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

[Uncle E]

I totally get this, but we're modeling entire guitar amp systems with pretty good results these days... we (and by we I mean developers) can't model the hardware synth output stage? I mean, if it makes such a positive difference...

hehe

It's interesting that the company with the most convincing amp emulation, Kemper, is also the behind the Virus TI.

[Haraldator]

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.

Yes, you are right here. Most synths, software or hardware, have something to offer and probably shouldn't be compared - just taken purely on their own merit. It just so happens that i love the sound of various digital hardware synths from the 80's and 90's and have been looking for that sound in vsti's - I guess there are plenty of people who love the sound of modern vsti's and don't care for 80's/90's hardware. Horses for courses!

I totally get this, but we're modeling entire guitar amp systems with pretty good results these days... we (and by we I mean developers) can't model the hardware synth output stage? I mean, if it makes such a positive difference...

I'm sure we can - at least to a certain extent - but it seems to be overlooked by at least the majority of those who make these software instruments.

Some stuff is starting to show up as effects, of course, like the MPCee3K Sampler, which is available for Nebula users at http://rhythminmind.net/STN/?p=2701

Overview

A capture of the 3000′s sampled signal path/process
Hardware samplers AD/sample/DA signal paths can add grit or presence to whatever they process (depending how hard they are driven). A common quality found in countless Electronic & HipHop productions.
Captured via Lynx conversion

Programs

MPCee3k - 44.100 10 kern


A "sampled" sampler, in other words - I mentioned sometimes running softsynths through samplers, so I look forward to giving this one a test run when I finally get that whole Nebula thing going here.

Anyway. People need to realize that the components that an audio signal goes through in a hardware synth or sampler are often handpicked to create a certain sound, as in the case with the real MPC-3000, which has big, punchy sounding converters quite unlike those that should reside in a quality audio interface, where you would obviously want as neutral a sound as possible in most scenarios. I wonder if we'll se more stuff like this showing up - some modeled stuff from Waves or someone like that wouldn't surprise me. Look out for the "BigDAC VST/AU" at a nearby webshop soon!


On a side note related to audio interface converters vs hardware instrument converters, I found it interesting to learn that a fairly new audio interface from Native Instruments that some people I know have purchased (I think it's called Komplete Audio 6) is said to sound "punchy" and "narrow" when compared to others.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Native Instruments have equipped that interface with converters that do sound a little more punchy on purpose, because of the fact that a very large portion of their customer base are DJs or people making hip hop, dubstep or other types of music where you obviously want your beats to sound fat and punchy.

Now, most producers would of course realize that monitoring with something that colors your sound is a horrible idea. But of these customers are clearly beginners (in almost any field the vast majority is made up of beginners, of course), so the suits at NI have probably figured that "pleasing" these people with a fat, punchy sound right from their audio interface is a very smart thing to do.

It's not as if that kind of thing hasn't worked before. In fact, it's worked phenomenally well. Just consider KRK and their Rokit series speakers. I have nothing against Rokits (they're fun), but if a neutral sound is what you're after then there are certainly better speakers to be had, even in that price range. But most Rokit customers aren't all that concerned about neutrality, they want their stuff to sound fat NOW, so a monitor speaker that colors their sound and gives their beats more vitality and weight than they actually carry will probably make them happy.

And the people at Native Instruments are smart enough to realize that users - many of which might use NI stuff almost exclusively - will LOVE the sound of their Maschine & Massive coming out of a set of converters that give their stuff a little more thump. This is, after all, not a small company where things like that would be all that likely to happen just by chance. And it's not necessarily a bad thing either: people seem very happy with Komplete Audio 6. They recommend it to others. In other words, everyone is, well, happy.

[Ichad.c]

It's not as if that kind of thing hasn't worked before. In fact, it's worked phenomenally well. Just consider KRK and their Rokit series speakers. I have nothing against Rokits (they're fun), but if a neutral sound is what you're after then there are certainly better speakers to be had, even in that price range. But most Rokit customers aren't all that concerned about neutrality, they want their stuff to sound fat NOW, so a monitor speaker that colors their sound and gives their beats more vitality and weight than they actually carry will probably make them happy.

Haha! Was thinking of getting some Rokits - just for when clients come in. Very unrealistic - but vibey and punchy - and they look cool. People seem stare too much at my AKG LSM50's with a look.

[tapper mike]

I has this pair of alleged flat field monitors years ago. Very pricey and gawd awful to listen to. Choked and Sterile best describe them. But if something was wrong in the mix it would reach out grab you by the short hairs and bang you against the walls till it was fixed. I made it a point to "fake" mix down with an alternative set of speakers for the clients rather then trying to do an honest mix down before them as it would always lead to endless arguments.

