KVR Audio

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:34 pm

Hello all. I'm looking for a type of program, a modular environment that will allow you to make "analog" creations from scratch, by having, say, different resistors/capacitors/transistors, et cetera, that you link together the way you link modules together in reaktor or synthedit.

I've just tried Analog Box and indeed while it is very fun and cool (I wish reaktor had some of its functions!) it's not really what I' looking for here.

Does such a thing exist?

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:46 pm

Are you looking for something like SPICE? It's probably one of the most common circuit simulators around.

Not sure what you're looking to do.

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:01 pm

Hmmm not exactly. I would be looking for something more visually oriented and more like a virtual breadboard that you'd stick virtual components on.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:07 pm

fritzing?

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:52 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:fritzing?

Very cool program for design (thank you!), but I'm looking for an environment that actually simulates the design, for use as an actual instrument/effect.

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 12:06 am

The Chase wrote:Does such a thing exist?

To my great disappointment no.

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 12:22 am

This is Multisim (spice). You can test your designs but that's about as far as it goes. The price is an astronomical $ 1,549 for the base version.

http://www.ni.com/multisim/

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:24 am

The Chase wrote:Hmmm not exactly. I would be looking for something more visually oriented and more like a virtual breadboard that you'd stick virtual components on.

What about something like OrCAD?? I think you can get educational licensing for it.

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:39 am

i think he wants to make a virtual synth and actually play it virtually - sadly, this is not a reality yet - otherwise we would have tons of synths based on that modeling..

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:15 am

Ah, I thought he was looking to simulate basic circuits to do some low level programming in Reaktor.

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:26 pm

how about analogbox, its free, very powerful and lightweight

http://www.andyware.com/abox2/

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:48 pm

VariKusBrainZ wrote:how about analogbox, its free, very powerful and lightweight

http://www.andyware.com/abox2/

<cough>

The OP wrote:I've just tried Analog Box

ZooTooK · Post by **ZooTooK** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 9:53 am

My 2 cents: I think building analog synth emulations on electronic component level might be appealing as a concept but probably very tiresome in the end and very very few would actually be building anything, so we'll never se any commercial products. Made right you might come up with even more realistic emulation yet seen but it would most probably suck all CPU cycles you'll ever have on your computer. You still be dependent on those components to emulate the analog flaws like non-linear response, interference etc.

So if it's the 'analog feel' you're looking for I think you're far better of analyzing what's making 'that' sound analog (on electric component level) and find an equal math function to add to something built in e.g Reaktor, Analogbox or SynC. Very few have made any attempts on this in the Reaktor community AFAIK apart from some VCO frequency drift and some casual saturation...

Z1202 · Post by **Z1202** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:17 am

I would like to confirm the point of ZooTooK from a slightly more technical perspective. While it's known that a sound can be more or less precisely recorded and reproduced at 44.1kHz, the emulation of the sound processing occuring in analog gear generally requires very high sampling rates (I don't have specific figures, but my guess would be that we are talking of some 10x oversampling as an absolute minimum, more likely something like 100x). As a rule, DSP emulations try to achieve good results at reasonable sampling rates, at the cost of a number of tradeoffs and engineering tricks, which usually need "manual engineering intervention". A non-convincing analog sound of a particular emulation is usually due to running at a low sampling rate and due to the "insufficient quality" of the specific tradeoffs and tricks done in this particular piece of software.

A straightforward emulation of all components by itself is not going to suddenly bring "analog quality" to the sound, unless the low sampling rate problems are solved (and if they all are, this should be a major breakthrough in the DSP synth development). Otherwise the degradation of the sound due to the low sampling rate issues will outweigh the "desirable analog imperfections" achieved by emulating each and every component.

Also, when building a model of a particular analog circuit, a DSP engineer has the option to decide how much detail really needs emulation, thus saving lots of CPU by choosing not to emulate non-essential parts. Of course the judgement of what is "non-essential" has the subjective element, though.

Regards,
{Z}

Low Level Analog Environment?