Software vs Hardware Synth (better investment for beginners?)

[pdxindy]

Yes, that is what I said... hardware never runs out of CPU in a way I have to think about.

Except you do have to think about it, you just think about it at a different time. OTOH, I never have to think about it when I'm working ITB. It was one of the first big advantages I appreciated when I started dabbling in software - the freedom to be able to use as much of everything as I needed with virtually no limits, after years of having to carefully ration the polyphony of my workstations - M1 (32 voices across 8 parts), O1R/W (32 voices across 16 parts) and Trinity (35 voices across 18 parts) - to make sure there were enough for all the parts I needed, which included drums for the Trinity.

Right... you are describing your experiences and I am describing mine. They are different and that is just fine.

I really liked the software drum machine Tremor. I thought it sounded great and I was very satisfied with it. One instance of it brought the machine I had to its knees. Depending on the settings/sounds, I sometimes couldn't use all 8 pads/engines. It was a constant dance with CPU crackles. My Analog Rytm on the other hand, I have never once had to be concerned about that. I can use all 8 voices in any way and there is never an issue. I don't have to think about it at all. Plus the analog distortion and compressor on the Rytm makes tones not available in software.

So we each have different tools, interests, aesthetics, etc. There is no one right answer that fits all people.

I've read hundreds of your posts over the years. What I consistently notice is that you have this underlying idea that if someone is smart and practical that they would eventually come to the same conclusions as you and if they don't then you consider them stupid in some way. Nearly every post of yours is shouting that assumption. It colors everything you say.

I have a friend who is an amazing artist. A natural talent! They use paper and various pens and pencils. Someone could argue why not use a tablet and stylus? You have unlimited undo, as many layers as you want, selection tools, ability to move and or edit stuff in ways never possible. The computer simply doesn't interest them for their art. There just is no one right answer. That is a good thing!

And of course you are free to keep thinking others are idiots for finding value and enjoyment in using hardware synths. The world is big enough for Bones to be Bones

[BONES]

I just downloaded the Tremor demo and tried it out. I filled the grid with notes - 8 pads x 16 notes for a bar and CPU use in Task Manager was between 10% and 10.5%. Trying a range of presets, CPU was between 1.5% and 3.5%. Hardly the end of the world. I didn't think I'd like it but it actually sounds quite nice. I'm not sure you can buy it any more, though, but you can still run it in demo mode.

[revvy]

I'd also point out that in 20 years of working ITB, I have never come close to running out of CPU

but...

Sorry, I'm not ready for Hexeract to be relegated to page 2 of my feed so I'm going to have to give it a boost. I'm thinking of using it to replace some of my more CPU heavy synths, in an effort to be able to use my Core i5 Surface Pro 2 on stage, instead of my big laptop.

Maybe you could use HW to replace some of your more heavy CPU SW synths? You know, to stop you running out of CPU in your Windows 'box'.

[JCJR]

I don't dislike analog synths but plumbed the palette deep enough to get "blah" about it long ago. So a computer plugin emulating an analoig synth would have no more attractiveness to me than hardware analog synth. I mean, analog hardware synths are OK but I mostly use digital hardware synths.

I've always viewed computer/sequencer program, or hardware sequencer, controlling a bunch of hardware synths as practical distributed processing. Even back in the 1980's era with C64 or Mac Toaster sequencers, or crude sequencers built-in to Ensoniq keyboards.

[johnwoo]

I like and use a lot software , crazy sounds I get from my vst synths ... But my joy is my Korg M3 with Radias exb inside and my Yamaha EX7 ... Karma from Korg M3 still amaze me every time I use it .

How so? How, for example, is it more powerful/useful than probablity sequencing like you get in Pigments or Studio One?


Play some notes and move a slider on Karma . That notes transform from a cocoon to a beautiful butterfly ... Multiply that x4 and from a band you will have after some changes an full orchestra .
Do that with pigments , please

[pdxindy]

I like and use a lot software , crazy sounds I get from my vst synths ... But my joy is my Korg M3 with Radias exb inside and my Yamaha EX7 ... Karma from Korg M3 still amaze me every time I use it .

How so? How, for example, is it more powerful/useful than probablity sequencing like you get in Pigments or Studio One?

Karma is way more sophisticated. It is a kind of smart arpeggiator that responds to your playing through a sophisticated set of algorithms. It is interactive in a way nothing else quite is. Users can make their own setups. However, I doubt many users ever figured out to make their own. It is on the complicated side. Can be very impressive though. A street performer who knew how to use it could do amazing spontaneous stuff with it.

