What makes analog so analog?

[McLilith]

f**ked if I can tell the difference. Like you said, though, hard to tell unless it's triggered by an identical MIDI sequence.

I suspect that some types of sounds are better than others, when it comes to possibly revealing a difference. I just picked this synth preset pretty much at random. Perhaps another preset might make the test a little more definitive? Also, I was listening on headphones. Someone listening to speakers might have an entirely different impression. I'll make another comparison later, using a sequencer for more consistency, and I'll drop down to 44.1 kHz for the lower sample rate. I'll also try different synth patches and post whichever one seems to reveal any differences the best.


take care,
McLilith

[BONES]

God this thread is annoying. So let me just get it back on topic - anyone who thinks they can tell the difference between true ANALogue and free software V/A in the context of a mix, which is the only context that matters, is so completely full of shit that no matter how big or numerous their arseholes were, it would take weeks to empty their bowels. Even if a difference could be perceived, I would challenge the notion that it matters even slightly. All my favourite ANALogue sounds come out of softsynths with Phase Distortion which is enough to prove to me that its all bullshit.

[McLilith]

Greg, I agree that the destination medium is a huge factor to be considered. I believe that most people who make statements about a certain analog hardware synth really impressing them after being used to hearing nothing but VSTi synths, are speaking of an analog synth being played live, and probably over decent speakers. If you reduce that impressive analog synth to a supporting track in a reasonably complex mix, and play it back on the recording medium of your choice, it will almost certainly sound much less impressive. It could easily get to the point where it doesn't matter if a soft synth or a hardware synth was being used. I do feel that when played live through the same sound system, many hardware analog synths have a certain shimmer or richness that is missing from many soft synths. How much of that usually makes it to a recording, I have no idea, but I bet the difference is fairly small in most recordings.


later,
McLilith

[McLilith]

God this thread is annoying.

Did you ever consider that perhaps your annoying habit of printing "ANALogue" with the first half of the word annoyingly printed in bold isn't helping reduce the annoyance factor any?


take care,
McLilith

[Sicklecell666]

anal seepage?

[Amberience]

anal seepage?

Yummy.

[CypherOne]

anal seepage?

I hate it when that happens...

[nuffink]

It's the wire.

It's obvious when you think about it.
Early analog's, which eveyone (even those who've never heard one) agrees are the best, used point to point wiring. Huge expressways for the musical quanta to cruise down.
Over the years (as synths have got shitter and shitter sounding) the wire in them has got smaller and smaller. Think about it. Discrete transistors gave way to integrated circuits and pcb's. These gave way to vlsi dsp chips. Today we are squeezinq our precious musical quanta through 90 nm paths! No wonder it sounds thin and constricted.

Yes. I know its bollocks, but it makes as much sense as most of the brain dead idiocy in this thread.

[BONES]

I do feel that when played live through the same sound system, many hardware analog synths have a certain shimmer or richness that is missing from many soft synths.

Can't agree with that either. I can say that my softsynths sound orders of magnitude better when I play them via one of my synth keyboards than when I just let the sequencer play them. OTOH, my hardware sounds very ordinary in a mix with my VSTi, played by the sequencer and routed through the soundcard. Mind you, I haven't owned an ANALogue synth since I could afford digital ones in the late '80's. [Sorry about the "ANAL" thing, its just way to good not to use at every opportunity.]

[ericj23]

so lets be clear here - you are sure there is no difference between two things - despite not having owned one in 20 years

well thats ok then

[BONES]

I'm sure there are plenty of differences and its all in favour of software. Let's start with lack of line noise, move on to no dusty pots, swing by lack of mains hum and finish with the fact that Synapse's filter algorithms absolutely shit all over any ANALogue synth I ever heard. In the real world any perception of difference is totally irrelevant and I am certain that it is at least 99% perception.

[CypherOne]

I've never heard any hardware so I can't really comment, but sod it I will anyway - a lot of artists now are 100% soft synth & studio - does anyone notice? Joe Public couldn't give a monkeys where the sound came from, just what it sounds like.

[bmanic]

You guys need to hear that 4 minute demo tune running a single Orgon Enigizer (some weird english analogue monosynth from ca 1998). It was on some old future music CD. That shows pretty darn well a sound which still can't be done with any digital synths. I'll try to dig it out for ya guys.

Btw. The closest to analogue sound IMO is FabFilter One. Equal to this is the Oddity from G Media. A good second is the Korg Legacy Collection's MS-20 and Polysix when playing them at 96khz (think of it as 2.xx times oversampling).

One thing that kills most VSTi's is a selfoscillating filter when it's at the border of starting to selfoscillate and then you modulate the cutoff with a fast LFO. Once I get my Korg DW6000 back from the countryside I can record some examples.

This resonance test is most definately hearable in a crowded mix. It's usually like this: Do a high resonance sweep at nearly self oscillation with a real analogue synth and the audience goes "whoah! nasty but tolerable" do it with most VSTi's and people go "aaarrrggggghhh!! let me out of here!". Now this is not of course true for all VSTi's and the filter algos are something that have gone immensely forward in the last two years or so but there is still room for improvement.

All the above, My Humble Opinion so f**k the rest of ya!
bManic

[BONES]

What do you mean by "nearly self oscillation"? Explain parameter settings to do this. It sounds to me like you might be talking about one specific situation rather than something that would be true of any synth. In any event, it is a specific thing, like aliasing, rather than a general difference in sound quality.

[bastien]

It has been said my stuff sounds digital, so I decided to have a play about, just sticking a little sequence through the impOscar and seeing if I could make it sound like the archetypal bubbly-SH101 sequence.

Not surprisingly, you can, but only if you stick to low pass filters. All the other types don't sound so analog-ish. But I use all the other types quite a lot because I like how they sound.

So there you have it, I reckon when people say something is 'analogue-sounding' they actually mean 'it only uses low pass filters'.