What is all that "warm" "Analog" - "cold" "digital" sound thing about?

[himalaya]

Then, is there nobody that could make a cold sound out of a Moog?

Nobody can. A Moog is like an elephant wearing a warm sweater and warm socks.

[ghettosynth]

I like to think of a Moog as a voluptuous woman dressed in a tiger print bikini with a martini in one hand and a .22 automatic in the other.

Does that help?

[aciddose]

Technically speaking digital/software/whatever today sounds equally as "cold" as it ever has. This is due to the fact that given any objective definition of "cold", the same sounds today can be produced with the same software for exactly the same result.

It turns out there is really only one rational and objective definition of "cold" vs. "warm" and this is a combination of pinking filters (pink or red spectrum = warm) creating more bass-heavy mixes along with high noise-floors (including pink flicker noise far more important than just white, as well as that the noise is Gaussian rather than uniform) and hum.

These elements can be emulated in software quite trivially; just that I'm not aware of even a single plug-in that does so.

Examples:
https://soundcloud.com/aciddose-1/yokeyolk
https://soundcloud.com/aciddose-1/pooipel
https://soundcloud.com/aciddose-1/analo ... oscillator

Honestly it is not so easy to recreate this unique blend of noise and hum that comes from passing an analog source through analog effects and an analog console + eq. Normally such a statement will be dismissed because the "music" is utter crap but for anyone with even half a functioning brain-cell left over that isn't 105 years of age and stone-deaf the noise I'm referring to in these clips is clearly audible and impossible to dismiss.

Given enough effort and top of the line software however it definitely is possible to emulate and faithfully recreate such timbres. It just isn't worthwhile as focusing on what sounds good is obviously more interesting than sounding like aciddose

[.jon]

I like to think of a Moog as a voluptuous woman dressed in a tiger print bikini with a martini in one hand and a .22 automatic in the other.

Does that help?

I like this image.

Anyway, this isn't the 90s anymore, just buy an analog synth to go with digital wonders and be done with inane warm/cold word games. It's f**king pointless when everyone can enjoy the best of both worlds.

[AnX]

everyone can enjoy the best of both worlds.

Tepid

[fluffy_little_something]

I assume a software synth sounds analog if it sounds like an analog hardware synth, regardless whether that sounded warm or cold. But most people seem to consider that sound warm, so there is probably something to it. A kind of consensus, despite the usual exceptions.

I couldn't care less whether a sound is analog or digital, but I do like warm sounds, no matter with what they are made.

My brother uses only Sytrus and his music sounds very "slick" to put it that way. There is no sizzle in any of his pads, they are slick like a glass surface.

[aciddose]

I'd like to stick to the objective color-based temperature definition where warm = red/pink, hot = yellow, way too hot = yellow/white and you just boiled your face off just by looking at it = white/blue.

So the typical analog is probably 4500 or so, while super oldschool stuff like this:


Must be at most 2100, a barely visible color given off by your toaster, don't singe your nose hair it smells awful.



In order to get a more modern sound in the 10000 range for hit dubstep tracks, old farts with analog garbage have been adding blue LEDs, but they fail to understand that the color given off by the LEDs have absolutely no effect on the rotten old brown timbre emitted by these obsolete beasts.



!=

[incubus]

It's a lot of bs, except when it isn't bs.

I dunno, I like the slate stuff and think they are on to something. Others will wildly disagree? You can't please everyone (or hardly anyone)