Hardware vs. Software aka why do VST sucks?

[Sascha Franck]

One thing I miss though is the ability to overdrive my mixer. I got a cheap CR-16 VLZ, but still... when I get red LEDs in Logic it sounds crap. When I get red LEDs flashing in the CR-16 it sounds just right to me. When will the DAWs finally give us well sounding channel strips without having to insert plugins?

Now this is indeed an issue someone should adress. I experienced the same, even with really crappy mixers (with good ones as well, of course).
Btw, I don't think red LEDs in Logics channels will alter the sound much (on playback of course) as there should be tons of internal headroom. I even seem to remember doing a test once, and as soon as the master output channel wasn't overloaded, the bounced files (all red with a non-lightning master LED vs. no-red in the individual channels and the master gain adjusted) cancelled themselves out.
But you're right, there should be an "analog" mode switch for the mixer, possibly offering various degrees of analog-ness.

[Kingston]

Well you could, for example, insert elephant last in the chain in the oversampled clipping mode and it would sound reasonably the same. There's nothing luxurious about driving the preamp opamp/transformer. They are simple semi transparent waveshapers at the core, especially on the cheaper mixers.

What we unfortunately lack is just that: a collection of great sounding saturators/clippers/waveshapers that don't sound as overtly digital as they have this far.

[.jon]

Yes,

I'd be really interested in good saturators as well. I haven't found anything free better than TbT Greasetube (which is sort of comp/tubeamp thing actually), but if someone has commercial suggestions I'd be willing to try.

[Kingston]

Of course I should now be a sly bloke and insert this here:

http://www.michaelkingston.fi/plugins.html

And while it's not exactly a saturator, it emulates (well simulates is the word more precisely) driven gain stages, and gain staging related distortion. Not the waveshaper bit, but a secondary side effect called intra-modulation, that's been sorely missing in all similar attempts in the past.

Demos, examples and freebies will be soon announced here on KVR and other similar places.

[DWb]

Is it just me, or is this thread disgustingly civil and well argued for a hard vs soft thread?

Points I've particularly liked are
* some of the difference comes down to hardware manufacturers often having more time, money and experience to spend on algorithms and presets, so there's no difference in principle, but there might be in practice
* emulations by definition can't sound 'better' than the original, so this leads to a perception that VST isn't as good as hardware
* the thing about turning off the monitor.

(On the subject of emulation, I've often thought that one of the reasons that a lot of people are disparraging about emulations is that they've never actually owned a 303 or a minimoog, and are basing the comparison on recorded examples, not realizing that the recorded version will have been through some very nice and well applied reverb, EQ, compression and general production wizardry, and the emulation is just playing dry.)

[mao]

After using hw and vst quite a bit... my opinion is:

I can't find a VA vst (and VA hw) sounding better or close enough to my A6 Andromeda.
I can't find a rompler vst sounding better than my K2000 or warmer than my Roland D50.
And if you think FM7 is great.. try playing a Yamaha FS1R.

But...at the same time... I can't find any hardware like Absynth or Reaktor...so...today, I don't mind about who is the winner... but what I like more and what I need.

But coming back to the thread... I think that few vst has the "presence" of hardware, one of this is Reaktor and saying that I'm saying that sw can sound as hw. It's only a matter of good programming.

So the question is: Are sw engineers working on hw far more skilled than who is develping vst???

[Kingston]

So the question is: Are sw engineers working on hw far more skilled than who is develping vst???

As has been covered somewhat on this thread, it's obviously part of the truth. One has to take into account decades of development experience and whole R&D departments and bigger budgets. One also has to take into account the fact there *are* VST developers (even on this very thread) just as skilled in creating good sound as anything by roland/akai/yamaha and the bunch.

[rounser]

* emulations by definition can't sound 'better' than the original, so this leads to a perception that VST isn't as good as hardware

I don't agree with this. I don't know what leads people to believe that nothing can do acid that sounds better than that produced by a 303, or that an emulation of the Korg MonoPoly sounds better than the original (which one does, IMO).

Of course an inaccurate emulation can exceed the quality of the original, whilst still remaining in the same ballpark as the original...just as another attempt at an emulation can fail to achieve the same quality as the original. It's a huge tell on how biased most everyone is that people only seem to make reference to the latter.

[DWb]

* emulations by definition can't sound 'better' than the original, so this leads to a perception that VST isn't as good as hardware

I don't agree with this. I don't know what leads people to believe that nothing can do acid that sounds better than that produced by a 303, or that an emulation of the Korg MonoPoly sounds better than the original (which one does, IMO).

Of course an inaccurate emulation can exceed the quality of the original, whilst still remaining in the same ballpark as the original...just as another attempt at an emulation can fail to achieve the same quality as the original. It's a huge tell on how biased most everyone is that people only seem to make reference to the latter.

I said "'better'" not "better" because I meant 'closer to the original' rather than actually better. A lot of people turn a blind eye to the existence of astonishing tools like Reaktor - or even great sounding VA's - and complain that software must suck because if it was any good, someone would be able to make a perfect Minimoog emulation.

