Why Can't We Get A CS-80 VST That Actually Sounds Like a CS-80?

[planetearth]

just give me an emulation that I'm happy with

How would someone do that? Not trying to be smart at all. I'm just thinking that even if someone bought 10 CS-80s and modeled them to perfection would that guarantee the you would be 100% happy with it? I don't know but do they all sound the same? Are you 100% certain that what you want is the exact sound of a perfect CS-80 emulation?

Wags will have to give his own answer... but for me, I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

I've highlighted the word that I think presents the problem.

I doubt Yamaha will make a CS-80 that the OP is happy with, but here's his chance to put up or shut up: https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd ... 1192-45978

In short, here's what it says (emphasis mine):
Hello from Yamaha,

Thanks for your Ideas and conversations. Apologies we haven't joined in. We would like to understand your analog synthesizer requests a bit more clearly. Please note we move in a very deliberate manner; this is just an initial focusing of the Ideas offered so far and not a commitment to build a product.

Our question is regarding basic conceptual direction if we were to make a new CS-80.

The thread is located on IdeaScasle here:
https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd ... 1192-45978 [Full link above below, since KVR edits this one for some reason.]

Additionally, the next tie you log in you will be asked to fill out a small number of profile questions. This will only take a few minutes and your answers will be confidential. However, this information will help us to better understand and ultimately serve our community and customers better.


Since the OP seems to have trouble disagreeing with people without becoming disagreeable, I'm just going to leave this here in the hopes that he tales this up with Yamaha. I speak for no one but myself (and one of my cats, of course), but from what I've seen in this thread over the past few days, I think others would appreciate a break from this, too--especially since what Arturia (and others) have emulated in the CS-80 is NOT meant to "sound like Vangelis". The emulations are meant to sound like a stock, standard, unprocessed CS-80, not an instrument from a Hollywood movie score.

Anyone can join in Yamaha's survey on what they'd like to see in a CS-80. Yamaha doesn't mention if they're considering a hardware or software emulation, but most of us will probably never get closer to a "real" CS-80 than this.

Here's the link: https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd ... 1192-45978

Steve

[nordickvr]

...
I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

And like said before, with the right mixing skills applied, that could lead to some pretty satisfying results for the CS-80's aficionados.

[pdxindy]

just give me an emulation that I'm happy with

How would someone do that? Not trying to be smart at all. I'm just thinking that even if someone bought 10 CS-80s and modeled them to perfection would that guarantee the you would be 100% happy with it? I don't know but do they all sound the same? Are you 100% certain that what you want is the exact sound of a perfect CS-80 emulation?

Wags will have to give his own answer... but for me, I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

I've highlighted the word that I think presents the problem.

Why should you have a problem? It's just a word...

[Neon Breath]

...
I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

And like said before, with the right mixing skills applied, that could lead to some pretty satisfying results for the CS-80's aficionados.

You mentioned the correct keyword: skills.

[pdxindy]

...
I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

And like said before, with the right mixing skills applied, that could lead to some pretty satisfying results for the CS-80's aficionados.

You mentioned the correct keyword: skills.

yeah... because if you have the skills, you can make a saxophone sound like a piano...

[cfanyc]

modern vsts and hybrid sample/synthesis instruments can approximate the
cs-80 pretty well. See for example the end-to-end cover of the Bladerunner score
by Edgar Rothermich done with pre-version 2 omnisphere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Qjzj5pjK4

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=edgar+rother ... nb_sb_noss

of kontakt libraries such as the exquisite p2f library:

https://rekkerd.org/cs-80-runner-blade- ... e-samples/

Having said that, the amount of effort it takes to make a reasonable approximation of
a finished product like the Blade runner score with these tools is quite extensive as it also
requires creating precise orchestrations, expressive playing, and equally importantly
replicating the superb mixing and mastering that has gone into the scores.

So I concur that great skill with current tools can get (eventually) someone "there"
but we do need a cs-80 that is either a yamaha re-issue or a vst recreation with repro-level accuracy
in order to make more effortless results and have a more musically
inspiring interaction with the musical instrument.

[nordickvr]

...
I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

And like said before, with the right mixing skills applied, that could lead to some pretty satisfying results for the CS-80's aficionados.

You mentioned the correct keyword: skills.

yeah... because if you have the skills, you can make a saxophone sound like a piano...

And if you don’t have any, make a real CS-80 sounds like an asthmatic turtle trying to sing like Caruso while being stuck in an electronic blender.
Well, something like that...

[chk071]

modern vsts and hybrid sample/synthesis instruments can approximate the
cs-80 pretty well. See for example the end-to-end cover of the Bladerunner score
by Edgar Rothermich done with pre-version 2 omnisphere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Qjzj5pjK4

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=edgar+rother ... nb_sb_noss

Actually, i'd argue that that's a good example of why it is not that easy to replicate such sounds. It's a nice recreation all in all, but, that sax-like synth sound sounds a lot more sterile than in the original.

Not that i find the sound overly exciting to begin with. Actually, rather the opposite. Again, the soundtrack is not really my style.

