Your favorite "versatile analog-modelled/emulation" synth plugin?

[gentleclockdivider]

intriguing, thanks for your insight.

I knew hive uses wavetables for the VA part, but wasn't aware DIVA (and i assume repro?) does as well.

diva doesnt.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=576076

[vurt]

intriguing, thanks for your insight.

I knew hive uses wavetables for the VA part, but wasn't aware DIVA (and i assume repro?) does as well.

diva doesnt.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=576076

ok, so it does, but not single cycle.
which was the statement, as per that thread

nice to see it cleared up though.

[wagtunes]

I honestly don't know how to answer this. The problem is, I find most "true" analog emulations (meaning as close to the original as possible) to be very limited because, in most cases, the synths themselves were very limited. As great as "The Legend" is for what it does, the minimoog is a very limited instrument. There are tons of things it simply can't do.

Conversely, someone mentioned Diva. That isn't really an analog emulation because it doesn't emulate just ONE instrument. So I don't see how you can include it in this discussion unless you're accepting a "loose" interpretation.

If that's the case, then you might as well throw out the analog emulation requirement and just go for most versatile synth, period.

Going down that rabbit hole you're probably talking about something like Falcon, Omnisphere, Zebra 2, HALion 6, Diva, DX7 V, Mpowersynth, MSoundFactory, Pigments, Synthmaster 2 and I'm sure others.

As far as true, or near true emulations, these are my favorite.

Legend
Obsession
PolyM

None of them would I call versatile.

[chk071]

intriguing, thanks for your insight.

I knew hive uses wavetables for the VA part, but wasn't aware DIVA (and i assume repro?) does as well.

diva doesnt.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=576076

Snitched!

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Many other analog-emulations use a common wavetable technique called 'lookup table'. It is used to prevent aliasing and to keep the CPU low while still providing a analog-like sound.

Hi Markus. Thanks for elaborating. You originally described a method of using wavetables to boost bass at the oscillator stage. This is definitely a technique that some VA synths use, especially older designs. However, it's not necessarily an accurate emulation of the signal path of real analog hardware in which the filters always have a nonlinear frequency response, even when fully open. In many cases, the oscillator circuitry produces surprisingly "perfect" waveforms, but the hardware provides no way either to hear those or see them on an oscilloscope. This certainly applies to a lot of Roland hardware. In theory, it should likewise apply to any synth (Diva, TAL J-8, etc.) that emulates it with modern techniques.

[Markus Krause]

A few analog synths indeed used a 'bass boost' for the oscillators. It is a trick to make them sound more warm by attenuating the f0 partial.
In the analog world you can either use a filter with cutoff linked to pitch for attenuating the f0 partial or use soft-saturation to archive this result. Since soft-saturation is more cheap i assume that most of them used this to 'squeeze the saw' and add more bottom.
I can confirm a filter circuit with key tracking/bass boost for my Roland Alpha Juno (which in fact isn't entirely analog). The degree of boost is controlled by the 'HPF'.
I can not confirm it for my Alesis Andromeda, the Mopho and the Nanozwerg. They got really clean sawtooths. They are 'high-end' analog synths with a suprisingly sterile sound.

[mystran]

In many cases, the oscillator circuitry produces surprisingly "perfect" waveforms, but the hardware provides no way either to hear those or see them on an oscilloscope. This certainly applies to a lot of Roland hardware, and should likewise apply to any synth (Diva, TAL J-8, etc.) that emulates it with modern techniques.

If you want your analog VCO to track properly over a musically useful range, at least it's "core waveform" (usually sawtooth) has to be essentially perfect. It'll go out of tune far before you'll see any obvious visual defects.

The other "secondary" waveforms are usually produced by waveshaping the core waveform (eg. comparator for PWM, full-wave rectifier for triangle) and there might be some more variation with these (eg. the extreme example being TB-303 where the "square" is hardly a square at all), but for the most part the circuitry required to turn a sawtooth into a "perfect" PWM or triangle is not terribly advanced (ie. the main issue with triangle is just the symmetry and making sure your core sawtooth resets fast enough that the reset slope doesn't create a "spike" in the triangle).

In general though, the big visual differences from one synth to another tend to be the result of either DC blockers or saturation later in the signal path, because even the poor old silverbox will put out a damn near perfect sawtooth.

[dmbaer]

This is what really defines analog sound (you can switch most of this on/off in the Config menu of Saurus3:
- Filter with self-oscillation
- slight oscillator-drift
- slight instabilities
- Soft saturation
- Damping of frequencies over 8Khz in the OSCs
- a little noise
- no aliasing
- filters are slightly 'off-tune'

Markus, what do you mean by "soft saturation"? A modest amount of harmonic distortion due to imprecise waveform rendering, maybe? If so, does that imprecision vary over time?

A soft clipper is similar to a hard clipper, but with the corners smoothed. A common choice of soft-clipper is the cubic nonlinearity
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/pasp/Soft_Clipping.html

Understood. but I guess my question has to do with where the soft clipping is applied. If after the amp section, then the amount of saturation will depend upon the voice's output level, or even the level of the mix of all voices. If before the amp, then the saturation will be more consistent. If before the filter section, even more so, I would think. Thus my question.

[Markus Krause]

In Saurus as well as many analog synths the saturation happens directly after the oscillator before the signal goes into the filter.
You can place another one after the filter before it goes into the amp.

[Urs]

I do not think Diva uses BLIT for the oscillators.

Correct. BLIT didn't cut it.

But there are also hardly any wavetables involved. Most models use BLEPS and BLAMs due to hardsync and cross modulation.

The waveforms themselves look pretty perfect, as they do in their analogue counterparts. Any type of "belly" whatsoever is the result of circuitry further down the signal path, just like in the analogue counterparts.

[Urs]

I knew hive uses wavetables for the VA part, but wasn't aware DIVA (and i assume repro?) does as well.

I guess now I'll be haunted by people asking why we used wavetables for Diva and Repro when in fact we didn't

(That said, my perception of "how things work" is fundamentally different in regards to many things laid out in this thread.)

[Introspective]

(That said, my perception of "how things work" is fundamentally different in regards to many things laid out in this thread.)

I for one would pay money to hear you expand on that thought.

[Ploki]

I knew hive uses wavetables for the VA part, but wasn't aware DIVA (and i assume repro?) does as well.

I guess now I'll be haunted by people asking why we used wavetables for Diva and Repro when in fact we didn't

(That said, my perception of "how things work" is fundamentally different in regards to many things laid out in this thread.)

I edited the post in hopes to reduces people haunting

[felis]

If anyone has time, could they give a layman's description of BLIT, BLEP, and BLAM.

Doing a search for them brings up some pretty funny results.

[digitalboytn]

If anyone has time, could they give a layman's description of BLIT, BLEP, and BLAM.

Doing a search for them brings up some pretty funny results.

BLIT, BLEP, and BLAM are a comedy act from Central Turkmenistan