Diva vs Analogue - a real world test

[IncarnateX]

@IncarnateX
Your quite compulsive, aren't you?

Yeah. And you are a KVRer who has made 21 posts since 24 august 2015 but speak for whole KVR and acts like you know your way around. So which banned member are you really? Or maybe you are just a sockpuppet?

[wagtunes]

@IncarnateX
Your quite compulsive, aren't you?

Yeah. And you are a KVRer who has made 21 posts since 24 august 2015 but speak for whole KVR and acts like you know your way around. So which banned member are you really? Or maybe you are just a sockpuppet?

While I am not a head shrink, I have a theory about the 3 groups of people that are pounding the crap out of this thread.

Group 1 - Die hard hardware analog synth heads. They will defend their synths to the death. Nothing can be as good as the real thing. It's just not possible. Reasons probably range from unable to admit that their gear is outrageously overpriced compared to what we can now do with software to truly believing that nothing is as good.

Group 2 - Die hard software geeks. They will also defend their synths to the death. To them, analog has not proven to be better or, at the very least, not so much better as to justify the added expense. Reasons for such zeal range from envy at not being able to afford hardware to truly believing there is little difference, if any at all, and in some cases, VSTs actually being superior.

Group 3 - Those who don't really give a crap what they use and will use anything but are tired of this stupid argument and have thus come here to tell others how stupid it is.

If I've left out any groups, please forgive me. It is difficult for me to synchronize my brain to this level of "who gives a crap-ness?"

I'm probably in a fourth group of the "I've heard hardware that truly does sound like nothing else but just can't justify the expense, cost and ultimate repairs that I'll have to endure" kind. Yes, some of the filters on some hardware synths (I'm big on filters and pretty much judge a synth by its filter) that I've heard are truly sensational, like the Schmidt and the Code 8 just to name two. But as far as a Minimoog goes, I will definitely take an emulation over the original as I just don't hear that much difference. Same with a Prophet or ARP, except for the 2600 which I've yet to hear a decent emulation of yet.

As I've said before. Use what you want. If you like software, use software. If you like hardware, use hardware. If you like both, use both. You can make really great music with any of it.

Which is why, again, I contend that this is one of the most pointless threads I've found on this forum.

And that is saying a lot.

[trimph1]

This thread should be put to pasture.

Use whatever the fark you want to. As someone who has been arguing this for sometime this thread has really become dumb and dumber.

[bmrzycki]

Is it time for endless cat pics?

[trimph1]

Kitteh!!!!!

[Mutant]

Great! So if the scientific community already has proven that analogue in this specific case has cheated by making A sound better than B (which is a retarded statement in itself) why did we need to inspect the waveforms then?

I never said anything like that.
I keep telling you that you don't understand the meaning of my messages and you are still going in that direction, how stupid can one be ?

And if you are a professor without even being able to understand that what i am trying to tell you is that the scientific community has proven that PEOPLE ARE NATURALLY BIASED, NOT THAT THE OP HAS CHEATED, then my dick is 30cm long.

Also it is you who started with ad hominems with that 40% and the wooden plank.
Now we will get this thread closed because of you, are you proud ?

[Mutant]

If there is no specific characteristic of analogue that digital cannot match, then we are dealing with personal preference... your argument over the validity of the test is meaningless because there is no test that can account for personal preference.

and of course if the software CAN be made to sound better (via bias or any other means), that is mainly what people are interested in.

Actually there may be a way to measure it.
If some owners of the sound set could tweak the sounds to sound even closer to the analog.

As i said above i am assuming that i remember it correctly that many of us stated that A sounds better and 1 even said jokingly that "A sounds more analog than analog".
So if something is perceived as better than something, then they are not equal.
Tweaking it so that they are more equal would make the "better" get smaller and smaller, the closer the 2 sounds would be.
Right ?

So if the OP spent months on making the set and if the customers could get the sounds closer in some short time, it would tell us something.
Right ?

[IncarnateX]

Also it is you who started with ad hominems with that 40% and the wooden plank.
Now we will get this thread closed because of you, are you proud ?

You make AD look like Einstein, kiddo. At least there are islands of real insights among the otherwise free and grazy associations. You are just full of rubbish from head to toe. But keep repeating it to yourself. Maybe you will eventually believe it yourself and the pain will cease.
Beware of those joints, though. At least you should not mix it with alcohol and --for the sake of what is left of your sanity- certainly not LSD.

I wish you a speedy recovery

[herodotus]

@IncarnateX
Your quite compulsive, aren't you?

Yeah. And you are a KVRer who has made 21 posts since 24 august 2015 but speak for whole KVR and acts like you know your way around. So which banned member are you really? Or maybe you are just a sockpuppet?

While I am not a head shrink, I have a theory about the 3 groups of people that are pounding the crap out of this thread.

Group 1 - Die hard hardware analog synth heads. They will defend their synths to the death. Nothing can be as good as the real thing. It's just not possible. Reasons probably range from unable to admit that their gear is outrageously overpriced compared to what we can now do with software to truly believing that nothing is as good.