[BONES]

Maybe you could use HW to replace some of your more heavy CPU SW synths? You know, to stop you running out of CPU in your Windows 'box'.

I already have 6 hardware synths, with one more on the way. The problem is you can't just have more hardware synths, you also need some way of hearing them all, usually a mixer, cables to connect everything up and stands to put them on so you can access them when you need to. It gets very expensive, very quickly. e.g. I recently bought a hum destroyer for $29 and I got some TRS cables to use with it, which took the total to $97. And that will only work for one synth. (Actually, it didn't solve the problem at all.) With a mixer, cables and stands, you're looking at more than a grand, even before you buy the synths.

But the reason I want to use the Surface Pro, not my laptop, is to minimise my set-up so I can fit everything onto a single keyboard stand. Depending how the Uno Pro Desktop turns out, my ideal set-up would be that plus my Rocket, the Surface Pro and a USB interface. Realistically, though, I will probably also have either the Ultranova or Analog Keys as well (it's a 2 tier stand) and if the Surface Pro doesn't pan out, I'll just use my laptop.

[_leras]

I already have 6 hardware synths, with one more on the way.

Oooh - what have you got arriving?

[BONES]

Uno Synth Pro Desktop. I've pre-ordered it so I have to wait until they start shipping. Uno is such a great sounding little synth and the Pro version offers some really nice improvements over the original. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on it. If it works out as planned, my stage set-up could end up being just that, my Seaboard Blocks and my old Surface Pro (or my laptop). I think the red-on-red thing will look really cool with my new keyboard stand.

[_leras]

Uno Synth Pro Desktop.

I had a look and it's not a bad sounding synth at all. It reminds me of the Korg Minillogue in that it doesn't inherently have it's own character. Probably pretty good live with the right fx pedals!

Not quite enough controls for my liking - but then I like that hands on sound design from hardware synths.

[Skyfall72]

For me personally I would pick up a used synth instead of new ones for sure and other reason would be the Sound

While many ppl think the difference between virtual and real analog is negligent sadly not to me. Analog has the vibe and certain feel that virtual can only try to resemble and this goes with everything else plugins try to emulate.
My advice you can stay within the digital domain but run your sound through some analog device to get that vibe back.

[BONES]

Weirdly, this showed up in my feed this morning. It must have been posted while I was on hiatus (i.e. banned) so it never got the response it deserved.

I really liked the software drum machine Tremor. I thought it sounded great and I was very satisfied with it. One instance of it brought the machine I had to its knees. My Analog Rytm on the other hand, I have never once had to be concerned about that. I can use all 8 voices in any way and there is never an issue. I don't have to think about it at all.

Until you need to trigger 9 sounds at once, at which point you are dead in the water. I'd have to trigger 1000 drums at once before I had to start worrying about it. Your Tremor example only makes sense if that was the only software drum machine there is but we all know there are hundreds, most of which will run rings around your Rytm on even a modestly specced computer. Analog Rytm costs literally twice as much as my workstation class laptop and all you can get out of it is 8 drum sounds at once. How can you not see how pathetic that is? Every computer I've ever tried to do music on could manage better than that. To me this seems like a classic case of a poor workman blaming his tools or someone determined to find a reason why he can't do something he simply doesn't want to do.

It's the same old argument - for some strange, unfathomable reason you are uncomfortable with the reality that you prefer working with hardware and you have to try and justify your preference. But it is simply not possible. Every objection you might have is easily and thoroughly countered, yet you persist. It's ridiculous. I have lots of hardware. I like having it around. It's not rational and it doesn't need to be. Why is that notion so hard for you?

What I consistently notice is that you have this underlying idea that if someone is smart and practical that they would eventually come to the same conclusions as you and if they don't then you consider them stupid in some way. Nearly every post of yours is shouting that assumption. It colors everything you say.

That's because people around here seem to like to show the rest of us how stupid they can be. You're doing it now (see above).

I have a friend who is an amazing artist. A natural talent! They use paper and various pens and pencils. Someone could argue why not use a tablet and stylus? You have unlimited undo, as many layers as you want, selection tools, ability to move and or edit stuff in ways never possible. The computer simply doesn't interest them for their art. There just is no one right answer. That is a good thing!

