How come "Hardware" VA's 16 years ago sounded so good like the AN1x and now....

[Ichad.c]

Also, VA hardware synths(in general here) old and new - seem to have alot more choices - when it comes to built in effects - compared to their VSTi counterparts. Would love to hear that Nord Demo - without the effects.

[do_androids_dream]

The nord lead doesn't have any built in effects. Those demos only have software reverb and delay which doesn't change the fundamental sound of a synth (i didn't do them btw! just found them browsing around). I would love to hear them dry too. If you want to hear good examples of dry nord lead check out autechre's cichli suite ep as they said in an interview that some tracks are nothing but nord (and it is a very dry and effect free sound on that ep).

[Fred_Abstract]

maybe softwares don't generate enought money to get the dsp gurus intrested into it? if access was making a plugins, or the guys who made the early nords i bet it would kick ass and beat the shit out of lot of praised software.

[whyterabbyt]

if access was making a plugins... i bet it would kick ass and beat the shit out of lot of praised software.

they sorta did, twice. and it sorta didnt...

http://virus.info/page/render/lang/en/p ... sizer.html

http://www.tcelectronic.com/accessvirus.asp

[Haraldator]

Generally speaking I think it's not so much in the coding and processing of these old beasts, but rather in the saturation/inharmonic distortion you get at the output stage, which can make a tremendous difference to the way a synth sounds. Softsynths and some modern digitals need a bit of extra help to bring some of that life, size and weight to the sound, as pro audio computer audio interfaces are obviously built to not color the sound in any way.

You can do that by running the synths through some outboard (I even use hardware samplers sometimes), or slap some saturation plugs on them - my most used plugs for that purpose is probably PSP Vintage Warmer and URS Saturation (as well as Slate VCC, actually). Bit reducers and also high pass/low pass filters (which you would use on any digital recording anyway) also help. I get bigger, more interesting and lively sounds with better depth (3d) using these tools - basically, a softsynth will sound more like a hardware synth. Obviously, a good reverb on top of that (which you won't often find in software synths) also helps. Some hardware synths have great built-in reverbs, which can obviously have an effect of how we perceive the sound quality of these instruments.

To put it bluntly: Without good saturation plugins I would not be using softsynths.

As much as I like some old VAs like AN1X and my Nord Modular (both are great synths IMO), I think they sound like they have, well, old code. That code can have its own character, but I wouldn't say it's better than the coding coming out the offices of,say, U-He or Applied Acoustics Systems. It's just different, and the fact that the sound of these synths actually does run through some hardware that isn't perfectly clean sounding adds to the sound in a way that many would term "good." Even with a Virus TI you will get a noticeably different sound by using the audio outputs and not just the USB connection. I prefer the sound coming out of the audio outputs personally.

[osiris]

Somebody mentioned band limiting, and maybe that's the key. When I was doing SE synths and researching the Juno I found the oscillators were band limited. I've also read rumors that Access does that with the Virus oscillators. Another thing is the filter frequency response. I really don't pay attention to VST filter freq., but I know the Juno filter's range was, like 5Hz to 20k kHz. This kind of value was almost impossible to put into a SE knob, and that may be a graphical shortcoming.

[Haraldator]

Somebody mentioned band limiting, and maybe that's the key.

Yes, that's defintely part of it if you ask me.

[Fred_Abstract]

if access was making a plugins... i bet it would kick ass and beat the shit out of lot of praised software.

they sorta did, twice. and it sorta didnt...

http://virus.info/page/render/lang/en/p ... sizer.html

http://www.tcelectronic.com/accessvirus.asp

praised synth of that time were vanguard and albino..a virus C destroy these synths .
if those access plugs sound just as good as the real deal then it s no match for that sound to me.

[Fred_Abstract]

Generally speaking I think it's not so much in the coding and processing of these old beasts, but rather in the saturation/inharmonic distortion you get at the output stage, which can make a tremendous difference to the way a synth sounds.

but it s suprising those old va had cleaner osc closer to analog ones with less bad resonances in comparaison to many plugins

[Haraldator]

Generally speaking I think it's not so much in the coding and processing of these old beasts, but rather in the saturation/inharmonic distortion you get at the output stage, which can make a tremendous difference to the way a synth sounds.

but it s suprising those old va had cleaner osc closer to analog ones cause of less bad resonances in comparaison to many plugins

Yeah, you're probably right about that. Not all newer coding represents progress, I suppose.

But talking about "clean." I used to think that cleaner sounding signals would be easier to mix. But then I found that what was then considered relatively modern VA synths were usually harder to mix than analog synths, and software VAs were even harder to mix than hardware VAs. There is probably more than one reason for that, but the problem is at least partly due to too clean digital signals.

