What hardware are you missing in software?

[Astralp]

An Elektron style drum machine with proper p-locks. Can't believe no-one has really tried this so far.

Geist comes the closest, not trying to be Elektron but still...

I'd love to see the JD-800 in a plugin, I love this synth but it weighs a ton and takes up a 1/4 of a room, but I do wonder if it would have the same appeal without all the sliders. If they nailed the beautiful filter resonance I think it probably would. I know there was a reaktor emulation but it didn't really get the sound.

[Astralp]

Concerning the RSF Polykobol II where Xils Lab PolyKB II is an emulation i do not know how close it really is to the real thing (it is very rare but there are a few videos at YouTube) but i love that plugin and it also has zero delay feedback filters (and the low end could be quite good). I think that it is really nice that Xils Lab had used this to do an emulatuon as the real thing is very rare and the synth is not really well known.

I agree with this, I think it is the most analog emulation out there for the simple reason that it "feels" like you are playing with a real synth, it's one of my personal favorites. Just turning the oscillator frequency knob gives me so much pleasure. Last year Xavier said he was planning to update it, I really hope that is still in the works and would be a release I would be very excited about. It's also made me want a real one of course

[exmatproton]

Nothing to be honest. Software FTW

[Astralp]

Also I'd love to see an EMU 6400 emulated that nailed the sound but made it easy to work with, highly unlikely I know as it's a digital sampler and not an analogue synth, but it's such a powerful and great sounding machine. Until then there is TAL Sampler which is fantastic and gets the sound pretty well, but I would like a virtual E6400. X3 is also very good but too much of a pain to work with, having to save soundbanks etc... they somehow missed the modern way of working in vst land and emulated the architecture too closely. If E-MU were still around I bet there would be some amazing products, thanks for that Creative Labs.

Overall I would like to see more digital emulations, Analogue has been done to death and very well. Digital will be cool again one day. I was reading the other day about how Martin Hannett had just got hold of a brand new digital delay which he used with Joy Division and the quote was something like "it's digital!" - it's easy to dismiss how amazing and exciting that was when all you had was analogue gear Today we are spoiled.

[Ingonator]

Concerning the RSF Polykobol II where Xils Lab PolyKB II is an emulation i do not know how close it really is to the real thing (it is very rare but there are a few videos at YouTube) but i love that plugin and it also has zero delay feedback filters (and the low end could be quite good). I think that it is really nice that Xils Lab had used this to do an emulatuon as the real thing is very rare and the synth is not really well known.

I agree with this, I think it is the most analog emulation out there for the simple reason that it "feels" like you are playing with a real synth, it's one of my personal favorites. Just turning the oscillator frequency knob gives me so much pleasure. Last year Xavier said he was planning to update it, I really hope that is still in the works and would be a release I would be very excited about. It's also made me want a real one of course

AFAIK only 20 of the RSF PolyKobol II were built so finding one in working condition would be hard and/or very expensive. Somewhere i also found they were not very reliable. Due to all that it is great that Xils Lab made a very nice emulation of this synth with some additional features.

The Kobol and PolyKobol synths seemed to use the SSM2040 filter chips (at least it seems to be sure for the Kobol monosynth) also found in e.g. the Prophet 5 Rev 2. Anyway i also found someone mentioning that the PolyKobol II used SSM2044 chips instead. Due to a voice card shown in a part of a YouTube video this could be true. The SSM2044 seemed to be used in Korg Polysix, Korg Mono/Poly, PPG Wave 2.3, Korg Trident and Siel Opera 6.

[TerribleNews]

Most things, I think. Very few things have been properly emulated.

[goldenanalog]

Most things, I think. Very few things have been properly emulated.

Fair argument. I think it's a case of focus:

Hammond organ has been done to death in software/digital hardware - it seems to be pretty much nailed.

