KVR Audio

wuworld · Post by **wuworld** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:48 am

What do you guys think the future of analog modeled plugins?

wuworld · Post by **wuworld** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:56 am

takaperry · Post by **takaperry** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:37 am

Oh, you meant ‘analog modelled plugins’...never mind

Ah_Dziz · Post by **Ah_Dziz** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:07 am

realtime spice sims.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:02 am

Machine Learning based emulation.
it's faster and easier to make, and you can churn out more garbage nobody needs at higher profits

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:11 am

Ploki wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:02 am Machine Learning based emulation.
it's faster and easier to make, and you can churn out more garbage nobody needs at higher profits

Yeah, I had that thought watching a certain product demo earlier this week. At this stage it would still need sanity checking, tweaking by a human etc but that will inevitably get AIed too at some point.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 2:03 pm

Ah_Dziz wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:07 am realtime spice sims.

The spice must flow.

sguyader · Post by **sguyader** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 2:24 pm

Hopefully, the future of analog emulation will be towards less bullshit. Thanks to guys like Paul Third, maybe users will become more aware of some plugin manufacturers who just put "analog emulation" labels, or famous analog brands certification, on their products while their product has nothing of the true analog behaviour. And then plugin designers will stop labeling as "analog" emulation their 100% digital linear algorithm.
Regarding machine learning, I think its usefulness could be in the algorithm design process: instead of modeling the behaviour of each component and their interactions by brute force, machine learning can help by collecting a lot of data from the real machine, and classify components and their interaction in terms of importance of their effect on the sound. Then the algorithms can be tuned to model more precisely what's important, and less precisely (or not at all) the less important components.
Incorporating machine learning in the final product itself, I don't think it would be really useful, maybe just a gimmick. Or at least, not for analog emulation.
Convolution seems like one of the best ways to truly emulate analog gear, as it's simply capturing the behaviour of the real thing, with all of its non linearities and interactions, but it's too demanding on computer resources. Maybe there's some room for progress here, with faster/lighter convolution algorithms in the future.

pixel85 · Post by **pixel85** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:36 pm

The future is more marketing BS and this is where the most of money will be put on.
We reached that point where software is equally good as analog hardware, often even better and if somebody wants analog, it's possible to get it for a reasonable price these years (well, not everything but we don't need $50k compressor to make music these days).
So devs who still want to sell us "analog emulations" have to work hard to invent new buzz words, hype and made-up reasons to convince us that "this emulation of la2a really sounds better than la2a released 2 weeks ago by another developer and zillion other emulations". Because most people will not be able to hear the difference.

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:14 pm

pixel85 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:36 pm The future is more marketing BS and this is where the most of money will be put on.
We reached that point where software is equally good as analog hardware, often even better and if somebody wants analog, it's possible to get it for a reasonable price these years (well, not everything but we don't need $50k compressor to make music these days).
So devs who still want to sell us "analog emulations" have to work hard to invent new buzz words, hype and made-up reasons to convince us that "this emulation of la2a really sounds better than la2a released 2 weeks ago by another developer and zillion other emulations". Because most people will not be able to hear the difference.

I agree with this, marketing is the name of the game in audio software.

egbert101 · Post by **egbert101** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:51 pm

Pessimism wins.

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:01 pm

that's an odd way to spell "realism"

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:10 pm

Analog modelled or not, I personally reached a certain "threshold", where, when I demo new stuff, I'm mostly either disappointed, or keep thinking "Well... I already got that, in equal quality". So, yeah, it's mostly marketing to keep the ball rolling. Same with DAW's. A new major version every 1 or 2 years, for what really? To have some small feature additions noone needed in the past to make music?

You have to understand the industry. And the necessity to make money. And then decide for yourself whether or not you really need new software, or if it's just for the "Oh, I got hyped!" factor. When I study the buying behavior, I see a lot of the latter (guilty of it as well, more than once...).

jens · Post by **jens** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:18 pm

With DAWs there is still a far way to go... but in regards to most plugins stuff I agree, yes. We're covered - tenfold.

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:24 pm

I think it's going to be continuous movement towards absolute accuracy, until the experience and results of using a plugin model is indistinguishable from the original hardware. Because really, that is what the market (us) wants.

Developers who do not keep up, and regularly update their existing models with higher levels of accuracy as modeling techniques improve and processing power increases, will see their market shares dwindle and their products and brand becomes obsolete.

We will also see an ever-expanding selection of modeled gear, with increasingly eclectic, novel, and obscure gear being modeled.

All of this will keep developers busy for the foreseeable future.

What's the future of analog modeled plugins?