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

[Haraldator]

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.

Right on. As I mentioned, bit reduction is used here, and you put the reasons for that better than I probably could have myself.

[SJ_Digriz]

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

nononononono ... This was about what was so unique about VAs from 16 years ago. The answer is not about preferences.... hate or love ... the way you listen to hardware synths is DIFFERENT ... look below for explanation of what you see as a contradition.

different yes. better no.

yes exactly .. no opinion enters into this....

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

Again, no preference good/bad. Doesn't matter if you like/dislike any given synth. The "quality" difference is about HOW it sounds ... not if it is good or bad.

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

Again, the two domains sound completely different. Unless, you compensate for all the crap that happens to your hardware gear on the way to however you are monitoring. 16 years ago those synths were played through amps and monitors that had just as much to do with the sound than the synths. Ever made a patch in the cans that sounded awesome, but when played back over a PA it sounded like shit?

All I have been saying is that the comparison is not valid. Good/Bad has nothing to do with it.

It's this endless "oooo filter x has such a warm sweep, VSTi can't do that" which is bull shit, that I'm arguing about. Sure there are extreme edge cases where you could hear some VERY subtle differences. But, they disappear in a mix. And, the "analog is more 3d" stuff is bull shit.

[osiris]

[Aroused by JarJar]

Well the case in point of ultra-crappy sampling making great sound is Fairlight.

Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush sound great. Even when their Fairlight stuff was new, I noticed, without the slightest notion of the technology involved, how many of the sounds came off as pale and canned, and listening to some of their classic tunes recently, I am struck by the shitty sound of Fairlight even more now.

That is not a comment about "then and now" or "hardware vs. software". I'm also struck by the blandness of contemporary native samplers, and it seems to me that Akai and Ensoniq were the peak of sampling sound as far as "body" to the sound.

[SJ_Digriz]

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.

lol, I agree with you on that. But, hasn't it always had a lot of that?

[whyterabbyt]

nononononono ... This was about what was so unique about VAs from 16 years ago. The answer is not about preferences.... hate or love ... the way you listen to hardware synths is DIFFERENT ... look below for explanation of what you see as a contradition.

The subject of the thread explicitly makes an assertion of preference. 'what makes X sound better'. A post that you described as 'a repetition of the lie' said "Most synths, software or hardware, have something to offer and probably shouldn't be compared - just taken purely on their own merit.... "

Both those things put this thread, and comments you were explicitly replying to, firmly in the area of 'preference'

if you're not talking about what the OP is talking about, then please dont assume that we know that you've moved the goalposts mentally whilst nebulously referring to 'it' as a 'lie'; you're sowing confusion over what you're actually trying to say. and calling things 'lies' when they actually conform to what you now say you're saying yourself doesnt exactly help.

Again, no preference good/bad. Doesn't matter if you like/dislike any given synth. The "quality" difference is about HOW it sounds ... not if it is good or bad.

That just seems like semantics. Give me a means of measuring the '"quality" difference' of 'how it sounds' then. Because Id be suprised if for most people it didnt boil down to a subjective scale of good to bad.

[Haraldator]

Haha, SJ_DIgriz, you know, from what I can see you've actually made a valid argument or two in this thread, so I'd be happy to consider taking you seriously if you weren't making such absolutely ridiculous assumptions at the same time.

Listen. If you can't hear a difference between, say, a patch on a Korg Wavestation EX and the same patch on Korg's Legacy Collection software, then that's fine. I'd only have an issue with that if you were asking me to hire you as an engineer or something. But to assume that others can hear a difference only because they listened to one synth on an amp in the nineties and the other on their studio monitors in the noughties or something to that effect is just... That makes me go "wow." Dude, really?

Seriously, had we placed much importance on what you think of us we might consider to you to be extremely rude in assuming that we're dumb enough to base our argument on that kind of "testing." Why don't you at least ask how we've come to form our opinions? Do you think we just take this stuff out of thin air or something? Is that what you're used to with the people you normally debate with (if you do debate much, that is)?

