Yamaha CS-80 VST

[Shabdahbriah]

That ^^^

[Examigan]

Arturia: The weakest sounding of the bunch, but still quite good sounding. Definitely more going on under the hood to play with, and that makes it more fun for sound design.

I think Weval used the Arturia, and their production is fantastic.

I also think it can sound pretty great, but I haven't used it too much. Partly as the UI isn't super friendly.

I honestly think the only way to give a CS-80 plugin a good interface would be to totally ignore the look and layout of a CS-80.

I wonder what impOSCar would be like with a regular type of UI. I know that’s basically how the original was, but it might be cool to see an alternative.

[zerocrossing]

Arturia: The weakest sounding of the bunch, but still quite good sounding. Definitely more going on under the hood to play with, and that makes it more fun for sound design.

I think the Arturia version of the CS80 follows the same paradigm as all of the other Vintage Analog Emulations they do, and a few of their digital ones specifically the DX7-V and the CZ-V

Arturia tries and succeeds to give you the flavor of the original while also opening the synth up to expanded sound design options

So while you might not get an exact duplicate of the original CS80, or Prophet 5, or DX7, or Jupiter 8, you do get a really good sounding synth that has the flavors of those things that can do all sorts of things the originals couldn't

One thing I will also say about Arturia's competitors when it comes to vintage synth emulations is a lot of them are putting some kind of signal processing after the actual synth engine that we have little to no control over

For example very few of us have any real world experience with an actual CS80. What we know of it comes from albums and sound tracks we love. I think if we heard a real CS80, or Jupiter 8 that was fresh off the factory floor and plugged straight into a transparent Interface and we listened to it on our studio monitors we would be pretty underwhelmed

But take that synth and play it through a nice console, with lots of outboard, record it to high quality tape, play it back from tape through that board again at mix down, with more outboard, and then record it again to a different tape, and then have a mastering engineer play that take back through more expensive outboard and sweeten it, record that to a master tape and have it pressed to vinyl and that gives these Synths outstanding color and sonic sweeteners

I highly suspect there is a lot of that being emulated behind the scenes in a lot of these plugins that we all think sounds more "authentic".

Could be, hard to say. I'm reminded of a guy who claimed the System 1 plugin sounded weak in comparison to his hardware System 1. I had a 1m at that time and had done the comparison, and found them to sound indistinguishable from each other. The exchange went back and forth for a bit, until he admitted that he'd been slamming his mixer's input a bit. Back in the day, I can't remember ever recording anything straight to tape that didn't get some bit of treatment, and that doesn't even include the effect of the tape itself. If you're looking to perfectly replicate the experience you had when you were sitting in your living room, listening to a vinyl copy of Toto: IV on your dad's Hi-Fi, with a plugin, you're going to be disappointed.

That said, I often do comparisons of plugins with various hardware and find qualitative differences that are undeniable. Just listening to the unfiltered oscillators of TheEighty, Model 77 and CS-80 v reveals what's clearly a quality difference. The one that comes closest to the sound of the VCO of my ATC-X is TheEighty, with Model 77 coming in second. CS-80 V has a weedy thin sound in the upper range that is pretty clear, and the lows sound muddy and less present. It's true even in the mid range. You can literally see it on a spectrum analyzer, where when you start with a sawtooth at the lowest key on your 61 key controller and go up, the ATC's fundamental stays the same and CS-80s diminishes a bit, and it always looks lacking in higher harmonics. TheEighty and Model 77 are more similar, though there's a weird little dip in the higher harmonics of TheEighty. Still, they both sound very good, IMO.

Now in practice, who's just listening to naked VCOs? No one, with any great regularity, at least. When I crank up the resonance and bring the filters down to about the same point to make a kind of "quacky" tone, the differences are more subtle. One thing I see time and time again is that when I get a software synth to sound really bad, I'm usually doing something so ridiculous that no one would really ever do that, and even the good version is pretty annoying sounding.

So if you're really a stickler to quality, Arturia does fall short, but to take it out of the running is silly, because most of the time you wouldn't notice and the additional stuff you can get it to do is very cool. The function generators on CS-80 and mod mixers are sweet, and the mod matrix with oscillators as sources on TheEighty are very cool. So I'm willing to concede some quality that the Model 77 has in order to get some fun features. If I'm just looking for the classic Blade Runner type sounds, obviously I'm going for Model 77.

[onerob]

Well in the video posted previously, I thought the Arturia sounded better than the Softube or Cherry Audio versions. The XILS sounded interesting and lively but perhaps a little saturated somehow. The Softube sounded plasticky but that might be a quirk of the what the guy was doing. I don't buy into the Arturia-isn't-good meme, to be honest.

[poonna]

I find that comparison in the video strange. It’s like there wasn’t much attempt to make them sound closer. They are way too different, like one has filters open up too high and another too low. Envelopes and other stuff too.

[zvenx]

I find that comparison in the video strange. It’s like there wasn’t much attempt to make them sound closer. They are way too different, like one has filters open up too high and another too low. Envelopes and other stuff too.

