KVR Audio

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:48 pm

Surely the only metric would be if people were blind tested on a variety of different sound samples of analogue, digital and analogue/digital hybrid synths and asked to state which type of synth they were produced with.

If it cant be established under that kind of test (performed correctly) that people hear a detectable difference, then there is no detectable difference.

Until that's done, all debate on the topic is futile.

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:51 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:Until that's done, all debate on the topic is futile.

Then, why have you been participating in the debate?

take care,
McLilith

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:55 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:Surely the only metric would be if people were blind tested on a variety of different sound samples of analogue, digital and analogue/digital hybrid synths and asked to state which type of synth they were produced with.

If it cant be established under that kind of test (performed correctly) that people hear a detectable difference, then there is no detectable difference.

Until that's done, all debate on the topic is futile.

I think it would also be interesting to perform a similar test with synths mixed in a typical track. I suspect that far fewer people would be able to spot the difference and fewer still would care.

On the other hand, most people don't seem to listen that carefully to music anyway.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:56 pm

McLilith quoth
Then, why have you been participating in the debate?

thats not participation, its metacommentary

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:57 pm

seamoss wrote:take a listen to pink floyd's "machine" track and see if you think those analog synths can be created digitally. maybe they can? I would love to hear it, if they could.

Just out of interest - I love that sound - what did they use?

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:04 pm

aMUSEd wrote:Just out of interest - I love that sound - what did they use?

If you're talking about "Welcome to The Machine", it used a VCS3 SYNTHI - AKS. That's according to this web site.

take care,
McLilith

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:06 pm

Until that's done, all debate on the topic is futile

I think someone should make a cool short MIDI score, and several of us would provide that score played through different hardware or software instruments.

I can provide some (made with softsynths), but we need:
-someone who will gather them all
-a hat to mix them all
-people to do the test
-no cheaters

ideally someone (who's really bored) could start a web page listing clips sent by anyone, using the same MIDI score, and it would work as a poll. We'd then have a good estimation of how many people can recognize that 'analog sound'.

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:13 pm

Bringing the thread somewhat back on topic, I was checking out the schematics for some of Don Buchla's modules, and was impressed by the number of components used. I know very little about electronics, but perhaps the key to obtaining the 'analog' sound is to model each one digitally, maybe even introducing a bit of chaos or imperfection. It sounds like a backwards ass way of building a vsti, but I think Korg did something similar with their Legacy collection.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:14 pm

While we're on this topic, how about some related questions?

The Cowardly Lion wrote:What makes a King out of a slave?

Courage.

What makes the flag on the mast to wave?

Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk,
In the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?

Courage!

Hm, guess he answered those pretty well. Um. Yes. As you were, carry on... nothing here to see...

Meffy

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:16 pm

gol, that sounds like fun.

Instead of hosting everthing on the same site, you could also have a central link page that just linked to the various clips which are actually hosted on various individual web sites. That might make the project much more manageable as far as bandwidth and server filespace quotas are concerned.

Unless someone has a huge amount of space and bandwidth to donate for the storage and delivery of WAV files, we would probably all need to use MP3 compression, and we should all pick a common bitrate, etc, to make things more fair.

Now, who's going to contribute the MIDI sequence?

take care,
McLilith

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:17 pm

Joxer the Mighty wrote:Bringing the thread somewhat back on topic,

Heh, pardon.

I was checking out the schematics for some of Don Buchla's modules, and was impressed by the number of components used.

Buchla is amazing. What really surprised me was that he's come out with a few new modules for his (I think) 200 series synths. You can't get the old ones, but if you've got one of his boxes already you're in good shape.

I have one. In my wildest dreams. :-D

Meffy

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:24 pm

Buchla's actually come out with an updated version of the 200: http://www.buchla.com/200e/200e.html
Just don't look at the prices.

Damn, that wasn't on topic was it?

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:25 pm

we would probably all need to use MP3 compression

I dare to hope that the 'analog sound' would survive a 192kbps MP3, so I'd go for MP3 (or ogg).

we can indeed put our clips on our own spaces, but someone will have to code the poll

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:28 pm

Joxer the Mighty wrote:Buchla's actually come out with an updated version of the 200: http://www.buchla.com/200e/200e.html
Just don't look at the prices.

Damn, that wasn't on topic was it?

Holy moley... the prices are irrelevant to me, I'm a hobbyist who can't afford a modern hardware synth at all, much less this! But... wow. For those who can seriously use such equipment, this is marvelous news.

Just for the fun of window shopping, thanks for the link!

On topic, off topic? Heh... topic drift, one of the great global problems... :-D

Meffy

Lawnmower Of The Damned · Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:30 pm

Okay, I guess it was stupid of me to think that I could start a thread that mentions both analog and digital in the same sentence. Apparently that confused a lot of you, and everyone started telling me why VSTi's are better... blah, blah, blah...

But this isn't a debate about what makes them different, it was a debate about the feasability of integrating the two in a way that I've never heard of before. I thought that was interesting, and I've spent a while thinking about it. Some people however, decided to troll about in this thread despite the fact that they didn't bother to understand my question first, and had nothing USEFUL to contribute to the actual question I was asking.

Some of you had some great insights that really helped to refine my idea. You know who you are. It's just sad that I had to read through 13 pages of everything from anal obstruction to the butterfly effect.

That's sad folks, just plain sad. It's been a long time since I've been so dissappointed in a group of people, not because you dissaggree with me, but because so many of you failed to understand that I wasn't debating which is better! The question is: IS IT FEASABLE TO MAKE AN ANALOG / DIGITAL HYBRID SYNTH?

Particularly, one that is programable in such a way that you could make anything from Virus and Mini Moog emulations to completely new synths. I'm not talking about a single synth integrated into a recording host, that's not the question! I'm talking about Synth Edit and Reaktor on analog steroids.

The Oberhiem sounds nice, but it's not what this is about, nor does it answer my question.

What makes analog so analog?