What modern synthesizer would you like to see emulated in software?

[SODDI]

wowsers making synth presets for a living, and you don't know what a Buchla is?!

Only almost as influential to the synth world as, you know that Moog guy..

Aalto is pretty much one of the only worthy emulation of some of Don Buchla's amazing modules.

However - Don Buchla never intended his synth to be used with a chromatic keyboard. So trying to emulate a Buchla with a piece of software that is slaved to MIDI note number is not really. Control voltages are usually pretty idiosyncratic tuning - in the cracks. You could tune the Buchla to chromatic tuning, but would you want to?

This is the original Buchla input mudule. You could slide your fingers up and down to send control voltages and use the pots to tune the touch sensitive voltage



This is the Buchla Thunderbird. It is also designed to send control voltages, but I believe that it could also send MIDI. Just put both your hands spread out over the picture and visualize how it was meant to be played.

[justin3am]

That isn't a Thunder. It's the MKIP for a 223e.

This is a Thunder.


And a 225e will allow you to play quantized voltages for note values via MIDI and also provide preset management for 2**e modules.

[SODDI]

But what sort of practical GUI/hardware interface would you use to manage all that?

My thinking is that you might be better off just leaving it in hardware form -

I tried to build an emulation of a modular system in Reaktor - worked on it for months. The main problem I ran into is that you need to PLAN every damn conceivable routing in advance - and that never works out cause there's always something new. What is a simple patch on a analog synth becomes a bird's nest of connections in Reaktor. So I limited it and was unhappy with it.

Plus there are innumerable little DSP maths operations that you need to do deep down in innumerable Reaktor modules if you want modulations to sound true and with enough depth. I am not competent at that.

I can't even conceive of what it would take to emulate a small touch sensitive voltage plate becuase of the baked-in MIDI in Reaktor (Note on > no MIDI note number > set voltage with pot > osc). I'm trying not to think about it.

[Urs]

Yeah, but I think this would be a bottomless pit. I don't envy Softube, I think they might have opened a can or worms that might bind more resources than they expected.

How do you mean?

It just seems that they can't pump out new modules as many people anticipated. I surely thought, OMG with this I can try everything before I buy it, it might be better than Modular Grid. But then, a year later it's a few Intellijels and six or seven Doepfer modules. I think they promised something else, users expected something else, but the reality is different. I'm sure they wished for faster updates, more modules and all of that, but it simply doesn't go quickly. It may still pick up though.

[Urs]

Yes, Reaktor Blocks is interesting. I'm gonna spend some time with it.

But. I've done a wavefolder (required for complex oscillators). It runs at 32 x oversampling. That's almost megahertz. This is what you need to run West Coast synthesis. It's utterly difficult to do with bearable CPU. Just saying...

[wagtunes]

Back in the mid 70s to early 80s, I used to look forward to a magazine by the name of Contemporary Keyboard which eventually was shortened to just Keyboard.

I was mainly interested in 3 things.

1) The new synths coming out.

2) Patch design.

3) Interviews.

Sometime over the many years I read this magazine (never missed an issue) there was at least one interview with Don Buchla. And there was probably a photo of one of his synths somewhere inside.

That was almost 40 years ago.

As time went on, I abandoned what few analog dinosaurs I had (Moogs, ARPs mostly) for the newer synths that could at least store patches. And as there was no way I was ever going to own a synth costing $10,000 or close to it, if not more, I had no reason to seek out these beasts. In fact, the only reason I even knew what a Moog Modular looked like was because Keith Emerson used one. I don't seem to recall any big acts using a Buchla Modular. And if they did, I had never seen them performing with it.

So yeah, after almost 40 years, and caring about as much as I care what flavor ice cream Donald Trump eats with dinner on a Tuesday night, I don't remember what a Buchla Modular synth looks like. But of course I'm sure you guys can identify every synth that has ever been made. Good for you.

Just another reminder why I sometimes hate this place so much.

[Numanoid]

Roland D50, still no proper emu

[chk071]

Roland D50, still no proper emu

And not "modern" either.

[pdxindy]

Roland D50, still no proper emu

only Roland could do an emulation cause it uses samples...

[egbert101]

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[pdxindy]

As far as Aalto goes, don't even get me started on some of the most ghastly interfaces ever seen to man. I'd rather walk on barbed wire than use one of their synths.

Madrona interfaces are some of the best on the market as what comes to usability, just pure joy to design sounds with.

I'm with you on this .jon. IMO Madrona has the most sensible/usable interface of any software (semi)modular I've used aside from VAZ. Way better than a zillion fake wires obscuring controls - I love u-he, but Ace & Bazille are pitiful in this regard (I own and adore both). It's also great to be able to turn numbers/animations on & off. And the Madrona audio path layout reflects signal flow, not altogether common in the software world.

I like the Aalto GUI and the synth in general... unique with excellent sound quality... but Aalto is not semi-modular. The signal path is fixed. It is a fixed architecture synth with wired modulation instead of a mod matrix. It is no more modular than something like Hive or many other fixed architecture synths with a mod matrix.

I rather like that the wires do not obscure modules in Aalto. I'm doubtful that would even be possible with something like Bazille (though I wish it would be). Bazille has far more inputs and outputs and they can be wired in many more combinations. Sound sources can be modulators, so you could not have a nice tidy separation like with Aalto (modulators top / audio path bottom). Aalto sound sources cannot be modulators like in Bazille. Bazille has 4 times as many modulation sources and many more modules so they could not be lined up in 2 organized rows like Aalto.

I'd love to see a mock up of a more visually clear method for Bazille!

[egbert101]

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[wagtunes]

Starting my long overdue Buchla education, this is just way too cool for words.

[KBSoundSmith]

Starting my long overdue Buchla education, this is just way too cool for words.

Your Buchla education will be totally incomplete without listening to Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick (1967):

[wagtunes]

Starting my long overdue Buchla education, this is just way too cool for words.

Your Buchla education will be totally incomplete without listening to Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick:

Yeah, well when I have a half an hour to kill because I've got nothing better to do I'll give it a listen.