THIS!!
rsp

[lilulo]

Unstable is hard to recommend now that it's nearly the same price as the XILS. IMO, it was the best freeware synth ever when it was freeware.

Model 77 is excellent but I prefer the sharpness of the XILS. It just comes down to personal preference at that point because they're both great.

Not only is unstable 99 usd but it still is unsigned on Mac OS. Do we have to run code in terminal to allow it to run. Only worked for the AU for me though not vst3. I asked the dev about this and he was rather rude actually, saying that it’s common for small developers not to sign the plugin and how could he know every configuration of a user or why something doesn’t work. And said there will be no change as he has no control over it. If I’m not wrong it’s 100 dollar fee to Apple per year? Literally the cost of one license.

Shame, as it sounds great. But come on, even most free plugins are signed. But if the signing thing doesn’t bother and it works, it’s a really nice cs-80. Even improved filters.

the plugin is still in free beta

It is not in free beta anymore, unless you downloaded it when it was. It's €49 now.

[martiu]

Unstable is hard to recommend now that it's nearly the same price as the XILS. IMO, it was the best freeware synth ever when it was freeware.

Model 77 is excellent but I prefer the sharpness of the XILS. It just comes down to personal preference at that point because they're both great.

Not only is unstable 99 usd but it still is unsigned on Mac OS. Do we have to run code in terminal to allow it to run. Only worked for the AU for me though not vst3. I asked the dev about this and he was rather rude actually, saying that it’s common for small developers not to sign the plugin and how could he know every configuration of a user or why something doesn’t work. And said there will be no change as he has no control over it. If I’m not wrong it’s 100 dollar fee to Apple per year? Literally the cost of one license.

Shame, as it sounds great. But come on, even most free plugins are signed. But if the signing thing doesn’t bother and it works, it’s a really nice cs-80. Even improved filters.

the plugin is still in free beta

It is not in free beta anymore, unless you downloaded it when it was. It's €49 now.

Screenshot (1595).png

[martiu]

so they are selling beta, weird

[martiu]

i have the older 1.0.10 version and it is not asking for serial number, had no idea they are selling synth still in beta

[lilulo]

i have the older 1.0.10 version and it is not asking for serial number, had no idea they are selling synth still in beta

yeah, I downloaded the latest one and it asked for the license key

[_leras]

For example very few of us have any real world experience with an actual CS80. What we know of it comes from albums and sound tracks we love. I think if we heard a real CS80, or Jupiter 8 that was fresh off the factory floor and plugged straight into a transparent Interface and we listened to it on our studio monitors we would be pretty underwhelmed

But take that synth and play it through a nice console, with lots of outboard, record it to high quality tape, play it back from tape through that board again at mix down, with more outboard, and then record it again to a different tape, and then have a mastering engineer play that take back through more expensive outboard and sweeten it, record that to a master tape and have it pressed to vinyl and that gives these Synths outstanding color and sonic sweeteners

I highly suspect there is a lot of that being emulated behind the scenes in a lot of these plugins that we all think sounds more "authentic".

There are examples of the synth out there that aren't from records (see below). I wouldn't know it on a record, just a couple of famous vangelis examples (blade runner).

I do think it sounds pretty great, and the soft synths are definitely not there yet.

You could probably say that a lot of synths might sound underwhelming without processing, depending on what timbre you are after. But who doesn't add those things, even to hardware synths.

[_leras]

I find that comparison in the video strange. It’s like there wasn’t much attempt to make them sound closer. They are way too different, like one has filters open up too high and another too low. Envelopes and other stuff too.

THIS!!
rsp

Maybe just went by matching the sliders, which will never be perfect.

I think it gave a good feel for the overall timbres of each. The hardware was clearly much better imo.

[zvenx]

Perfect? it wasn't even close.. one of the worse a/b's I have ever seen..
ymmv.
rsp

[CrystalWizard]

... ...

...
One thing I will also say about Arturia's competitors when it comes to vintage synth emulations is a lot of them are putting some kind of signal processing after the actual synth engine that we have little to no control over

Such as? (saturation, limiter, or drift- internally ?)

For example very few of us have any real world experience with an actual CS80. What we know of it comes from albums and sound tracks we love. I think if we heard a real CS80, or Jupiter 8 that was fresh off the factory floor and plugged straight into a transparent Interface and we listened to it on our studio monitors we would be pretty underwhelmed

But take that synth and play it through a nice console, with lots of outboard, record it to high quality tape, play it back from tape through that board again at mix down, with more outboard, and then record it again to a different tape, and then have a mastering engineer play that take back through more expensive outboard and sweeten it, record that to a master tape and have it pressed to vinyl and that gives these Synths outstanding color and sonic sweeteners

This is the case for all synthesizers, hardware or software. That's why so many plug in synths come with presets slathered in effects. (Pigments 6 presets with six effects plus reverb!)
Take any synth and plug it into the board (desk for those on the right of pond) and it will not sound that impressive. As you comment, throw it through a bunch of outboard effects, and perhaps and it sounds incredible.
I have played a CS80 (as well as many other hardware synths) and straight to the board it was great but not Vangelis, Brian Eno, Eddie Jobson LP great.