Why use emulations of classic analogue synths---is it just nostalgia?...

[jancivil]

So, to sum up this tempest in a teapot: BONES believes the "proper" filter is consistent throughout. Deadly dull and unmusical is the superior way. A little bit of information goes A LONG WAY when you're hoping to present a superior understanding and works to trump everybody else's idiot understanding of the thing every_time.

[jancivil]

Archskrampe. Yeah. That is the sound of German a Dane likes but are you sure it is positive? Wouldn’t be in Danish.

It's like Pendejo in Mexican and Central American Spanish; it rolls asshole and idiot into one. Albeit pendejo literally speaking means a single pubic hair.

[IncarnateX]

Archskrampe. Yeah. That is the sound of German a Dane likes but are you sure it is positive? Wouldn’t be in Danish.

It's like Pendejo in Mexican and Central American Spanish; it rolls asshole and idiot into one. Albeit pendejo literally speaking means a single pubic hair.

In Danish we do not have one word for it but needs four: “en kløe i røven” (A scratch in the ass), which can signify persons or be used for curses like “may you suffer from an eternal scratch in the ass and may your arms be too short”.

[jancivil]

[machinesworking]

Emulation or not, if I like the way something sounds, I use it. If I don't like the way something sounds, I don't use it.

It makes life very simple.

Wagtunes knocks it out of the park with this one.

To get back to the original question. IMO it's a little nostalgia and a little of the fact that even with synthesis, it's not always true that new is better.

To make an unfair lopsided comparison, guitars haven't changed much in the last 60 years, because it works. There's no reason to reinvent the guitar.

To throw the question a curveball, Arturia are an example of a company that have made emulations that are more like approximations of the original, cashing in on the brands and nostalgic lust after classic synths people have. I still own V Collection 6 though, because even knowing that, plenty of their synths are great! The setup of a CS 80 was a good idea hardly anyone does for whatever reason, and that can be said of a lot of the synths in their catalog.

I like modern soft synths as well, my favorites tend to be them, but the classic synths have uses without a doubt.

[Ploki]

i like u-he's take on it with Diva, which can mix and match classic designs to be able to achieve something less traditional.

[IncarnateX]

(Holy F. Having forgot the topic I actually took time to read some of the first posts. Who is that creepy slime-thing @perfumer who went for Urs’ throath with ad honinem attacks and enraged envy that Urs makes money and seeeminly has picked on Urs before? When I read something like that, my academic training goes down the drain, and I feel like educating them with a baseball bat instead.)

Going back on topic is a thread-killer but since I have written a novel now about anything BUT the topic, here it comes:

When I started to use emulations a decade ago, it was not nostalgia but because I simply like analog sounds or type of sounds. Now, having been exposed to my JP8000 for years already, and mainly using headphones and not monitors, meant that very very few emulations made it to a point where I did not mind the VA-like character of them. To be fair: When sending the synths through the same outboard as my hardware, I am sure I could have failed several blind tests, but not when using headphones and I got all the artifact-revealing mid-freqs thrown right into my brain. Those few who took me near authentic analog sound were:

1. Arturia Mini as far as moogy leads and arps concern
2. Moog’s software model D as far as basses concern
3. Syntronik’s sample based emulations

I demoed Diva but it is all VA to me, sorry. Imposcar made it halfway and is a very unique sounding synth in itself, iPolysix made it halfway with a very faithful P6 flavour but in headphones it sounds canned to me as if the sound is played within a plastic tube.

So, in these days, where affordable analog synths are coming my way, I see no reason to use software emulations at all.

[machinesworking]

(Holy F. Having forgot the topic I actually took time to read some of the first posts. Who is that creepy slime-thing @perfumer who went for Urs’ throath with ad honinem attacks and enraged envy that Urs makes money (and seeeminly has picked on Urs before )? When I read something like that, my academic training goes down the drain, and I feel like educating them with a baseball bat instead.)

Going back on topic is a thread-killer but since I have written a novel now about anything BUT the topic, here it comes:

When I started to use emulations a decade ago, it was not nostalgia but because I simply like analog sounds or type of sounds. Now, having been exposed to my JP8000 for years already, and mainly using headphones and not monitors, meant that very very few emulations made it to a point where I did not mind the VA-like character of them. To be fair: When sending the synths through the same outboard as my hardware, I am sure I could have failed several blind tests, but not when using headphones and I got all the artifact-revealing mid-freqs thrown right into my brain. Those few who took me near authentic analog sound were:

1. Arturia Mini as far as moogy leads and arps concerns
2. Moog’s software model D as far as bass concerns
3. Syntronik’s sample based emulations

I demoed Diva but it is all VA to me, sorry. Imposcar made it halfway and is a very unique sounding synth in itself, iPolysix made it halfway with a very faithful P6 flavour but in headphones it sounds canned to me as if the sound is played within a plastic tube.

So, in these days, where affordable analog synths are coming my way, I see no reason to use software emulations at all.

Yeah I'm not there with you at all. There are some awful sounding analog synths out there, and emulations like Diva and Repro-1 that sound great. Defining or sticking to rules like whether or not a VSTi analog emulation sounds "analog" is a waste of time IMO. If it sounds good it sounds good. This is coming from someone who owns an Oberheim Xpander and a modded Lintronnics Memorymoog, plus a Metasonix Wretcch Machine. There are times when I don't use any of those and just use soft synths.