So to clarify, since you obviously need a clarification on this (which I find surprising): what I personally have done the last few years to test this is record hardware synths straight through Apogee and RME converters (not the best stuff, but certainly good enough for this purpose) into Reaper unprocessed, record softsynths unprocessed and then listen to it all, level matched, usually on my Adam P33A monitors (but also other monitors - I now use the Sonodyne SM100AK a lot as well, for example) in a moderately treated room. And there is of course a difference to be heard, although one might not always find one type of synth to be better than another (hence why I'll personally use all kinds of stuff).

These are hardly scientific tests (although we've had plenty of fun with blind tests) but the difference is overall (not always) so easy to tell that more elaborate testing certainly isn't needed for my sake. A ten year old could tell the difference. And if some musicians can not, then that might actually be due to their being musicians - it's not as if we're into making music for the welfare of our ears, now is it. My girlfriend can even tell the difference, and she tends to be out to lunch on most things music (kinda unrelated, but she also thought my Yamaha SY77 was made recently even though it's a full two decades old).

To clarify AGAIN, there's obviously no "I heard this synth on those speakers back then, and this one on a pair of boring HS80s now" going on. Well duh. Why would you think there was?

Regarding this statement:

"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."

I agree. That's true most of the time, I think, at least when comparing digital hardware synth to software synths. Hence why I'm happy to use softsynth a lot (I love them), and use the kinds of methods briefly mentioned in previous posts to process them. My results are not 100% successful, perhaps, but I'm pretty happy. When they are 100% successful (if ever) I'll probably use softsynths exclusively. At this point, I find adding in some hardware preferable a lot of the time, but it's no longer absolutely essential to me. It depends on what I'm working on.

Your opinion is your opinion and mine is mine. That's cool, I like meeting different minded people. Just a tip, thogh: If you want people to take you seriously and not just have fun debating you, don't make the kinds of assumptions you've made here.

[SJ_Digriz]

The subject of the thread explicitly makes an assertion of preference. 'what makes X sound better'.

Ok, let me try again ... What made it sound good was his preference. I have no problem with the fact that he has a preference for a certain sound.

That preferred sound CAN be recreated in VSTi. But, you can't do it by simply matching knob positions. Those external synths have a lot more involved, including the external signal chain that you have to account for.

A post that you described as 'a repetition of the lie' said "Most synths, software or hardware, have something to offer and probably shouldn't be compared - just taken purely on their own merit.... "

The lie is the self-congratulatory feedback loop of "you can't do x in VSTi land, cuz it just doesn't sound the same". The domains sound different until you adjust for the domain differences. Gearslutz/Harmony/SoS are full of sound comparisons where people simply can't tell the difference when you take the visual cue out of the equation when someone has taken the time to match the output.

EDIT: and to illustrate my position I suggested to ttoz that his old tunes he liked had a frequency response per instrument that he liked. If he spent some time matching his old mixes to those curves, he may find that he can recreate the things he found pleasing in his old mixes.

[SJ_Digriz]

Listen. If you can't hear a difference between, say, a patch on a Korg Wavestation EX and the same patch on Korg's Legacy Collection software, then that's fine. I'd only have an issue with that if you were asking me to hire you as an engineer or something. But to assume that others can hear a difference only because they listened to one synth on an amp in the nineties and the other on their studio monitors in the noughties or something to that effect is just... That makes me go "wow." Dude, really?

Show me where I made this claim? I was referring specifically to ttoz preferring his old mixes to his new. My claim is that by using internal synths, he is not compensating for the frequency responses that he liked in his old mixes. The synths do NOT "SOUND" the same.. I said you can MAKE them sound the same if you account for the domain differences.

I'll say it for the 101 (that's 5th time for math nerds) time, I am NOT saying VSTi emulations sound the same as external hardware. I saying the exact opposite.

All internet arguments sound pompous one paragraph at a time

[Haraldator]

Listen. If you can't hear a difference between, say, a patch on a Korg Wavestation EX and the same patch on Korg's Legacy Collection software, then that's fine. I'd only have an issue with that if you were asking me to hire you as an engineer or something. But to assume that others can hear a difference only because they listened to one synth on an amp in the nineties and the other on their studio monitors in the noughties or something to that effect is just... That makes me go "wow." Dude, really?