[cfanyc]

one more thing for those who say there is nothing special about
the cs-80: this video is from a partially restored (!) unit played
thru a lex 224 reverb.

https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011 ... d-sampler/

If one cannot hear the richness of the sound, even via crappy recording and youtube
conversion then it is time for a visit to the ear doc!

[morelia]

Why should you have a problem? It's just a word...

Try not to see it as me or anyone else having a problem. I don't have a problem with this CS-80 debate (I have plenty of other problems already ). I was trying to point out that it might be difficult to provide the perfect anything for any one specific person. I suppose it might make more sense if I said Wags wants what he wants, but is that what most other people want? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. I just think finding the perfect emulation for you, or me, or any other single person, might not always be possible because your experiences with and perception of that instrument will always be to some extent unique.

[Neon Breath]

...
I'll use RePro-5 as an example. For me, it captures the spirit of the Prophet 5. It has a certain aliveness and vitality. It behaves very close to a Prophet 5. I consider it good enough. A CS-80 emulation as good as RePro would satisfy me.

And like said before, with the right mixing skills applied, that could lead to some pretty satisfying results for the CS-80's aficionados.

You mentioned the correct keyword: skills.

yeah... because if you have the skills, you can make a saxophone sound like a piano...

We're not talking about having a synth to sound like a drum machine here, where your analogy would make sense. It's about programming a va synth to sound very near the real thing, that in the right skilled hands it would mystified most of the people. And by listening to wagtunes' demo patches, I'm really not confident he has the right skills to do so.

[chk071]

Why should you have a problem? It's just a word...

Try not to see it as me or anyone else having a problem. I don't have a problem with this CS-80 debate (I have plenty of other problems already ). I was trying to point out that it might be difficult to provide the perfect anything for any one specific person. I suppose it might make more sense if I said Wags wants what he wants, but is that what most other people want? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. I just think finding the perfect emulation for you, or me, or any other single person, might not always be possible because your experiences with and perception of that instrument will always be to some extent unique.

Sounds reasonable.

Actually reminds me of a post i read on a German synthesizer forum. Someone posted there that he found Steinberg Retrologue sounds extremely similar to his MFB Microzwerg (or was it Nanozwerg?). I always found that there's more analog sounding synths than Retrologue, but, what do i know? The sound example with a A/B of a filter sweep at high resonance sounded very, very similar.

[cfanyc]

modern vsts and hybrid sample/synthesis instruments can approximate the
cs-80 pretty well. See for example the end-to-end cover of the Bladerunner score
by Edgar Rothermich done with pre-version 2 omnisphere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Qjzj5pjK4

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=edgar+rother ... nb_sb_noss

Actually, i'd argue that that's a good example of why it is not that easy to replicate such sounds. It's a nice recreation all in all, but, that sax-like synth sound sounds a lot more sterile than in the original.

That is what I argued also (maybe not clearly enough). The sound can get quite close but not exactly and
also not as effortlessly as the original instrument. For example the Peter Schilling
Bladerunner Blues piece quoted earlier in the thread gets reasonably close to the
original but only with a ton of automation (the arturia instrument is not expressive enough
to be played organically to the same effect).

[Introspective]

Because I am not a soft-synth developer, I cannot answer the OP's question, which the OP seems ... razor-focused on restricting answers to, but I will gently suggest the OP checks out the default patches from the Dark Zebra again.

No. ZebraHZ is not a CS-80 re-creation. ...but I think the OP will find the sounds agreeable.

[zerocrossing]

If you can't tell that the resonance of the Yamaha CS-80 filters blow away Arturia's then I don't know what to tell you.

There is NO comparison. The Arturia is a weak emulation at best.

And mind you, this isn't even one of my favorite pieces of music and isn't even the best example of what the CS-80 can do.

There is something lovely about the original... the sound is so nuanced and organic. The guy did a solid effort with the Arturia version, but it is still missing something. It sounds like a VST...

Not to give the Arturia more credit then they deserve, I bet if you fixed the mix, and the pad (who programmed that pad?!) and recorded it all to tape, it would sound a lot closer.

I’ve said this before, but I hate Vangelis and I (mostly) hate the Blade Runner soundtrack, but the sound of the synths is great. I bet if Arturia would stop thinking that their min-spec machine was a first gen Core Duo, all they’d have to do is do less band limiting, more oversampling and some work on drift algorithms, and they’d nail it. Contrary to what some people are saying, it’s really not way off. It’s no more way off than what a Model D filter sounds like when modulated at audio rates and what Diva’s Moog emulation sounds like doing the same thing.

I bought CS-80 V when it was on sale for $75 a long time ago. I didn’t buy it because it sounded like anything, I bought it because I could squeeze these dusty, crusty tones out of it with little effort. V2 came out a bit later, and it was a free update. They did improve it. I’m not sure why they didn’t give all the synths another pass for v3, but here we are. Pigments sure sounds good, so someone there is capable. They just need to focus on their legacy synths.