As I'm doing mixing for myself and no one else I don't care what the rest of the world uses to listen to it with. I only care about what I'm listening to. I hate rokits.

In regards to amp sims and amps. Honestly after playing with various brands both hardware and software I'm very satisfied with my Pandora Mini. I find myself tweaking it little to none at all in order to pull my favorite sounds out. And they sound just as good at practically any level that can be heard over the acoustic sounds of a solid body guitar. Being old and being a classic rocker I love the presets and the architecture and am quite happy with the response be it using an aux in on a guitar amp or direct in for recording. It even has a feature for "air" which is like room mic'ing.

[Seidhepriest]

Well the case in point of ultra-crappy sampling making great sound is Fairlight. Part of the trick there was that each voice had its own processor and its own output circuitry. Yes, one soundboard per voice. Meaning, slight detuning/difference for each board. All that marvellous 8-bit crunchy sound meant that aliasing was there always, and so it had to be smoothed out by analogue gear (the original Fairlight CMI I had 24 KHz/8-bit sampling). In the end, that's the recipe of success for all ancient digital synths - it's the *analogue stage* that makes them sound different. Basically it's op-amp character, DA smoothing-out, capacitor distortion, whatnot, that changes the sound and makes it "warm" (you could stick a triode stage on top and see whether that helps even more, though some guitar amp owners would've done it externally).

The other reason for great sounds is that it's always a trick exploiting the peculiarities of a synth's sound, not necessarily making it sound "realistic" as the VA synths often try. Case in point: Arturia's Prophet VS emulates the Prophet VS, but can you import or draw a waveform into it? Getting the fat big sound even out of a production Fairlight usually meant mixing/slightly delaying several tapes, EQing and merging multiple versions of the same take, etc. It was tricky. If anything lowpassing a "dead digital" take with a fat filter could make it sound better (and that's the original trick used in many digital/analogue synths), so often what you're really thrilled by is the colouration and fatness of the *filter* or effect stage, not the synth itself.

Speaking of which, a simple trick for "curing" digital harshness is just keeping the F/8 rule in mind. E. g. detail limit is sampling frequency/8. 44-KHz samples sound fine in a 96-KHz (192-KHz) mix by lowpassing them at 5.5 KHz and giving them a resonance peak around slightly less than 3 KHz, say. 24-KHz sampling frequency of the Fairlight yields 3 KHz realistic unaliased detail limit, which is just about the critical range. There's still the issue of 8-bit jaggedness and 16-bit coldness/hollowness (as loudness drops below the initial -6 to 0 dB range, there's loss of dynamic detail and aliasing).

[Aroused by JarJar]

I find it interesting that even my Korg m50 synth sounds better than most VST's. I don't know why, but it seems to have a 3d depth that a lot of VST's lack. No idea why cause its only running at 44khz 24bit... and this Korg has NOTHING analog or VA about it. However, it does sound richer/fuller.

As several people in this thread have already mentioned: dedicate a computer as a synthesizer, take a line out (through D/A) and treat it as a hardware synth, either direct into the mixer or through amplification and mic'd. Voila.

You can get older ADDA units on Ebay. A friend of mine has an old Swissonic unit, that has thicker darker convertors than today's typical- very similar to my 20+ year-old Ensoniq EPS convertors. Some old cheap Midiman (now M-Audio) convertors will do great for this also.

[osiris]

The Korg sounds good because it has Korg effects on it. If you use the Korg MDE-X, you know what I speak of.

[tapper mike]

Well the case in point of ultra-crappy sampling making great sound is Fairlight. Part of the trick there was that each voice had its own processor and its own output circuitry.

Check out opx
12 different voices in separate voice design. It really gives the richness of analog

[jonahs]

In the 90s the hardware companies had analog gear laying around to study, disassemble and with documentation! Plus, they bought up the analog companies that went out of business in the 80s (and their patents!). It's not like just anyone can make a good synth, you gotta have big brains to think it and good ears to evaluate it.

Korg's still getting milage out of Dave Smith with updates to the wavestation in the Kronos and they're also still licensing some patents from Yamaha, I think!

It's not as if that kind of thing hasn't worked before. In fact, it's worked phenomenally well:

And the best example, the Juno series!

Thing is, programming for the best tech specs has very little barring on the musical quality of sound. I feel many of people making and using synths and much of music technology have no idea what actually makes them sound good. It's all rationalization after the fact. "'Oh, this sounds good and it's analog, so it must be analog magic, this sounds good and it's tubes so it must be tube magic, etc."