I suppose that you could say the same thing about pianos: I remember back-in-the-day when Kurzweil K250's roamed the Earth - a strong selling point of that beast was it's piano sound. Decades later: I haven't read or heard from too many people complaining about either their 50-100gb/12,000+ full-length piano sample libraries - or their highly refined piano-specific physical modelling software - sounding sh*tty - probably because neither does.

In a couple of decades: it's too easy to predict that analog synthesizer hardware from the past could either exist in full-size reissue form - possibly as a combination of both analog and digital tech (CEM3340 VCO's are back in production, as an example - Hey! Maybe we'll even see a branded Minimoog model D *all digital*? Lol! Sacrilege! ) or as outstanding pc emulations commissioned by the ip owner's themselves. Given enough time (focus): they'll likely figure it all out - just like what has happened with the piano and organ.

Modular synthesizers, as a combination of decades-old analog technology & the latest DSP - I think are going to be around forever - they are the *ultimate* keyboard 'toy' by a long-shot.

[DrGonzo]

Lots of interesting suggestions. Many synths I didn't think of - plus a few I forgot about. Thanks for not letting this escalate into the normal hardware vs software debate

/C

[Ingonator]

I guess a 100% proper emulation of a Moog Memorymoog could be a real killer synth. So far there is only Memorymoon (owned it a while ago and sold it) and i did not feel it really nails the real thing. Besides that it currently still is a 32-bit Synth edit synth (opposing to ME80 that is also 64-bit now).

It seems to be posible to come somehow close with the Moog filter and the Jupiter 8 modules in Diva while of course this is still no proper emulation and the Memorymoog had 3 oscilators which is very rare with polyphonic analog synths (the Minimoog Oscs in Div a do not seem to allow PWM).
In the real thing only the filter seemed to be from Moog while the rest was based on CEM chips. While the Jupiter 6 seemed to be based on the same CEM3340 VCO chips the Osc module in Diva seems to be based on the Jupiter 8 that is based on Roland VCOs (and the Jupiter module has one oscillator less than a Memorymoog).
Roland MKS-80 Super-Jupiter up to Revison 4 seemed to have used the CEM3340 too (same for some Oberheim synths like OB-8 and OB-Xa). With Rev 5 Roland IR-3R03 VCO chips semed to be used.

[Lotuzia]

Yamaha VL1.

Here's a demo of its little brother VL7m



A Voyetra 8 would be good too. Also I'd really like a Chroma, or even a Polaris. Amongst others.

[HunterKiller]

Responsible for a third of this legendary album:

[do_androids_dream]

Nothing. Best software doesn't limit itself to imitating hardware.

I would tend to agree with this (athough no one is actually limiting anything). The only softsynths I can think of that nails the sound of its hardware counterpart is SQ8L and the Nord G2 demo. For everything else, ultimately, the software is still currently missing imo.

[Synthetic Wav]

personally i would like software to be more innovative and not copy hardware but it s not really the case, hardware world with all the limitation is still more innovative than software it seems to me.

most software companies don t really try to innovate, but insteed they copy what have been done in hardware since 30 years and still cannot surpass the sound in general

[tehlord]

Software, boooooooooooring.

I would rather see hardware recreated from software.

A serum hardware synth would be great!

[.jon]

Nothing. Best software doesn't limit itself to imitating hardware.

I would tend to agree with this (athough no one is actually limiting anything). The only softsynths I can think of that nails the sound of its hardware counterpart is SQ8L and the Nord G2 demo. For everything else, ultimately, the software is still currently missing imo.

Every emulation is inevitably limited by the hardware design, working from restrictions that wouldn't have to apply in software. I do agree that the emulations are not quite there, nor do I see any real need to chase perfection- let hardware be hardware and play to software's strengths.

"Authentic vintage analog sound" is not the final solution for music. It's just an illusion that sells plugins, and none of the emulations took us anywhere. Forward-thinking, proudly software VSTis are the ones that push the envelope.