A digital synth sound that is too clean can sound dull and veiled and distant and get lost in the mix and "mud it up" - paradoxically making your recording sound less clean because you used too clean sounds. Add an ever so slight degree of saturation/distortion to every track in a mix, and suddenly it's "cleaned up," giving you the sense of better separation between the instruments, better depth etc, even with no EQ or anything else going on (sure, the kinds of plugins used to do that do tend to compress signals a bit, but that doesn't account for all of it, not by a mile). I make music 100% ITB a lot (partly because I love traveling and can't fit my hardware synths in my backpack), and I don't know how I would do that if I couldn't use saturation plugins to, well, "clean" up my sound.
I'm not an engineer, though, that's for sure.

[chroma]

i think a lot of people listen with their eyes.

[SJ_Digriz]

i think a lot of people listen with their eyes.

I think a lot of people listen with their ego that they built reading a million tarnce "producers" opinions about VSTi. This is the perfect example of a lie being told so often that it has become entrenched in truth.

[Acid Mitch]

i think a lot of people listen with their eyes.

By " a lot of people " I tske it you mean everyone with sight ?
That's a normal part of human perception.

[do_androids_dream]

A digital synth sound that is too clean can sound dull and veiled and distant and get lost in the mix and "mud it up" - paradoxically making your recording sound less clean because you used too clean sounds. Add an ever so slight degree of saturation/distortion to every track in a mix, and suddenly it's "cleaned up," giving you the sense of better separation between the instruments, better depth etc, even with no EQ or anything else going on (sure, the kinds of plugins used to do that do tend to compress signals a bit, but that doesn't account for all of it, not by a mile). I make music 100% ITB a lot (partly because I love traveling and can't fit my hardware synths in my backpack), and I don't know how I would do that if I couldn't use saturation plugins to, well, "clean" up my sound.
I'm not an engineer, though, that's for sure.

Yes, ultimately it is the imperfections that contribute's significantly to the 'character' in a synth. This is why the Nord Lead version 1 is generally thought of as sounding more sonically pleasing than version 2 (lower bitrate D/A converters). You have to work pretty hard to mimic these imperfections with a vsti. I find, with any vsti patch, i nearly always route an LFO to oscillator(s) pitch with a sample and hold/random waveform and modulate just slightly. This along with saturation, slight distortions, a touch of reverb to give it a '3d' quality and various other little tricks is what i have to do so often to get it sounding 'good'. Just look at the SQ80 - the very low bitrate samples it used for oscillators are ripe with imperfections and aliasing which is ultimately what made it sound so good and distinctive!

[Haraldator]

A digital synth sound that is too clean can sound dull and veiled and distant and get lost in the mix and "mud it up" - paradoxically making your recording sound less clean because you used too clean sounds. Add an ever so slight degree of saturation/distortion to every track in a mix, and suddenly it's "cleaned up," giving you the sense of better separation between the instruments, better depth etc, even with no EQ or anything else going on (sure, the kinds of plugins used to do that do tend to compress signals a bit, but that doesn't account for all of it, not by a mile). I make music 100% ITB a lot (partly because I love traveling and can't fit my hardware synths in my backpack), and I don't know how I would do that if I couldn't use saturation plugins to, well, "clean" up my sound.
I'm not an engineer, though, that's for sure.

Yes, ultimately it is the imperfections that contribute's significantly to the 'character' in a synth. This is why the Nord Lead version 1 is generally thought of as sounding more sonically pleasing than version 2 (lower bitrate D/A converters). You have to work pretty hard to mimic these imperfections with a vsti. I find, with any vsti patch, i nearly always route an LFO to oscillator(s) pitch with a sample and hold/random waveform and modulate just slightly. This along with saturation, slight distortions, a touch of reverb to give it a '3d' quality and various other little tricks is what i have to do so often to get it sounding 'good'. Just look at the SQ80 - the very low bitrate samples it used for oscillators are ripe with imperfections and aliasing which is ultimately what made it sound so good and distinctive!

Absolutely. I remember being so disappointed with my softsynths, because there was something missing from their sound, and it took me years to figure out how to deal with it - because of the simple fact that I flat out quit using them. I loved some things about them (the cost, the lack of cables, the flexibility etc) but I thought the sound was just a little meh compared to even my hardware romplers.

I'd then go and discuss the problem with others and usually get ridiculous responses like "your audio interface isn't good enough" etc - so out they went, basically. I later realized that softsynths need more processing to get that super important inharmonic distortion going, without which I don't find a sound as interesting.

But from 2004 until probably 2007 or 2008 I hardly ever used software synths. At that point I started buying them again and got a couple of great ones, learned how to process them to mimic those subtle differences you tend to get between hardware and software, and voila: happy time. That meant I could travel and make music at the same time, which was a dream come true for me.

That said, I usually prefer a mix of both hardware and software in my music. I'm most happy with the results with that approach. If I was just making dance music something like that, though, I'd probably be happy with software only at this point.