Long Live the Soft Synth, Hardware Synths are dead

[recursive one]

I wrote the first music that I was legitimately proud of using mostly Albino.

Really good music, Introspective!

Any other your stuff to check out elsewhere? Is that yours too? (hope you don't mind me posting)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8BOwPvpUZI

[Introspective]

Err... I don't think this is really the place for it, but: yes. That's mine. More Abdicant stuff here. That specific album was released via Kahvi, and you can get it (pay what you want) here. That specific track was done with a big mix of soft-synths, but mostly Roland Cloud stuff. You'll also hear a Bazille pad, a Parallels pad, and the opening plucks are a combination of Oberhausen and Massive X.) I am also part of a few collaborations. This one, for example. Thanks, though, for the compliment.

</promotion>

[recursive one]

Err... I don't think this is really the place for it, but: yes. That's mine. More Abdicant stuff here. (That piece was done with a big mix of soft-synths, but mostly Roland Cloud stuff. You'll also hear a Bazille pad, a Parallels pad, and the opening plucks are a combination of Oberhausen and Massive X.) I am also part of a few collaborations. This one, for example. Thanks, though, for the compliment.

</promotion>

Thanks, will check it all out in due course!

I think good music made by forum members with synths must not be such an offtopic, isn't that what synths are for?

[cryophonik]

What's the oldest VST you have installed?

VSTi: Battery 4 - 2013(?)
VST: Waves L1 - 1994 (it's updated to the 'new version' but it's only GUI update)

Besides Waves and NI (Komplete), which I'm installing as full bundles including old plugins, I don't have plugins older than 3, 5 years currently installed.

Oh, yes, I stand corrected. I forgot about all of my Waves plugins that pre-date my Fabfilter One by nearly a decade

[BONES]

Okay: of course you can expect it. But it's folly to do so.

No, it's not. In fact, it's absurd to suggest otherwise.

The progress of technology and the cutthroat world of software development alone should be enough to clue you in that 80% of these software companies won't be around in 10 years, and even if they are, their software suite(s) will be completely different.

Bullshit! Most of the vendors I deal with have already been around for 10 years - Presonus, NI, Synapse, Heavyocity and even Ujam. But even if they aren't around in 10 years, so what? There are people around here still happily using LinPlug and RGC VSTi and those companies haven't existed for a long, long time. I can still use plugins I created in SynthEdit 15 years ago, as well as VSTi discontinued/abandoned by their developers at least that long ago (Scorpion v1, Junglist and some ReFX synths). Moreover, the investment I have made is relatively tiny and easily walked away from, as I have done with many things over the years. But that has always been my choice, it's never been foisted upon me.

This is survivor bias.

That's an interesting article but I think it applies to your point of view, not mine.

You list a DAW, which isn't what I was talking about (DAWs don't cost 10% of hardware alternatives, which was my point), then three VSTs from what is probably THE single largest soft-synth developer (and thus has the means to at least minimally maintain the software against OS updates), and then one of the top five most popular synths from another one of the largest companies in the industry.

Yes, because those are the things I use every day. And whilst S1 might be a DAW, it is also full of instruments and effects that I use and rely upon.

No. Most of it won't. I mean, maybe for you, but not for most people. Period!

Of course it f**king will. I can still open projects we made in 2000 and all the instruments I used will still function perfectly well. Even something like QuadraSID, which ReFX gave up on about 15 years ago, will still work. It's one of the biggest advantages of working ITB. The only people likely to have trouble are Mac users and that's their own, stupid fault and even they can get around it by keeping their old computers, just like you'd keep your old hardware instruments and effects. So, even with Mac users, it's a conscious choice they make to abandon something by upgrading their OS or their computer. Nobody puts a gun to anyone's head and makes them do that.

Clearly you care enough to keep a computer running the last OS it worked on, off of the internet, and somehow maintain it.

Not even close. I am running a fully up-to-date version of Windows 10 on a laptop less than a year old but I'll guarantee that it will all still work in Windows 11 when I get around to upgrading. That's just the nature of Windows, everything keeps working. All I need to do is keep my old host software around, or any 32 bit host, and all those old, long abandoned VSTi will work better than ever, even with a 64 bit OS. A very few people might have old instruments that stop working because of copy protection but everything I bought back then used a simple serial no., which was pretty much the norm.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I am not saying companies are at fault here. I'm saying it is what it is... and it's a large part of the reason that software is a better value than hardware. You are saving in cost what you take on with risk. ...that is both reasonable and fair.