There's a story about the Prophet VS where it was supposed to have anti-aliasing until Dave Smith heard it and like it without. If it's true I really respect that kind of courage.

Specifically in the case of Yamaha they were likely flush with cash due to success of the DX line. I could see them dedicating more resources because they expected a bigger return.

Software synth makers have it hard too because they have to fight against the entrenched ideas about what a synth should "sound" like both analog and digital! Meaning they have to fight both the supersaw leads, lately bass and your moogs and junos.

Then you have the problem that digital synths generally sold well because they were light, reliable and gave you a ton of sounds. The fact that Yamaha accidentally used some bad ass synthesis is secondary. Most people are still going to opt for the keyboard rompler solution, further shrinking the market for synths.

In my opinion, we still don't have samplers as good for creative purposes as what ensoniq or emu were doing in the 90s, but most people don't seem to care beyond sample playback....

Bottom line though, if you can't make modern software work for you, it's not the software (at least not the sound quality of it).

---
Also, about running effects per voice as mentioned earlier, I do this with with software and MIDI in Logic's environment sometimes and I also do it on occasion with all my hardware synths that have individual voice outs, like the the poly evolver, TG77 and so on.

[DevonB]

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.

Yes, you are right here. Most synths, software or hardware, have something to offer and probably shouldn't be compared - just taken purely on their own merit. It just so happens that i love the sound of various digital hardware synths from the 80's and 90's and have been looking for that sound in vsti's - I guess there are plenty of people who love the sound of modern vsti's and don't care for 80's/90's hardware. Horses for courses!

And, this is the exact repetition of the lie ... two people agreeing the world is flat doesn't make it true.

Lie? That's not a lie. We're talking about an opinion. There is no 'factual' information that ones' preference of one synth over another makes them factually wrong; that's merely a disagreement between two people. However, you can scientifically prove that the earth is not flat.

Devon

[SJ_Digriz]

Lie? That's not a lie. We're talking about an opinion. There is no 'factual' information that ones' preference of one synth over another makes them factually wrong; that's merely a disagreement between two people. However, you can scientifically prove that the earth is not flat.

Devon

The concept that this is about opinion IS THE LIE ... There are physical .. actual .. real .. reasons why the 2 domains sound different. It isn't that the VSTi devs just can't quite get it right, or that hardware synth engineers had magic pixie dust in the 80s and 90s that we just ran out of.

If you take the time to match the domains, you won't be able to tell the difference. Even in the "opinion" examples given, there is nothing in them that isn't achievable with VSTi, regardless of the protestations of the poster. Heck, if given a song that was entirely VSTi and 1 not, I don't think people could tell if mixed/mastered by a professional.

You get used to listening to synths in a certain environment and configuration. That single person experience is ridiculously difficult to simulate. However, the sound that will actually end up on disk is not.

[Aiynzahev]

I was working on a synth recently that has a bit reduction module. What I found interesting was that reduced s-h intervals added a lot of character and interest to the sound, if these alias frequencies were kept at a very low level I think they would introduce a kind of harmonic enhancement.

Secondly, when I reduce the bits until there is a slight amount of noise, something interesting happens. Each time I play a note or a chord a little bit of this noise is introduced and creates a sort of envelope, and environment around the sound. When the key stops the sound disappears, creating this illusion that the sound being played was recorded as recording things often introduces a little amount of noise, but digital synthesis does not have normally. This bit reduction noise was different from white noise too. It seemed to be more 3D.

Not that this will be new to many people, but it was to me.

[osiris]

Was this Lush? Please tell me this was Lush ...
(I know you're a beta, you lucky man)

[whyterabbyt]

The concept that this is about opinion IS THE LIE ...

No, im afraid its the concept that something which is innately preference (cf 'sounds better') is not entirely opinion is 'the lie'.

There are physical .. actual .. real .. reasons why the 2 domains sound different.

different yes. better no.

but please feel free to produce the metric, and the unit of measurement for, 'sounding better' if you have such a thing.

It isn't that the VSTi devs just can't quite get it right, or that hardware synth engineers had magic pixie dust in the 80s and 90s that we just ran out of.

If you take the time to match the domains, you won't be able to tell the difference.

a sentence ago you say the two domains sound inextricably different, now you say can match them? whit?

i really have no idea what your position is now im afraid. but seriously, why would you even bother worrying about what other people think of the tools you use?

its sad. KVR seems more and more to be a place where actual music has ceased to be of any importance, relegated way behind the twin shibboleths of equipment cockwaving, and the possibility that someone, somewhere, evar, might have paid less in total for any given item of that equipment.

[osiris]

Cue donkeytugger.................