Software vs. Analog in 2025 – Has the Balance Shifted?

[Uncle E]

in ways that software plugins actually did a lot better.

Many such cases. If today’s Minimoog plugins were around back when the Minimoog was the gold standard, people would have dumped 90% of real analogs.

[wikter]

in ways that software plugins actually did a lot better.

Many such cases. If today’s Minimoog plugins were around back when the Minimoog was the gold standard, people would have dumped 90% of real analogs.

Back in time Minimoogs were not lovely instruments. People used to play Electronic pianos & organs. Digital synths came to finish analogs, and around 90's Analog Synthesizers disappeared from shops.
Probably virtual Synthesizers... Not even that. It took years for pros to support virtual plug-ins for music mixing & máster, almost a decade.
Adobe Premiere started the trend and postproduction studios took the torch.
Musicians refused virtual technology for almost a full decade, EDM pushed the technology into a too Big Wave that was impossible to ignore. But that was 2004-2005. Some Sound developer companies broke before that time or they took another line of development.

[DJErmac]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

[zerocrossing]

But my point stands. Just because we fossils have nostalgic love for the classics, and similar sounding synths, it doesn't mean someone who didn't grow up with them is going to have the same idea.

Well Serum is about as close as you can get to the sound a lot of mainstream electronic music. It just sounds like a lot of music that's out there. But that doesn't mean it's the ultimate best sound, even if it's an incredible synth.

I don't think nostalgia is the deciding factor of sound quality. That would be our ears.

Nostalgia is also not the driving force of the resurgent hardware synths or modular synth market, that's also down to the sound these things make.

Software can do things that many hardware synths can't. It's very possible to make music, even electronic, without even using a synth.

With nostalgic feelings, and that can also mean a romanticized feeling of something that has never actually existed, (for instance pirates as portrayed in popular fiction) it isn’t just sound. Look at those dudes who drive around in cars from the 40s. Clearly a Nissan Sentra would out perform it in every conceivable benchmark… except for looks and the “vibe” of the experience. As much as I love software, there’s no way that even the best software can give you the full physical experience of a hardware synth.

For me, hardware fills two purposes. A unique sound and additional resources. As has been mentioned, good analog emulation guzzles CPU cycles. Each synth in my studio is unique and has no emulation. They all lean towards doing things that are the most CPU intensive, audio rate modulation, distortion, etc. Modular systems really shine for such things, and give a physical experience that a lot of people enjoy. I personally hate that experience. When I started to put together a modular system, I hated it before I got a single module. Just shopping for modules gave me a feeling of anxiety. Which oscillators… when you have a fixed number of slots and there are 8,469 options… and that’s just for basic VCOs. I may have fudged that number a little. When I did get something together, I didn’t like the patching process. What is the ultimate experience for many, felt like an awkward mess to me, and my rack was not very big and had synth voice modules that had normalized routings. I couldn’t imagine the headache of what a finished rack would be like. My allotted space wouldn’t have had enough space for just the utility modules I’d need to achieve my goals. So I cut bait and sold it all.

Sometimes I think I’m a bit disingenuous about not enjoying the physical aspects of hardware, even though I’m using software editors for everything but my Nina. Am I a bit impressed by my technological terror? Is it insignificant compared to the power of THE FORCE?! I know that sometimes I think about going full ITB in the advent that I lose my studio space does make me feel a sense of dread.

[vurt]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

according to brian may himself, that wasnt a dig at people who used synths, it was more of a statement, that any weird "synthy" sounds on the album, were him with his guitar, playing technique and fx chains.

[crimsonwarlock]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

Larry Fast (Synergy) famously had the counterargument on several of his albums

https://stopmakings.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... fasts.html

[DJErmac]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

according to brian may himself, that wasnt a dig at people who used synths, it was more of a statement, that any weird "synthy" sounds on the album, were him with his guitar, playing technique and fx chains.

I have no doubt about it and understood it this way.

[cryophonik]

OK, but couldn’t one argue that running a guitar through a chain of effects pedals and other devices or techniques that modulate an audio signal is, in fact, a form of synthesis and, therefore, their process is a synthesizer? I think I can win that argument and I’m going to hire a team of lawyers to sue Queen for false advertising, synth discrimination, pandering in the first degree, probably some trespassing, and just generally being rude to synthesizers. I’ll be posting from my new yacht soon.

[DJErmac]

OK, but couldn’t one argue that running a guitar through a chain of effects pedals and other devices or techniques that modulate an audio signal is, in fact, a form of synthesis and, therefore, their process is a synthesizer? I think I can win that argument and I’m going to hire a team of lawyers to sue Queen for false advertising, synth discrimination, pandering in the first degree, probably some trespassing, and just generally being rude to synthesizers. I’ll be posting from my new yacht soon.

I also totally think this is not fully honest from the moment you’re using electric guitars, or running the signal through anything that’s modulating it. The difference with synthesizers is not becoming noticable enough, the process is almost the same but reversed, that’s fallacious.
That’s why I prefer understanding the Queen note as a technical precision rather than a camp choosing claim.

[seafire]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

Phil Collins did a similar thing on one of his albums, claiming it contained no Fairlight. Turns out it did tho, via someone who had sampled the sound and played it on a diff sampler.

[DJErmac]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

Phil Collins did a similar thing on one of his albums, claiming it contained no Fairlight. Turns out it did tho, via someone who had sampled the sound and played it on a diff sampler.

I really am a huge fan of Phil Collin’s work, mainly with Genesis, but... maybe the guy wasted too much time talking.
We all sometimes do.

[whassup]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

Larry Fast (Synergy) famously had the counterargument on several of his albums

https://stopmakings.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... fasts.html

Hahaha! That is even funnier this way around!

Time for my favourite cheesy synth joke:
Why were synths invented?
Answer: Did you ever see a pianist install a set of fresh strings?

[IvyBirds]

Phil Collins did a similar thing on one of his albums, claiming it contained no Fairlight. Turns out it did tho, via someone who had sampled the sound and played it on a diff sampler.

That was 1985's "No Jacket Required", David Frank played an Emulator II, and a PPG Waveterm on the record

There were a ton of samples lifted from the Fairlight in the E-II library. Fairlight never bothered to enforce any kind of copyright on their library as a lot of it was recorded from other sources and records and the money back then was thought to be in selling hardware not in the sample libraries as you couldn't use them without the hardware

If you owned a Fairlight you probably had the entire Synclavier library in disk, and if you had a Synclavier you probably had the Fairlight Library on disk, once the E-II came out you probably had both

[DJErmac]

And if you owned a Fairlight you used that breathy voice patch in some way so everyone knows you own a Fairlight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cen22TBHo ... BpbiBsb3Zl

[seafire]

What was that Queen album where they added that mention, bold, underlined, if they could have made it flashing they would, proudly "no synthesizers" ?

EDIT : oh...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/queen-n ... real-story

Queen proudly wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their second, third, fourth and fifth albums.

Phil Collins did a similar thing on one of his albums, claiming it contained no Fairlight. Turns out it did tho, via someone who had sampled the sound and played it on a diff sampler.

I really am a huge fan of Phil Collin’s work, mainly with Genesis, but... maybe the guy wasted too much time talking.
We all sometimes do.

I think you just did.