Is virtual analog an advertising ploy?

[BONES]

The history of the synth is the same as with drums as people have hinted in this thread. Manufacturers thought they wanted electronic versions of flutes, violins and guitars.

This is exactly where you are wrong. It wasn't what the company's thought, it was what their sales charts told them. It was what players wanted, what they were willing to pay for. That's why the three biggest selling synths of all time are digital synths that were very good at sounding like real instruments -

Korg M1 250,000 units sold
Roalnd D-50 200,000 units sold
Yamaha DX-7 160,000 units sold

Compare that to -

Sequential Circuits Prophet V 8,000 units sold
Moog MiniMoog 13,000 units sold
Roland Jupiter 8 2,000 units sold

That's right, Roland sold 100x more D-50s than it sold Jupiter 8s! That doesn't happen if it's not what people want to use. That's also why all those old machines became worthless - nobody was willing to pay for them.

The other flaw in your logic is thinking there was one zeitgeist that gave way to another. There were always plenty of people buying synths who only wanted them to sound like synths. These groups happily co-existed from the 70s right through. e.g. Switched on Bach was definitely not trying to sound like an orchestra and I doubt Depeche Mode ever wanted to sound like a "normal" band, either. Even when they moved to digital synths, they kept doing synthy things with them.

If anything, the early synth guys were just expanding their keyboard collection. It gave them something new to augment their Hammonds and Rhodes. I daresay those were the people driving sales and giving synths more respectability in people's eyes. It is definitely what drove my interest in them. All my favourite bands of the late 70s and early 80s were rock bands with keyboard players. The Stranglers had Dave Greenfield, Magazine had Dave Formula, Fischer Z had Steve Skolnik, Yachts had Henry Priestman (later of The Christians fame), etc. Back then, purely synth bands were as boring to me as purely guitar bands.

This is the difference between drums and beats (a valuable distinction). With drums, it’s either real drums played by a real drummer or virtual drums designed to sound real. With beats, all bets are off, anything goes.

Give us one example. Because, as you noted, a drummer could play the kick line from Blue Monday. Also, a 909 was still tethered to its sequencer, which pretty much restricted it to things a drummer could manage. Again, it's not an either/or situation. It's a continuum that makes distinguishing one thing from the other impossible and/or a waste of time.

And we’re now back to that central disagreement between us, because I understand that no music fan cares about beats not sounding like real drums. They like the sound for what it is, in fact embrace it for that - be that Oxygene Part IV, Vogue, Firestarter or Bad Guy.

Nothing there a real drummer couldn't have played and the sounds could easily be a from a real kit in Firestarter. (I don't know what Bad Guy is.)

As I said before, you can dislike all of this. You can keep using a Linn or Linn samples to try and sound like a real drummer - whatever floats your boat. But to fail to understand what has happened to popular music over the past 50 years and get us into the landscape we are today in a place like KVR seems… well. Odd.

The failure here is yours. You seem to think that whatever you are into is all there is but it's really just a tiny fraction of the whole. Popular music is still about guitars and drums, 5 Seconds of Summer sell more albums and singles than Troy Sivan or Flume. And, as I said previously, there are a whole lot more people sitting in their bedrooms strumming a Les Paul than there are trying to program a 909 or 808. KVR is most assuredly not a microcosm of the wider world.

the problem with acoustic drum samples, is most people don't program them, in a way a drummer would play, and the result is often "a bit shit".

Beauty is in perfection, everybody knows that.

drummers aren't robots! they have flow, groove, life in the playing.

Which is one reason they are not worth the trouble. At least you only have to punch the info into your drum machine once!

[jamcat]

Roland Jupiter 8 2,000 units sold

And every single person who bought one played it on a record.

[BONES]

That's certainly true of both the bands I saw who had one - Tablewaiters and MEO 245. They were definitely rarer here than Prophet Vs or OBs, even though they were easier to get hold of. i.e. Not many music shops in Sydney stocked Oberheim or SS stuff but they all had Roland synths.