[Snoogins47]

I think the point about a lot of folks not owning the original hardware is an important one... It's probably similar to one of the primary reasons folks whine about Line6 guitar gear... "Why doesn't my Mesa Rectifier patch make my guitar sound like the Linkin Park album?"

As someone who is fairly new to the world of synthesis, it kinda disturbs me that the same trends I was kinda put-off by in the Guitar world are here as well: an insanely inordinate amount of time/money/effort is put into giving us new versions of the old stuff, as opposed to truly innovating. As a young'n I'm not so sure how accurate this conjecture is, but it seems like that while this isn't really a new thing, the magic of the digital age has made it unbearably worse. Call me crazy, but in general my top priority for any sort of instrument is 'sounding good.' If it sounds good because it emulates an old product that sounded good, and emulates it well, awesome. If it sounds good because it emulates something really poorly, awesome (Man, this 808 sounds JUST LIKE REAL DRUMS!) If it sounds good because it sounds like nothing I've ever heard, awesome again. I'd just prefer that more effort be put into the last category, because I feel like the ludicrous strides we've made technologically recently may open up potential that becomes unrealized with all our efforts to recreate the past.

Anyway, this is getting a bit tangential so I'll try to redirect things back on topic. Why do I prefer hardware? Quite simply: because it gives me something to fiddle with! And I'm not even totally kidding. More specifically, there is a serious difference, irrational as it may be, between buying software, and buying hardware. Through a combination of how annoying copy-protection has gotten, how seemingly impermanent software is, and at least partially because I like having new toys, there's some sense in my head that Hardware is more 'legit' than Software. There's also the whole total silliness of "paying for data" that I haven't quite wrapped my head around either. And, my computer crashes and goes nuts very regularly. That doesn't help.

At any rate, all of these factors (and probably plenty I'm not thinking of) add up to a consumer (that's me) that looks at a software Synth that costs $80 and thinks "Not gonna happen" while I would think nothing of spending many times that to buy a hardware instrument. I mean, I've hemmed and hawed for weeks over whether or not to spend $30 on what seems like an awesome synth that I would use frequently (ArtVera's Golden Aset), while just a few days ago I was putzing around e-bay, and bought an old Roland D-50, completely an impulse buy, for over 10 times that.

I figure I'm probably not alone in these respects... if the sound was identical, and the hardware was significantly more expensive than the software, I'd still usually take the hardware any day of the week. Bias is a powerful thing. I think these sorts of notions may disappear almost completely in the coming years, however. Even in the past few years, there seems to have been a massive increase not only in the power computer magic, but in the public view of its 'legitimacy.'

[Stupid American Pig]

I agree with Snoogins on one point- If you buy a piece of hardware- you own it, there is none of this "licensing" garbage. And while my favorite devs have not yet resorted to copy protection that I dont care for, there is no guarantee that future releases wont be hampered by crappy copy protection...

[Kingston]

I think the point about a lot of folks not owning the original hardware is an important one... It's probably similar to one of the primary reasons folks whine about Line6 guitar gear... "Why doesn't my Mesa Rectifier patch make my guitar sound like the Linkin Park album?"

Failed example,

as by all means the Line6 gear bighair/boogie patches *should* sound like Linkin Park: it was heavily featured in most of their production!

(and no I don't mean endorsed, I mean used)

[aallvor]

I figure I'm probably not alone in these respects... if the sound was identical, and the hardware was significantly more expensive than the software, I'd still usually take the hardware any day of the week. Bias is a powerful thing. I think these sorts of notions may disappear almost completely in the coming years, however. Even in the past few years, there seems to have been a massive increase not only in the power computer magic, but in the public view of its 'legitimacy.'

I used to be like this, but in the last couple of months it's completely disappered. I'm, in a sense, rid of the gearlust. Now it's like; 'These are my tools, and they are subjectively good enough for me to realise my musical ideas'.

When that's said, I have some gear on the way, all software, but I don't view them as substitutes for the real deal, something you get cause you didn't have the money, the free space, etc. To me, they are the real deal.

It's very liberating, and I'm glad I got there

[DWb]

I think the point about a lot of folks not owning the original hardware is an important one... It's probably similar to one of the primary reasons folks whine about Line6 guitar gear... "Why doesn't my Mesa Rectifier patch make my guitar sound like the Linkin Park album?"

Failed example,

as by all means the Line6 gear bighair/boogie patches *should* sound like Linkin Park: it was heavily featured in most of their production!

(and no I don't mean endorsed, I mean used)

That's kind of the point, though - even though the exact same equipment (in this case, the thing being really well emulated in the actual discussion) is used on the record, the home user thinks that their one's bad because it doesn't sound as good as on the record. This actually has nothing to do with his bit of gear, but more to do with all the other processing that's done on a properly produced record...

[Stupid American Pig]

That is probably the biggest misconception by EVERY home studio user(myself included sometimes). That I can simply slap a VST plug into a project and sound like the beatles. While most engineers and producers like to brag about how magical the recording experience is and how "easy" it was, they dont like to mention how they spent 3 days on mic placement, another 2 days tweaking each amp, and another couple of days balancing every other variable in the studio so that they could record something that sounded good.

great albums have been made with very modest equipment that I would turn my nose up at...