Have Modern VST Instruments Replaced Your Hardware Synths ?

[jancivil]

as an improvisational drummer, I personally find the argument to a specific hardware sequencer's - a dumb machine's - capacity for improvisation beyond absurd, laughable. THEN! "the expressive playability." Sure, why not go for the gusto

to wit: dude's specific definition of the best drum machine:
"[some have better sampling] but... the rhythm represents the total package of *the performance drum machine" - "in a manner which is conducive to a live setting". (I actually was the drummer for two of my bands on a drum machine [many yrs ago]. I used its sequencer once or twice for special effect, but being a live kind of musician I played the ficken thing.)

You're reliant on a machine sequencing. does one enjoy the capacity to create all the rhythm by one's own hand, live?
Practically a rhetorical question, because we have a need for a machine for it, do we not?
One supposes there's ample manipulation of a sequence by pressing this button along with another button; one may suppose the rhythms built in it are attractive to some people but the real goalpost is the superiority of hardware over software. I wouldn't diss the thing, but the hype is, well hyperbolic.
One may deem this the best way in the world to come up with some rhythm in a certain style.
However, note very well, one is not making an argument of any substance for it being <unsurpassable in software>, and one will have to have some comparison to a particular software to even talk about it.

[pekbro]

Regardless of what it sounds like, the guy is pretty good at using the thing. His actions per minute are
pretty high. Definitely it would be difficult to keep up with him in software without an equivalent
controller. You could pre-program it with a mouse certainly.

[vurt]

smoke em if you got em!

[jancivil]

I'm sure he is. I could equally challenge someone with such a device to keep up with me as a live musician.
this is something I see continuously, synth people that appear to enjoy no experience with real instruments, here mistaking what a genuine improvisational tack even is.

[billcarroll]

The problem with the local cave is that there are twenty thousand other dudes also with laptops all with the same software as you all making roughly the same sound with roughly the same presets.

I’ve gone the other way. I could have bought a car with what I’ve just spent on Eurorackery. It’s such fun. It’s so intense and it’s nearly unique. The flagship wavetable engine I took delivery of yesterday has a serial number 1,736. That’s how many other people out there can make same sound. How many hundreds of thousands of Xfer Serums are there? How many million Omnispheres (when you count the unofficial ones)? In a world of instantly reproducible software instruments hardware is unique. It’s like the original cover of JMJ’s Equinoxe. All those hopefuls, all scanning the same horizon for the same chance in the same lottery.

Somewhere there is some place
That one million eyes can't see
And somewhere there is someone
Who can see what I can see?
Someone, somewhere in summertime.

Simple Minds, 1982.

Is it a different preset or sound that is at the core of making great music?

How many pianos are there? How much diverse and amazing music has been made on that one instrument? How much more amazing music will be made on a piano? Damn thing only has one preset.

[jancivil]

so regardless of dude's chops with that machine, or the excellence of that machine (for purposes of argument/personally not impressed in the affirmative), the rhetoric is over the top, to the extent of absurdity.
It's plastic music that sounds like garbage to me, so if this is supposed as the overwhelming argument to superiority of hardware it only reinforces my worst preconception. I was led to expect something fantastic and it was pure dross, sorry.

[pekbro]

I'm sure he is. I could equally challenge someone with such a device to keep up with me as a live musician.

No argument from me there. I thought it was a hardware over software point to the video.
Even though there's plenty of software inside that device, clearly.

[jancivil]

"plenty of software inside that device"
yeah, and there's that.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I posted an example of improvisational realtime performance on a hardware drum machine and made the statement that something similar cannot be done with a VST thus demonstrating that software cannot replace all aspects of hardware... the topic of the thread.

Rather than take the challenge of posting an example of someone doing the same/similar using a VST, or acknowledging that yes, in some cases hardware can do stuff that software cannot, you resort to name calling.

Man, you are really out there. You cannot even imagine that to others, like me, your challenge resembles sounding like sht and act like a monkey, and now I am supposed to sound and act even worse on my Nektars and Reason to disprove the universality of your claim. It is kindgarten thinking. You set standards for no one than yourself and then project blindly to all others. Ever heard the saying "to each, his own"....no let me reframe, have you ever even tried to understand sayings like "to each, his own"?

[jancivil]

"I posted an example of improvisational realtime performance on a hardware drum machine"
You posted a guy pushing buttons running a machine doing exceedingly crude/dull things in terms of rhythm, with a result that is just not very musical. I wasn't going to diss the dude or go full negative but the high-flying rhetoric is too much.

I don't know who is seriously impressed by that, but they'd have to be at a very naive level in terms of understanding.

[pdxindy]

I'm sorry but that sounds awful... "raw untamed tonality". Hmm...

No need to be sorry... I happen to love it and it's fine you don't. Different artists could/would use the tools of the Rytm to make different sounding live performances, some of which you would probably like. The point isn't about liking or not liking this example. Someone may or may not like a specific live guitar performance and it can still be a good example that a live guitar can do stuff that a guitar Kontakt library cannot. This example shows the Rytm has realtime playability, hands-on immediacy and performance possibilities that a VST drum machine doesn't.

If you disagree, please post a video of a someone using a VST drum machine to create a similar realtime improvisational performance made from INIT.

[pdxindy]

Man, you are really out there. You cannot even imagine that to others, like me, your challenge resembles sounding like sht and act like a monkey, and now I am supposed to sound and act even worse on my Nektars and Reason to disprove the universality of your claim. It is kindgarten thinking. You set standards for no one than yourself and then project blindly to all others. Ever heard the saying "to each, his own"....no let me reframe, have you ever even tried to understand sayings like "to each, his own"?

Hey, if it is so sh*t, it should be easy to post a VST example. You don't have to do it yourself, just post a youtube video of someone/anyone doing a similar spontaneous realtime performance using a VST drum machine.

Since I posted that video, an actual example... there have been a number of rude sarcastic replies and a bunch of name calling directed at me but not one example of a VST drum machine being able to play live like the example I posted.

So go ahead... let's see what you can come up with.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Hey, if it is so sh*t, it should be easy to post a VST example. You don't have to do it yourself, just post a youtube video of someone/anyone doing a similar spontaneous realtime performance using a VST drum machine.

So now it is only the VSTi drum machine, what happened to the Nektar controllers? And if I do, how would you measure objectively that one performance/sound is better than the other? Ask your heavily biased arse?

Dude, I think on the so called concrete operational level of thinking, while you are trapped in magical thinking, where any sensation from your confused butt is taken as universal measure for this and that. Thus we cannot communicate because you are not even answering my objections at the level they are given, but keep reducing the issue to childish nonsense. By all means, live by the Ignorance-is-bliss and remain a king in your fantasy world, then.

Godspeed

[Vortifex]

Edited