Is it really sick to have 20 synthesizers?

[machinesworking]

I mean with your logic one full featured soft synth covers it.

Taken to the extreme, sure, as the One Synth Challenge shows. But there will always be instruments that are easier for some things than for others, so having more than one can be handy.

Bingo!
I really don't need to read anything else you wrote.


You get confused and ridiculously aggressive when people say some hardware isn't well replicated in software, but you're willing to admit certain synths are much much quicker at getting certain sounds. Most of us who spend any serious amounts of time doing sound design know you can do a hell of a lot with a basic thin overtly clean sounding softsynth and the built in FX of any DAW out there, it's just who wants to spend hours trying to replicate the sound of a Memorymoog, or Absynth or pretty much any complex soft synth when it's literally the cost of a Saturday night on the town to buy the exact soft synth that does it easily?

I have a friend who made a few complete songs with just Hive, not because he was in a contest, but because he fell in love with the synth, and it's entirely possible to use it without it sounding like only Hive.

In general, not all oscillators sound the same, nor filters, not all implementations of FM do the same things, and all of it together does not end up having the same character. Absolutely can you make similar sounds on pretty much any synth, similar enough to not be able to tell them apart. Add in the amount of FX people pile on them and again it's a wash, but that in no way takes away from the fact that some sounds are a total pain to get out of software, tube distortion is a glaring example where software sucks compared, but that is 100% not true for every other kind of distortion in my experience. For that 10% of the time I want a tube distorted sound I'm reaching for the hardware. I could spend hours trying to get a decent facsimile in software, but why bother?

[machinesworking]

This is another aspect of the whole argument that doesn't hold water. Like condemning any softsynth filter that can't self-oscillate, as though self-oscillating filters where things everyone used in every song ever made. I'd never even heard of filter self-oscillation until it started to come up here as a means of justifying a preference for hardware.

Yeah, that's one trick I never found much of a use for, but I'm not a fan of dogwhistle sounds.

[machinesworking]

You are completely missing my point, which is that modelling old hardware is pointless and largely a waste of time. Seriously, RePro-1 and RePro-5 sound amazing, for example, but Hive is way better overall because it doesn't have to slavishly stick to some ancient formula that is 30 years past its use-by date. It can be those synths but it can also be 100 other synths if it needs to be, too. RePro-1/5 are good but there is nothing special or unique in their sound that I'd be willing to pay full price for and the opportunities to deploy them are few and far between in comparison to DUNE or Hive.

Actually, the FX in Repro-1 are 100% the reason I like it, specifically the wavefolder, Jaws. Beyond that it's got a decent sounding oscillator. I've never bothered to compare it to the "real thing" it sounds good enough.

Good designs are good designs

Really? Do you think any 20 year old car could hold a candle to the version being sold today? No, they were good designs in their day but time and technology move on. People who buy vintage cars understand this, they don't even pretend that their old banger is actually any good, yet here in the world of synthesisers people cannot accept the same simple facts. I loved my ARP Axxe in it's day, as I did my ESQ-M and my O1R/W, but you couldn't pay me to take any of those things today. Their time has passed, things have moved on and so have I.

I drive a 95 Toyota. It's a great design, absolutely no interest in modern cars.
We will see how well modern cars run in 25 years. I'm guessing pretty much only the body will be left, because modern cars are not designed to last.. You certainly won't see any 40 year old modern cars. Car analogies suck. Or more to the point, you lost all your old synth edit synths, because computers are not permanent pieces of gear, no one is willing to hold onto old computers, but if a well designed hardware synth makes someone happy, why reinvent the wheel? Personally I like both, and see the advantages of both.

Some modern filter designs are thin as shit sounding.

Name one. Filters are meant to be thin, that's their job - to thin out the sound being passed through them. In any event, there are plenty of really ordinary hardware filters out there, too. e.g. Every Roland filter, every Moog ladder filter, all three filter types on the various ARP Odyssey versions.

Two different arguments there, ordinary does not equal thin. Ladder filters stay popular because they sound big. We all should know the inherent contradiction of subtractive synthesis (or we should) that a full spectrum tone is dull and lifeless, and sounds, thin. I hate throwing U-He under the bus, but Zebra has 23 filter types in it, and I think I've used about ten of them, a lot of duds in there, and that can be said of almost any modern synth with over a dozen filters. No argument here that some classic filters 'sound' thin, I always thought Sequential filters were dull, not that the whole synths were bad, but that the filter wasn't the strong point.

