What hardware is replacable by vst and which isn't?

[chk071]

Amazing how many similar threads like these are created, or bumped from death at the moment. Corona boredom?

[kritikon]

Ah well, old thread, but I can add to it.

Got a Wavestate recently. Man, that thing is impressively leftfield - it's just nuts. Strangely, to me it's one of the few h/w synths that's not even close to being done in s/w, yet it's pure digital. I really didn't think digital h/w would outdo s/w today, but I haven't seen anything close to a Wavestate in the VSTi world. I'm busy buying all kinds of new affordable analogues, but it's a digital one that takes the throne. Who knew?

[dellboy]

I'm busy buying all kinds of new affordable analogues, but it's a digital one that takes the throne. Who knew?

Perhaps Roland know ?

Ever since Roland abandoned analogue to make the digital Roland D-50 they have stuck to digital. They see the future as digital in some form or other. I think Korg see it that way as well but are a little more flexible and mix things around a bit.

[kritikon]

Yeah, but Roland went way off track decades ago IMO. Can't say I pay too much attention nowadays to what they release, but it seems to encompass lots of re-re-re-re-released Juno/Jupiter keyboards or occasionally the odd percussion old-alike. Sometimes close, sometimes way off the mark, but always analogue-alike things that don't offer anything new. I quite like the look of some of their newer synths (I thought their drum whatnots a wee while ago were uber sexy looking - tempted me just from the look), but personally wouldn't touch them with a very long bargepole for sound and use.

It might just be bias. After decades of disappointment from a company that used to be king...you get jaded.

[kritikon]

And...Roland are missing a business trick. If Behringer can sell all the analogues they do by the bucketload - and obviously they think they can make profit from it...imagine the queues out of the door if Roland started releasing some analogue stuff.

[D-Fusion]

All that is to say I would feel more confident standing on stage and tweaking a Moog than doing the similar thing with software.

I would feel much safer the other way
Standing there with your Moog playing and suddenly it goes out of tune because some of the people in the crowd starts dancing and breathe in your general direction

[kritikon]

It's quite a long time since analogues did that, and even some of the old ones were very stable. Can't think of any analogues released since 1980 that went out of tune like that....

[anomandaris1]

And...Roland are missing a business trick. If Behringer can sell all the analogues they do by the bucketload - and obviously they think they can make profit from it...imagine the queues out of the door if Roland started releasing some analogue stuff.

Behringer sells analogue for a fraction of Rolands' synths prices. And Roland's stuff is mostly digital = cheaper to produce than analogue. So, it's not like they don't have good profit.
Btw, digital piano market is where the real moneys are, not in the synths.

[dellboy]

Yeah, but Roland went way off track decades ago IMO. Can't say I pay too much attention nowadays to what they release, but it seems to encompass lots of re-re-re-re-released Juno/Jupiter keyboards or occasionally the odd percussion old-alike. Sometimes close, sometimes way off the mark, but always analogue-alike things that don't offer anything new. I quite like the look of some of their newer synths (I thought their drum whatnots a wee while ago were uber sexy looking - tempted me just from the look), but personally wouldn't touch them with a very long bargepole for sound and use.

It might just be bias. After decades of disappointment from a company that used to be king...you get jaded.

I agree what you are saying about Roland. They have sold all of their stuff since the D50 by marketing more polyphony and bigger samples.They have stuck to what they do in the unshaken belief that more polyphony is the answer, and that this goal can only be achieved through digital re-creations of the originals. You always get the impression that they are working on something new and big, its just that the big breakthrough never emerges.

[pdxindy]

Replaceable is a subjective term. Even if the same sound can be made, I get results from using my Elektron boxes and their sequencers that I just don't get from software in the computer. The workflow is so different that it leads to different outcomes. That is not to say one is necessarily better than the other, just different and that can be fun and creatively interesting.