Even better, I've used the Matrix 12 Aruria emulation over the Xpander, because I started the song with the emulation, and realized that I didn't think replacing it with True Analog™ was going to make it better in any way, in fact the opposite. Does that mean I'm selling my analog gear? nope, it just means that soft synth emulations of analog gear are not somehow worse than the "real" thing, they're just different.

It's weird to me how people come up with absolutes about samplers and synthesizers of all things? They're not all the same, and sometimes even small differences mean access to slightly different timbral possibilities.

I'm saying between U-He and Arturia I've less than $700 spent, and sometimes that beats out what at current prices goes for well over 25K worth of equipment. {Total side note, if anything makes me think about selling my hardware it's writing that down, and realizing I can barely make mortgage without having someone rent a room.} To combat that, that number is much less than what I've spent on software, computers and peripherals like MIDI controllers and audio cards etc. in the last 18 years.

[IncarnateX]

Cannot see why you need to quote me to put forward your own opinion here. I could not care less whether you are with me or not. It is your terms and I have mine. And since I speak with reference to my own needs without generalisations, your statements cannot take status as objections but just “a different opinion”. Get it under the skin FFS.

[machinesworking]

Cannot see why you need to quote me to put forward your own opinion here. I could not care less whether you are with me or not. It is your terms and I have mine. And since I speak with reference to my own needs without generalisations, your statements cannot take status as objections but just “a different opinion”. Get in under the skin FFS.

Right, because Diva not being a true analog emulation is not a "generalization"... it's an opinion, and I disagree, period. Get used to that when you give out opinions like:

Those few who took me near authentic analog sound were:

I don't care about your feelings, sorry, but give your opinion, and if I don't agree, I have every right to express mine, and it's not a value judgment on your character.

Though it's really tempting to when you express the opinion that Arturia's Mini is somehow a better moog emulation in any way shape or form to Diva. <-- I'm teasing, it's called having a strong opinion, you'll find that quite common on KVR.

[Ploki]

1. Arturia Mini as far as moogy leads and arps concern
2. Moog’s software model D as far as basses concern
3. Syntronik’s sample based emulations

I demoed Diva but it is all VA to me, sorry. Imposcar made it halfway and is a very unique sounding synth in itself, iPolysix made it halfway with a very faithful P6 flavour but in headphones it sounds canned to me as if the sound is played within a plastic tube.

So, in these days, where affordable analog synths are coming my way, I see no reason to use software emulations at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1h07ws--CM

really not a fan of Arturia.
it doesn't even have to be a blind test, if you have ears. Diva and the Legend are more faithful.
All the while Diva being much more than just a Minimoog.

As far as Repro-5 goes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFA_B6pP9AA

And sample based emulations... What does that have to do with SYNTHESIS. It's literally not synthesis

[IncarnateX]

Right, because Diva not being a true analog emulation is not a "generalization".

Haven’t said anything even close to such a thing:

I demoed Diva but it is all VA to me, sorry

You have just illustrated my points about typical KVR misreadings and overgeneralizations.

Congratulations, after three pages about exactly such delusions, I must say I am impressed. No one is going to break the KVR brickwall, not Barry, not T-1000, not anyone. Well, if it makes people happy to stay in self-induced ignorance, what prick am I to hinder them? Go ahead and be happy then.

[Ploki]

And in any case, the reason to still reach for software vs "affordable hardware" (if you are referring to behringer clones) is:
- having 50 instances of it
- having total recall
while retaining 99% of the sound of the original.

it's the question of why use a DAW if you have affordable tape machines.

[IncarnateX]

Unbefuckinglievable. Are people going to try to convince me that my own experience of DIVA on basis on my life-long experience and personal preferences is false and that I really must be deluding myself, lying or have other suspecious agendas? Is the idea that 7 billion people can have another opinion (and perception) than your own so scary to people that they have to mobilize everything to ignore the possiibility?

Wow, just wow.

[Ploki]

Unbefuckinglievable. Are people going to try to convince me that my own experience of DIVA on basis on my life-long experience and personal preferences is false and that I really must be deluding myself, lying or have other suspecious agendas? Is the idea that 7 billion people can have another opinion than your own so scary to people that they have to mobilize everythng to ignore the possiibility?

Wow, just wow.

How well something is modelled is not a matter of opinion but can be very accurately analysed, quantified and evaluated, that's why i don't care what you think about it.
"How well is it modelled?" is not a question of taste and opinion, but a question of accuracy.
If you like the sound of Arturia that's completely legitimate, but that has nothing to do with how well it's modelled...

if we are talking about how well something is modelled the question is not what you think, but how well can you measure it an evaluate it.

You just like to be special and go against the current even if it means being wrong. Lifelong experience is over-rated, so many people died holding their scientifically proven wrong opinion very dear. It's the irony of human existence. That's why it's wise to separate opinion from fact (or, fantasy from reality).

Also, if it's such a long life experience, your perception of high frequency response is probably shit, so i guess that's why Arturia sounds good to you.