Developers: Why are your VCO emulations so bright?

[zerocrossing]

One thing I've always noticed about emulations, is that pretty much across the board, their VCOs just sound so much brighter than any actual VCO I've encountered. I no longer have anything actually vintage, but I do have a Studio Electronics ATC-X that's got Moog clone VCOs on board, and they pretty much attribute the same kind of roll off as other hardware VCO based synths that I own. If you look at them in a spectrum analyzer, the software will have this perfect straight line of diminishing partials, but that doesn't ever seem to be the case with actual VCOs. Why? Is it computationally expensive to model the output of a VCO?

[Echoes in the Attic]

I have the opposite question for Arturia.

[zerocrossing]

I have the opposite question for Arturia.

Prophet 5 V's got a curve that's very similar to my Prophet 6. Are you talking about their old plugins? That's probably due to them trying to avoid obvious aliasing.

[zerocrossing]

BTW, looking at Diva, it does seem to get this right. No wonder it's still considered one of the best after all this time.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I have the opposite question for Arturia.

Prophet 5 V's got a curve that's very similar to my Prophet 6. Are you talking about their old plugins? That's probably due to them trying to avoid obvious aliasing.

Some old, some new. Prophet and moog are fine. MS-20 oscs too dull (but great filters), same with many others like cs-80 and synclavier.

[dubguy99]

Probably the same reason why virtually no vintage outboard emus model the boxtone topend rolloff of such devices: a lot of people like bright. I remember Arturia actually modelled that on their 1776 for once and immediately there were people complaining that it's "too dark" and "unuseable".

[chk071]

Probably the same reason why virtually no vintage outboard emus model the boxtone topend rolloff of such devices: a lot of people like bright.

You're probably right. I never was a fan of overly bright. It often resembles harsh.

[egbert101]

I would say most VCO emulations are based on single-cycle waveforms which fall more on the side of perfect or ideal rather than real. In other words, they're exact digital numbers and not variations in volts, which will be different each cycle. Now some emulations claim to be circuit modeled (such as Diva). Whether that's the entire synth or just the filter, I do not know.

I'm not a dev, just my guess work.

[gentleclockdivider]

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[gentleclockdivider]

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[zerocrossing]

I would say most VCO emulations are based on single-cycle waveforms which fall more on the side of perfect or ideal rather than real. In other words, they're exact digital numbers and not variations in volts, which will be different each cycle. Now some emulations claim to be circuit modeled (such as Diva). Whether that's the entire synth or just the filter, I do not know.

I'm not a dev, just my guess work.

I don’t have any true vintage synthesizers, but the oscillators in my ATC-X are reportedly clones of the Model D design. They’re definitely not continuously changing in any way that is perceptible. The two oscillators are definitely never perfectly tuned to each other, so you get phasing even if you don’t retune them. I do see some warble in harmonics of my Uno Synth Pro X, though. If you ask me, the Studio Electronics sounds a lot more of what I think of as “vintage.” Not that I don’t think the Uno sounds great, just different.

What I think is more effective in mimicking a vintage polyphonic synthesizer is making sure each voice is slightly different. That’s not the sound of the oscillator as much as it’s the difference between voice cards. That’s a different can of worms.

[martiu]

VCO emulators are bright because when we get older we are loosing our hearing in the upper registers so they try to compensate that for the old timers here

[audiouser720]

BTW, looking at Diva, it does seem to get this right. No wonder it's still considered one of the best after all this time.

What is your take on Repro? I always find it brighter than my P5, but that I run through preamp, so it’s not a fair comparison.

I find myself turning highs down on everything as I get order. High frequencies are just irritating, not pleasant. When I was younger I was doing the complete opposite. I never know if my taste got better or if I am just getting def

[zerocrossing]

BTW, looking at Diva, it does seem to get this right. No wonder it's still considered one of the best after all this time.

What is your take on Repro? I always find it brighter than my P5, but that I run through preamp, so it’s not a fair comparison.

I find myself turning highs down on everything as I get order. High frequencies are just irritating, not pleasant. When I was younger I was doing the complete opposite. I never know if my taste got better or if I am just getting def

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Repro has a different cutoff range. Try tuning the filters to an identical note while in full resonance. Then see if what you think of the highs.

[audiouser720]

BTW, looking at Diva, it does seem to get this right. No wonder it's still considered one of the best after all this time.

What is your take on Repro? I always find it brighter than my P5, but that I run through preamp, so it’s not a fair comparison.

I find myself turning highs down on everything as I get order. High frequencies are just irritating, not pleasant. When I was younger I was doing the complete opposite. I never know if my taste got better or if I am just getting def

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Repro has a different cutoff range. Try tuning the filters to an identical note while in full resonance. Then see if what you think of the highs.

You would think a Prophet5 emulation is a Prophet5 emulation (why calibrate different cutoff range). May be green apples to red apples…

It still sounds much brighter to be fair. So you must be right, vsts are brighter, generally speaking