Show me where I made this claim? I was referring specifically to ttoz preferring his old mixes to his new. My claim is that by using internal synths, he is not compensating for the frequency responses that he liked in his old mixes. The synths do NOT "SOUND" the same.. I said you can MAKE them sound the same if you account for the domain differences.

I'll say it for the 101 (that's 5th time for math nerds) time, I am NOT saying VSTi emulations sound the same as external hardware. I saying the exact opposite.

All internet arguments sound pompous one paragraph at a time

Well, I may have misread you (as you probably figured already, English is a second language for me), and I'm just going to take your word for it as I can't be bothered to look for any evidence to the contrary. The thread is waaaaay too long.

Besides, I have no interest in arguing whether or not hardware synths tend to sound different to softsynths, because they so obviously do. I'm only interested in what I can do togive my softsynths some of the aspects of the "hardware sound" (for lack of a better term) that I like.

[Aiynzahev]

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

No it was SynthMaster actually, but Lush will do something similar, though not quite the same:

http://soundcloud.com/aiyn-zahev/lush-101-bit-reduction

[SJ_Digriz]

Well, I may have misread you

You may not have misread, I could have been unclear, or there could have been 5 different topics going at once and it wasn't clear which was being referred to.

I'm only interested in what I can do togive my softsynths some of the aspects of the "hardware sound" (for lack of a better term) that I like.

AWESOME QUESTION!!!! That is what I thought the topic really should have been to begin with!

I don't know the answer ... I've heard enough examples to know there are ton of sound designers and mastering engineers who do though. So, it can be done.

[pdxindy]

Listen. If you can't hear a difference between, say, a patch on a Korg Wavestation EX and the same patch on Korg's Legacy Collection software, then that's fine. I'd only have an issue with that if you were asking me to hire you as an engineer or something. But to assume that others can hear a difference only because they listened to one synth on an amp in the nineties and the other on their studio monitors in the noughties or something to that effect is just... That makes me go "wow." Dude, really?

Since both are the same ones and zeros, it seems that the mostly likely place to look for the difference you hear is in the hardware chain itself... His point seems sound to me.

Did you use a digital out on the EX in your example (I don't remember there being one)? If not, then there is an extra conversion there you have not accounted for. Various people on KVR have reported liking the sound of their softsynths better simply by sending the audio out through an amp and back into their computer.

ps- I prefer the sound of my softsynths... I have owned a Wavestation and a few other digital synths and currently use a Korg Z1 as a controller.

[Haraldator]

Listen. If you can't hear a difference between, say, a patch on a Korg Wavestation EX and the same patch on Korg's Legacy Collection software, then that's fine. I'd only have an issue with that if you were asking me to hire you as an engineer or something. But to assume that others can hear a difference only because they listened to one synth on an amp in the nineties and the other on their studio monitors in the noughties or something to that effect is just... That makes me go "wow." Dude, really?

Since both are the same ones and zeros, it seems that the mostly likely place to look for the difference you hear is in the hardware chain itself... His point seems sound to me.

Did you use a digital out on the EX in your example (I don't remember there being one)? If not, then there is an extra conversion there you have not accounted for. Various people on KVR have reported liking the sound of their softsynths better simply by sending the audio out through an amp and back into their computer.

ps- I prefer the sound of my softsynths... I have owned a Wavestation and a few other digital synths and currently use a Korg Z1 as a controller.

Sorry, but I can't see how you could have read my posts and responded with this?

[Haraldator]

Well, I may have misread you

You may not have misread, I could have been unclear, or there could have been 5 different topics going at once and it wasn't clear which was being referred to.

I'm only interested in what I can do togive my softsynths some of the aspects of the "hardware sound" (for lack of a better term) that I like.

AWESOME QUESTION!!!! That is what I thought the topic really should have been to begin with!

I don't know the answer ... I've heard enough examples to know there are ton of sound designers and mastering engineers who do though. So, it can be done.

It's a bit of a messy thread, and it wouldn't be the misunderstanding made, that's for sure!

And yes, I've made some progress myself too, so it's looking good! While I'm not there yet and still have to run stuff out of the computer and back in sometimes, I'm getting closer using just plugins. Beats having to take my old hardware samplers with me on the road just to use as processors.