Does that person constantly try and convince the rest of us that there are good and valid reasons for his or her choice, or is that person comfortable that it is nothing more than personal preference? I know people like this. In my profession, everywhere you go you get a Wacom tablet and stylus and two generations of graphic artists have never used anything else but I always found that for 90% of what we do, a mouse is a much better option, so the first thing I'd always do at a new workplace is get rid of the tablet so I could have my QWERTY keyboard front and centre. On the 10% of occasions when the tablet would have been preferable, I'd take longer to get something done but I'd save so much time elsewhere that it more than made up for it.

But in recent years, something that I find amazing has happened. A generation of computer gamers has come through who, like me, are so thoroughly used to working with a mouse that they also eschew the Wacom for a good quality gaming mouse. So when I started my current job in 2015, I was the only person in our dept of 16 or so artists who used a mouse but today around two-thirds of us are mouse-first artists, including a couple of the younger guys who only used a Wacom before I got there because they felt like is was de rigeur for their profession. But once they saw that the old bloke had ditched his tablet, they were empowered to do the same and are much happier for it.

And of course you are free to keep thinking others are idiots for finding value and enjoyment in using hardware synths. The world is big enough for Bones to be Bones

I'd have to think of myself as an idiot if that were the case because I've got more hardware today than I ever had when I worked exclusively on hardware. Of course, I am a complete f**king idiot. I keep spending money on hardware and it just sits here and rots because I never use it. But just because I'm an idiot doesn't mean everyone else has to be, too.

Maybe you could use HW to replace some of your more heavy CPU SW synths? You know, to stop you running out of CPU in your Windows 'box'.

It's not a box, it's a Surface. It's the same thickness as my smartphone with a cover on it. The 4th gen Core i5 was never going to cut it so I upgraded recently to a 6th gen Core i7 model which is easily handling everything I throw at it, even RePro 5.

[thecontrolcentre]

I think the red-on-red thing will look really cool with my new keyboard stand.

That's a cool looking stand. Nice small footprint too ...

[pdxindy]

Until you need to trigger 9 sounds at once, at which point you are dead in the water.

Not at all... I have 2 Rytm's!

And of course I also have software drums too. It is not an either/or. One can use both and I like to do so cause the Rytm gets results that software cannot. And the same goes in the other direction.

[BONES]

That's a cool looking stand. Nice small footprint too ...

It weighs almost nothing and folds up into a package that would fit in a large suitcase. It's a very clever design and it's perfect for me, as my biggest synths are still only 37 keys. I don't know that I'd be trying to use it with an original Prophet V or an OB-Xa, though. It's made by Quiklok but they market them under the brand name "Stay".

the Rytm gets results that software cannot. And the same goes in the other direction.

You can say that until you are blue in the face but we both know that it's just bullshit. I can understand that it might inspire you to do things you'd never think to do with software but once it's done, replicating it in software would be possible, probably easy. Sometimes that's how I use my hardware, including my MIDI controllers - to generate the ideas that I then bring to fruition in software, to a standard I could simply never achieve with hardware. But more often the inspiration comes from sound design, which is something I very definitely only do in software. I might patch a hardware synth to do a job for me on stage but sound design with hardware is a punish compared to software.

Just cause you keep buying hardware you don't use, doesn't mean other people aren't making good use of their hardware.

Well, it kind of does when you think about it. You have an Analog Four, don't you? Well I have an Analog Keys and there is nothing about it that makes it one jot better than even a simple VSTi like JP6K, for example. Now, you'll point to all the extra features each of the four synth engines has compared to JP6K but I don't look at it like that, I listen to what comes out of the speakers and what comes out of my AK is no better than what I can get out of JP6K. Consequently, I use JP6K all the time and I use AK never. As in never, ever. One day, when we can get back up on stage, it will get some use but when we're not performing, it has nothing to offer. So, genius, what am I missing? Because I can give you a list of all the compromises you're making to use your A4 if you like.

But now I know why you cannot admit that hardware has some advantages over software. It would make your self labeled failure even worse to do so.

Which makes me wonder why you can't offer even the tiniest shred of evidence to support any of your claims, while I have two Top 5 albums and three Top 5 singles to back mine up, with reviews like "((D)Anger is) a well-crafted album with a professional production process" or "... this album (Iconoclast) deserves a special mention in the most accomplished productions in its genre from 2020". And whilst I don't actually give two shits about any of that, it does at least tell us that we are on the right track and (mostly) making the right calls when it comes to our processes. And if we're making the right calls and you're doing pretty much the exact opposite, what does that say?