[noiseboyuk]

BONES - oh bless.

First, let’s briefly look at Workstations. Yes, they sold in droves. Why? A - because they became cheaper to make and even more B - they could sorta do everything. As discussed, keyboards are expensive things. If you’re a functions band, you just want to press a button and have a sorta analogue brass sound for when you do Jump, or a sorta piano for I’m Still Standing. And that M1 has you covered - sorta.

I’m not really sure how that has any bearing on trends in music itself.

I’m (almost) at a loss for words when it comes to playing Blue Monday or Firestarter on the drums. I’m trying to be polite here, but it shows a complete lack of understanding on how music is made. Blue Monday’s drum pattern came because the DMX drum machine had a form that just begged it to be used. Why not do what real drummers don’t do with kicks and have a phrase like a machine gun? It’s as easy as 4 on the floor - with a machine. Just run your finger over it. With Firestarter, the band would have been playing around with loops, smashing and mangling them til it sounded like WWIII.

That’s how original music gets made. Others can then copy you, a (non-Metal) drummer can set up two kicks, and copy it, sorta and that would be great fun live. But it’s not the form or function of a regular drum kit, whereas it absolutely is with a drum machine. It’s how music evolves.

Same with guitar. It’s so easy for me to slide a simple figure up and down a guitar to create a really harmonically complex progression. It probably could be recreated with multiple passes using a keyboard, but it misses the point. When writing songs, you create with the tools in front of you. Each instrument, each piece of technology, will guide the song in a particular direction. And of course you can play around with all the conventions to work against that, but a creator would do it’s to make something different, not copy something that whatever you’re working with isn’t really cut out for. It’s all the joy of music and music-making.

And this applies to all genres of music. Real music played by real musicians is very much alive and well in pop - fantastic. The humble acoustic guitar has gone gangbusters in the last 10 or 20 years. But they likely won’t be using a workstation for that - they’ll play a guitar.

[BONES]

First, let’s briefly look at Workstations. Yes, they sold in droves. Why? A - because they became cheaper to make and even more B - they could sorta do everything.

Hardly anyone bought them because they could do everything. The vast majority were bought to be played like any other instrument and that's how I always saw them being used. Were you even around then? Old enough to go out and see bands? Because I used them for more than a decade and I never once saw anyone else using them as workstations, the way I did.

As discussed, keyboards are expensive things. If you’re a functions band, you just want to press a button and have a sorta analogue brass sound for when you do Jump, or a sorta piano for I’m Still Standing. And that M1 has you covered - sorta.

As would any one of dozens of cheaper machines. M1s were not cheap, I bought mine second-hand. There were much cheaper instruments around. e.g. ESQ or SQ80. Same for the DX-7 - I couldn't afford one so I got the comparatively feeble DX-9 for $1500 instead, which was a comparable price to a Juno or a JX3P or a PolySix. A DX-7 was twice as much, yet sold in droves.

I’m (almost) at a loss for words when it comes to playing Blue Monday or Firestarter on the drums. I’m trying to be polite here, but it shows a complete lack of understanding on how music is made.

Yet you were the one who said it could be played by a drummer. But it's a tangential point you tried to use to change the subject, which is how shithouse a 909 sounds compared to a 707.

Why not do what real drummers don’t do with kicks and have a phrase like a machine gun?

Plenty of Metal bands with double-kicks do far more impressive kick runs. But still, it's a red herring.

It’s as easy as 4 on the floor - with a machine. Just run your finger over it. With Firestarter, the band would have been playing around with loops, smashing and mangling them til it sounded like WWIII.

Really? All I hear is a huge kick and a funky drummer style snare pattern. The rest is just noise, not drums.

That’s how original music gets made.

There's nothing original about Firestarter, it sounds like a PWEI reject.

Others can then copy you, a (non-Metal) drummer can set up two kicks, and copy it, sorta and that would be great fun live.

Or you could be like Adam & the Ants and others and have two drummers. But it's still not what we were talking about.