In the end I only use modeled synths for basic sounds, but some sound like their own instrument, like Diva and Repro-1 which sounds nothing like a Pro 1 to me, which is great, I always thought that synth was overrated.

Yet two minutes ago you were arguing that until someone models the MemoryMoog, softsynths won't be any good. Do you not see the contradiction there?

Hmm? I over did the bombast on that statement for sure, it doesn't sound 'exactly' like a Pro 1, it's close enough to me. Plus as mentioned it's the fairly unique Jaws wavefolder that makes that synth. I'm not a purist, but so far nothing sounds close enough to the Memorymoog, believe me I will sell it if someone comes close. It's well beyond my paygrade, I've just owned it since it was out of style and cheap in the 80's.

[ATS]

BONES I have nothing against you and in fact I bet would we get along in the real world. I just wish you would stop calling everyone names.

[Elektronisch]

Its normal thing in Australia to do that. Actually calling someone a c**t does not mean that its a bad thing.

[donkey tugger]

Its normal thing in Australia to do that. Actually calling someone a c**t does not mean that its a bad thing.

Exactly - it's a bit like Yorkshire, where you only start to worry if someone calls you, 'pal'.

[FapFilter]

of course software still falls behind in areas if you just slavishly try to replicate certain analog behaviour 100%, but you will also often fail to perfectly replicate one analog synth with another.
And then there are a million more ways that analog can't sound like a Virus, Massive, Zebra, Absynth, Alchemy, etc.
Plus, sometimes „the shittiest sounding stuff in isolation“(tm) can contribute to a greater sounding song than some of the most expensive/most pleasingly sounding stuff can make, it all depends on the context. So sometimes even shitty sounding oscillators, filters, delays, reverbs, distortion effects, microphones, or whatever are the better fit.
Of course software is long past the shitty sound stage: Z3ta+ or Absynth for example, synths from 2001 or so, can still be totally viable weapons for awesome sound sources.
I often also prefer using hardware, but it's funny how many actually fail to pick the analog from emulations from ca. 2010 to present in a lot of blind tests, be it synths or effects.
With a lot of effort you can still pinpoint some tiny details, but those are often so minute, that they actually more often than not do not matter in the slightest.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Apart from the many synths I have access to on account of owning Reaktor and Logic I think I only have five synths. I rarely get sick. Make of that what you will

[donkey tugger]

Apart from the many synths I have access to on account of owning Reaktor and Logic I think I only have five synths. I rarely get sick. Make of that what you will

You nerd. Apart from the ones which come with Komplete and teh frootyloops I've got two - one I won in a contest and one was given to me. There's only so many different types of bleeping you could require.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Apart from the many synths I have access to on account of owning Reaktor and Logic I think I only have five synths. I rarely get sick. Make of that what you will

You nerd. Apart from the ones which come with Komplete and teh frootyloops I've got two - one I won in a contest and one was given to me. There's only so many different types of bleeping you could require.

Shit! I forgot I’d bought ‘Form’ and ‘Prism’ from the Kontakt line, separately. Guess I require more types of bleeping than I thought

[ericj23]

Its normal thing in Australia to do that. Actually calling someone a c**t does not mean that its a bad thing.

Exactly - it's a bit like Yorkshire, where you only start to worry if someone calls you, 'pal'.

Sounds like Glasgow too. He's a good c**t is definitely one you hear.

[dblock]

Well, I'm a total preset guy though I may turn one knob from time to time, the sounds have to come in something so if I want sounds there's no limit to my soft synth buying.I'm a preset hoarder.

[vurt]

Its normal thing in Australia to do that. Actually calling someone a c**t does not mean that its a bad thing.

Exactly - it's a bit like Yorkshire, where you only start to worry if someone calls you, 'pal'.

Sounds like Glasgow too. He's a good c**t is definitely one you hear.

if a sentence starts with "look, pal..." run like f**k.

[thecontrolcentre]

Its normal thing in Australia to do that. Actually calling someone a c**t does not mean that its a bad thing.

Exactly - it's a bit like Yorkshire, where you only start to worry if someone calls you, 'pal'.

I've just moved to the Scottish Borders (on the English side) ... and everyone I've met up here has called me "pal". Should I be worried?

[vurt]

yep. you're an interloper.
you'll be pal till you save someones kids life, then you'll be a c**t