But the risk is, in my direct experience over almost 40 years, far greater with hardware, unless you keep every instrument you buy. And I can assure you that over 40 years you will accumulate so much hardware you'll need a double-garage just to store it all.

In fact, I would go so far as to say this is mostly OUR fault! ...By constantly demanding Shiny New Shit™,

Maybe for Mac users, not for the rest of us, who can have our shiny new shit and keep using out grubby old shit as well.

You can bet good money that there will be a Pigments 5, but you've probably got a hard lesson to learn if you're waiting for the next version of AX73 (which I think is great, I am not picking on the synth, just its popularity).

So what? The version of AX73 I have is all I need and I am sure it will keep working for as long as I need it to.

And good luck to you if you want to try taking someone to court because the $150 VST you bought 10 years ago isn't supported. Let me know where the trial is being held, I'll want to sit in on it. Should be good for a laugh.

First of all, I've never paid $150 for a VSTi in my life and, second of all, I've never been in a position where one has stopped working and I've needed support. So it's purely hypothetical and extremely unlikely to occur.

[BONES]

Wow, serious nostalgia from that list. I haven't even thought of most of those in ages.

Which brings up another point - why worry about the longevity of any of these instruments when you know you will lose interest in them long before you have to worry about them not working any more? We keep things around because we still play some of the songs from our first album live but if you're not playing live, why worry?

ChronoX! You didn't mention it, but you reminded me of it. ChronoX and Albino. ...there are two more synths I would like to see resurrected.

Why would you need them to be "resurrected"? They should still work OK, both were available in 64 bit, according to the KVR Database. I had CronoX back in the day but it had the worst sounding filter I've ever heard. It was just awful. It may have improved in later versions but I was done with it by then and never upgraded.

Good times, good times.

I am much happier with the set-up I have today and the music we produce with it. When I listen to our first album, from 2003, I can't imagine I ever thought it was good enough to release but it was definitely the best we could manage back then which, of course, is a combination of the technology and our own (lack of) skills at the time.

[Introspective]

This is survivor bias.

That's an interesting article but I think it applies to your point of view, not mine.

Then I think maybe you need to read it again.

My claim: you cannot expect a VST to still work, 10 years after it was released. (I then go on to post hoc add some caveats that you can't count the biggest producers and the most popular synths, which I think is fair and required to be true, but let's ignore that for now.)

The "correct" proof: get a reasonable sample of VSTs released 10 years ago, check whether they still work. (...which we have not done. I'm just saying, this is how you WOULD prove it.)

Your response: These 5 synths that I used are still working.

That's survivor bias.

[Introspective]

why worry about the longevity of any of these instruments when you know you will lose interest in them long before you have to worry about them not working any more? We keep things around because we still play some of the songs from our first album live but if you're not playing live, why worry?
...
I am much happier with the set-up I have today and the music we produce with it.

[nod] This is true. I didn't mean to say I was nostalgic for those synths because I thought I would still use them. I most certainly would not. Modern synths are far superior in terms of sound quality and workflow. I just ... miss them. At least for me, each synth has its own ... personality? And I do miss some of those classics. It's 100% nostalgia bias. (...which is fine, when it comes to just wanting to play.)

Why would you need them to be "resurrected"? They should still work OK, both were available in 64 bit, according to the KVR Database.

...Because I do not have them. You are clearly super anal about keeping backups of everything, but I certainly was not back in 2006.

I had CronoX back in the day but it had the worst sounding filter I've ever heard. It was just awful.

I was just starting out with electronic music, really, so I don't recall ever feeling that way about the filter. It was all about the weird OSCs, anyway.

There are, of course, modern alternatives that are far superior. Again, this is nostalgia.

[BONES]

My claim: you cannot expect a VST to still work, 10 years after it was released. (I then go on to post hoc add some caveats that you can't count the biggest producers and the most popular synths, which I think is fair and required to be true, but let's ignore that for now.)

Which I countered by showing that even VSTi I made myself still work after more than 10 years, as do discontinued products from a number of developers anyone would consider "small", like LinPlug.

The "correct" proof: get a reasonable sample of VSTs released 10 years ago, check whether they still work. (...which we have not done. I'm just saying, this is how you WOULD prove it.)