Group 2 - Die hard software geeks. They will also defend their synths to the death. To them, analog has not proven to be better or, at the very least, not so much better as to justify the added expense. Reasons for such zeal range from envy at not being able to afford hardware to truly believing there is little difference, if any at all, and in some cases, VSTs actually being superior.

Group 3 - Those who don't really give a crap what they use and will use anything but are tired of this stupid argument and have thus come here to tell others how stupid it is.

If I've left out any groups, please forgive me. It is difficult for me to synchronize my brain to this level of "who gives a crap-ness?"

I'm probably in a fourth group of the "I've heard hardware that truly does sound like nothing else but just can't justify the expense, cost and ultimate repairs that I'll have to endure" kind. Yes, some of the filters on some hardware synths (I'm big on filters and pretty much judge a synth by its filter) that I've heard are truly sensational, like the Schmidt and the Code 8 just to name two. But as far as a Minimoog goes, I will definitely take an emulation over the original as I just don't hear that much difference. Same with a Prophet or ARP, except for the 2600 which I've yet to hear a decent emulation of yet.

As I've said before. Use what you want. If you like software, use software. If you like hardware, use hardware. If you like both, use both. You can make really great music with any of it.

Which is why, again, I contend that this is one of the most pointless threads I've found on this forum.

And that is saying a lot.

It is actually much less pointless than numerous other threads. The 'Cher effect' (i.e. the early abuses of autotune) gave birth to some threads that were so vapid that the uninitiated could lose years of knowledge just by reading a few pages without the proper safeguards. And of course, compared to, say, 4chan, kvr is an oasis of deep meaning and polite conversation.

You must realize that the points you raised are actually the result of years of unintentional learning. You can not teach someone to fish just by giving them a fish, and you can't impart deep cynicism just by showing how sensible it is.

People must find such enlightenment on their own.

...or not.

[IncarnateX]

Oh, and for the sake of order. Let us just repeat one more time what your claim was , @Mutant, because you obviously forget all the time:

For obvious reasons A was MADE to sound better while still close to B (possibly unconsciously, but probably not)

So, this is as far as can be from a claim just saying that people are naturally biased you self twisted piece of utterly [bleep!]

[Mutant]

Also it is you who started with ad hominems with that 40% and the wooden plank.
Now we will get this thread closed because of you, are you proud ?

You make AD look like Einstein, kiddo. At least there are islands of real insights among the otherwise free and grazy associations. You are just full of rubbish from head to toe. But keep repeating it to yourself. Maybe you will eventually believe it yourself and the pain will cease.
Beware of those joints, though. At least you should not mix it with alcohol and --for the sake of what is left of your sanity- certainly not LSD.

I wish you a speedy recovery

You just proved that you lied about being a professor.
I had many conversations with really intelligent people in my quarter of a century online.
No self respecting "Associate Professor in Psychology" would ever say something like that.
Also no self respecting professor would ever use his title and disrespect his opponent and twist around what he said, instead of just providing valid counter arguments.
2 possibilities:
1. You are a liar.
2. You paid for your title.

[Mutant]

Oh, and for the sake of order. Let us just repeat one more time what your claim was , @Mutant, because you obviously forget all the time:

For obvious reasons A was MADE to sound better while still close to B (possibly unconsciously, but probably not)

So, this is as far as can be from a claim just saying that people are naturally biased you self twisted piece of utterly [bleep!]

Only if you understand it differently from my understanding of these words, you lying piece of (bleep).

[fluffy_little_something]

Wow, this thread is still going strong

The problem is that most people don't have access to a quality analog hw synth, so they can't compare for themselves.

But I think while it might not be scientific, probably everyone would agree when x sounds better than y (I picked x and y because it has nothing to do with the specific synths in this thread). The criteria might be things like fullness, bottom end, etc. While it is a bit unscientific, I think 9/10 would agree which sounds better.
Like with the beauty of a woman. Some say it is all about taste and everyone is beautiful etc., but that is just pc talk in my view. Some women are just so beautiful that everyone agrees, even if they don't admit it in order to not offend their wives and girlfriends
So, if A in this test simply offered more of what we all like to hear, it sounds better. But of course we can never tell if the comparison was fair in terms of sound design...

[Mutant]

If we agree that most here said that A sounds better (check the first 10-20 pages), then what possibilities do we have here ?

1. OP failed at making them equal enough that they are indistinguishable, even though he did everything in his power to do so, even though he spent many months on this job.
2. OP was successful in making A sound better (good job btw).
3. ?
Because as we already established, the closer the 2 sounds are, the closer to 50/50% the answers would be.

Lets not be naive and pick the more probable possibility.

This is an attempt at rephrasing the:

For obvious reasons A was MADE to sound better while still close to B (possibly unconsciously, but probably not)

So the 1 dumb one can understand its true meaning.

[pdxindy]

So if the OP spent months on making the set and if the customers could get the sounds closer in some short time, it would tell us something.
Right ?

What do you think it would tell us?

I know a few writers who send their articles to me for proof reading and final suggestions before publishing. In a short time I make some improvements to the articles. That does not mean I could write the same articles myself, nor that they are poor authors because in a short time I helped improve what they did.