holds water anymore. Everyone has roughly 500 to 2000 sounds built in. Price point still matters though. If you have the big bucks a korean company makes Kurzweil's with "Vast Architecture" Allowing 16 velocity layers. In general what matters is how much you can afford and not the nationality of the brand name behind it.

Zebra sounds more polish whereas Alchemy has a scandinavian touch to it. If you need some algerian vibe, get ElectraX and run it through MFM2 for a tad of multi culti...

to me rob papen/linplug albino sounds france to me Rob Papen blue sounds Island. and massive sounds germany. but true almost all synths have own timbral charter. but to me colours are better than countries.
ps. rompler pcm data thing is true i think my yamaha sounds very japan so much rom samples but quality is not very good but my Roland have better quality ofg course bigger rom but yhamaha added too much samples i think even removing few of them should be allowed fix their problem in sample level but even this dont fix d/a thing...

How did Korg become American?

I have a problem:

I've purchased Synthmaster but it doesn't sound Turkish at all. How can I get some real Turkish sounds out of it?

(sounds just joking, but that was a real question originally...)