If one works, they will all work unless, as I said yesterday, they use some kind of copy protection that won't work any more, which is a small minority, rather than the majority as you suggested. If It helps, I can load every VSTi in my Orion install and write out a list of things that still work (and everything in that install will be at least 10 years old).

That's survivor bias.

No, it's a small sample of things that I know for a fact work, which leads me, quite reasonably, to assume that a large number of other similar plugins will also work. As I said, I can give you a more exhaustive list if it helps you get your head around the fact that you are completely wrong. It will be a long list, though, because I have dozens of my own SE plugins and if one works, they all will. However, simply pointing out that 32 bit software still works in the latest versions of Windows should be enough to clue you in, as it is most likely that Apple's total abandonment of 32 bit support some years ago is what has fed your mistaken belief.

OTOH, you have taken a tiny sample, your own limited experience, and extrapolated that to include the entire market. You have looked at a small sample, biased by the fact it is restricted to a single ecosystem, and made the assumption that it applies universally. That, my friend, is bias of the same type as survivor bias.

[Introspective]

OTOH, you have taken a tiny sample, your own limited experience, and extrapolated that to include the entire market. You have looked at a small sample, biased by the fact it is restricted to a single ecosystem, and made the assumption that it applies universally. That, my friend, is bias of the same type as survivor bias.

Well, it's bias, to be sure. In my case, confirmation bias. ...Or perhaps selection bias. I never actually said my PoV was unbiased--it is. I was just saying that it was not survivor bias (it's not), and that yours was.

Which is NBD. You are allowed to be biased. I'm just sayin'.

I did, however, give the "solution" to the problem: make a selection of some "significant" number of synths published in 2012, representing a cross-section of popularity and corporate size. Find and install those synths, mark how many of them work. My claim was that this number would be somewhere around 80% that don't work, but in hindsight, I think that's probably overselling the point. Make it 15 years (2007) or make it 50%, though, and I would make that bet.

...Not that I actually want to do this. It would take many hours and be a huge pain in the ass. Not worth it. It was a casual claim, not a scientific one.

I still think you are a special snowflake for having so many old synths. Your experience is VERY different from mine, and of the folks in whose circle I run. But c'est la vie.

[BONES]

I have old synths because we've been writing songs on the computer for 20 years and I never know when I might want to resurrect any of them for a live show. They just sit there 99.9% of the time but they work when I need them, unlike all the SCSI and Zip discs I have full of songs from my hardware days, which is what matters. To be fair, I don't know how many I would still be able to authorise if I needed to, as I only need them to run in demo mode to get the stuff out of Orion and into Studio One but, as I said, AFAIK they just need a serial no. so they should be OK. I've even got an old Alpha version of DUNE installed and running, before it was called DUNE. We used to use it a lot for strings but I eventually got around to copying those patches across to DUNE so we don't actually need it any more. But it still works.

[meeks]

I'm with you...and this is no joke. I just got a Casio VL-Tone for $110 What a steal!

OK, it was $30, but the Juno was $200 and D-550 with all cards and programmer $300. These are certainly cheaper than even a year before. It is happening...and I'm buying. I'd rather own history than emulate it if it's in the ballpark of affordability.

It's posts like this that really underline how things have changed when such an old thread gets bumped. $200 Junos. People casually saying they're in the market for an OB-Xa because back then you didn't have to get a second mortgage to snag one. When I think back to 2006, it really was a whole different world. SO much water flows under the bridge in 15 years.

Well...everything hardware broke. I've learned how to fix just about everything though which led me to a little Eurorack of course. I guess its cool to do your own stuff but it's frustrating at times, thanks Thonk! I don't have an electrical engineering background, but I try. I still occasionally find some deals. But it's like an episode of Bad Gear. Best to buy the early 2010 stuff and let the kiddies be jealous of you 20 years down the road. Behringer, will probably have that covered though.

I miss the days of scouring the net for some free bizarre messed up VST, those gems from Krakli among others. The synths are just to much for me these days, too much going on and not enough time. I'm happy enough to run a Minty Synth through a Zoia for hours. Everything changes so much over the years...but for those on the scene when DAWS were first coming into the light, the 'dawning' I guess, that excitement...I miss. There was a spirt there.

I don't mean to wake this dead thread up. There is great hardware out there and it's more exciting to me than the computer stuff. But the computer stuff now sounds more organic than actual instruments. It really does, in shocking ways. Well, that's my appearance ... back to the underground.