[kritikon]

You're definitely right there. 303s and 202s were the same. 303s had it in spades because of the sound, but the method of programming did make different stuff than straight sequencers (or DAWs). I still have a 202 and TBH the sound is now done elsewhere easily and cheaply with real h/w or s/w, and much though I absolutely hate programming the bastard (I really do hate it, I'd rather feed my own eyeballs to the cat, still attached to the soggy stalks), I have to admit that on the odd occasion I hate myself enough to be bothered powering it up...I get sequences that I really like that I would NOT come up with any other way. It directs me to a style of music I wouldn't make with newer methods. It has its place.
I totally get the Roland electro box thing. The same is probably true with all those newer gadgets with lit-up matrixes etc.

[BONES]

All that is to say I would feel more confident standing on stage and tweaking a Moog than doing the similar thing with software.

That's not been my experience. I have never had even the tiniest problem on stage since moving to software, whereas I had regular issues in my hardware days. The simple fact is that there are far too many potential points of failure in even a simple hardware set-up. I've had hardware synths that just died or wouldn't turn on. I've had a roadie plug in the wrong power supply and fry a Zip Drive, so I couldn't load anything into my sampler (which had volatile memory). I've had more cables die than I've had birthdays. Etc., etc. OTOH, I've not had even the tiniest problem since we started performing with a PC based set-up. Not so much as a tiny hiccup.

Replaceable is a subjective term. Even if the same sound can be made, I get results from using my Elektron boxes and their sequencers that I just don't get from software in the computer.

I'd go the other way - it is so much easier to experiment ITB that I push creative boundaries far, far more in software than I ever did in hardware. With hardware there are so many things holding you back, from not wanting to tweak a patch on a synth with no patch memory, in case you lost the magic of the sound you had, to the general difficulty of doing things like programming/editing a hardware sequencer. And what hardware has unlimited undo?

The workflow is so different that it leads to different outcomes.

In my experience it mostly leads to greater frustration and annoyance. Elektron is the perfect example - I've had my Analog Keys for more than three years now and I still don't have the first clue how to use it's sequencer. It is easily the least intuitive piece of musical equipment, or software, I have ever come across. It completely does my head in. in fact, even patching the synths from the front panel is massive PITA. If it wasn't for Overbridge, I would have sold it long ago.

The absolute best thing I ever did for my music was to abandon hardware for software. There is not a single thing hardware does as well as software. Not one.

[pdxindy]

The workflow is so different that it leads to different outcomes.

In my experience it mostly leads to greater frustration and annoyance. Elektron is the perfect example - I've had my Analog Keys for more than three years now and I still don't have the first clue how to use it's sequencer.

I printed out the manual, set it next to the hardware with the keypress combos page open and that made a big difference. Within a week I was comfortable with the Elektron sequencer... which is great, and easily does some stuff that is tedious and impractical in the DAW.

No offense, but just cause you don't have a clue doesn't mean it is that way for others. I love my Elektron boxes. I have 4 of em... had 5 but I gave my A4 MKII to a friend. And they keep improving in important ways.

[BONES]

Who has a week to learn something? I also printed out the manual but that really didn't help. I simply couldn't see the point when it wasn't going to do anything useful I couldn't do already, so after 5 minutes I'd lose interest. After a couple of sessions I stopped bothering. It just feels different for the sake of being different. Yes, it's amazing that you can sequence proper drum patterns from a single instance of a monosynth but what actual use is that when I have 6 or more drum VSTi that do that so much better and far more easily? But nothing is easy when all you have are a row of buttons and a tiny screen. It's just annoying.

No offense, but just cause you don't have a clue doesn't mean it is that way for others.

The thing is, though, I do have a clue. That's the point, I know dozens of better ways. Doing things in hardware feels like 30 years ago and if you've heard my 1987 single or 1989 album, you'll understand how limiting that feels in 2021. Back then I used hardware because I had to, no other choice. To do so today feels like self-flagellation to me and I'm just not so kinky that I can enjoy the pain.

[pdxindy]

The thing is, though, I do have a clue.

You already declared you didn't have a clue... I believe the first statement.