But it’s not the form or function of a regular drum kit, whereas it absolutely is with a drum machine.

Except it's not at all, is it? The problem is you are looking at it in too narrow a fashion. A marching band's bass drummer uses two mallets to hit his drum so there's no reason he mightn't think to do a snare-style drum roll with it, just as a timpanist does in a symphony orchestra. It's nothing like the amazing, unique thing you think it is. But, again, that's simply about sequencing, not about how shithouse a 909 sounds compared to a 707.

Of course, the thing to remember with BM is that the kick roll thing only happens in the intro and the break, it's likely the song was written without it at all and they just put it in later. It might be the most recognisable element for you and I but it doesn't mean the song wouldn't exist without it or wouldn't have been a hit.

a creator would do it’s to make something different, not copy something that whatever you’re working with isn’t really cut out for.

You have it completely wrong here - using something in a way it was not designed to be used is the peak of creativity. And when you can make it work, it's magical.

[noiseboyuk]

Well, it's been fun Bones. There are so many faleshoods, misunderstandings and non sequiters here, I'll just leave them for everyone else to enjoy. I don't think I could dig so many holes for you as you've so enthusiastically dug for yourself.

But if you're curious I'm 55. Played in live bands and had a home studio way back in the 80s and 90s. Today I've gone the way that most self-respecting old musical bores go - library music, media work and producing people a third of my age.

It continues to be fun.

[cron]

Coming in a little late so perhaps someone's already mentioned this, but I'd argue real analog makes marketers salivate far moreso than virtual analog. There are so many unremarkable analog synths saturating the market right now, and when you read the marketing copy, it's all about that analog signal path as though it inherently tells you something positive about a synth's quality. It does not.

Virtual analog marketing copy tends to tell you a lot about the sound such as how they've eliminated typically undesirable qualities of VA: they're x oversampled, there's a graph showing a saw wave at 1 kHz, they talk about how they've modeled saturation and the sonic qualities of that saturation. They're aware that they need to cut through the bias that 'real analog' and 'good' are the same thing. Analog marketing copy is quite happy to rely on and reinforce that bias. Nothing about how they've kept the noise down, nothing about tuning stability, nothing about how they've eliminated the undesirable aspects of non-linearity. It's just analog, analog, analog.

ANALOG

[jamcat]

But if you're curious I'm 55. Played in live bands and had a home studio way back in the 80s and 90s. Today I've gone the way that most self-respecting old musical bores go - library music, media work and producing people a third of my age.

Well you really ought to be mentoring those kids, rather than trying to emulate them on the forum.

[vurt]

But if you're curious I'm 55. Played in live bands and had a home studio way back in the 80s and 90s. Today I've gone the way that most self-respecting old musical bores go - library music, media work and producing people a third of my age.

Well you really ought to be mentoring those 18 year old kids, rather than trying to emulate them on the forum.

my irony alert just went off!

[jamcat]

Oh? Do tell!

[vurt]

it went "beeeeeeeeeep"

[noiseboyuk]

Well you really ought to be mentoring those kids, rather than trying to emulate them on the forum.

Eh?

[jamcat]

Well you really ought to be mentoring those kids, rather than trying to emulate them on the forum.

Eh?

Well, I seriously thought you were 20 the way you went on about “beats.”

Now I see you must have picked that up from the kids. But instead you should be using your considerable knowledge and experience to correct the naïve ignorance of the youth. Instead you seem to have adopted it.

At least BONES acts his grumpy old age.

[vurt]

and that is why you fail!

every good teacher, will tell you, they learn as much as they teach.
it's a changing world, and just because you don't like modern music, doesn't mean it's not for everyone, some of us have broader tastes

[donkey tugger]

and that is why you fail!

every good teacher, will tell you, they learn as much as they teach.
it's a changing world, and just because you don't like modern music, doesn't mean it's not for everyone, some of us have broader tastes

This new fangled electrickery. It's just a noise.