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

[IvyBirds]

I'm not sure you 100% get what I meant by that? I meant that digital and soft synths tend to have areas they just don't excel at. Whereas I just got a Dreadbox Hades, and everything out of it sounds thick no dirt areas.

I can list a ton of things that Dreadbix Hades doesn't excel at. Can it play chords? Is it multi timbral? Does it have Wavetables? Does it have 8 operator FM? Does it play back multi samples? Does it have multiple filter types? Can you have a multi stage envelope with hundreds of stages? Shall I go on?

Every synth in hardware and software has a whole laundry of things it doesn't excell at, but Dreadbix Hades is far more limited than most

[zerocrossing]

[zerocrossing]

Personally the big difference to me is sweet spots. Digital especially in software can sound amazing, but to get there you wander through harsh digital noise. Give me a random setting on hardware over software any day of the week.

Sweet spots is a cool topic.
There are synths that to my taste are plastered with sweet spots and then there are synths who are almost completely the opposite.
And that is personal as I tend to different things than you do.
Leipzig, while nice sounding, doesn't itch me. Nina does.
Diva has many sweet spots.
A DX7 and their replicants doesn't have sweet spots at all. To me that is. Yes, I heard great sounds made with them. But I can't be a****d to wade through all those thousands of presets to find a FEW good ones. Tried that lately and gave up after a few hundred or so.
Vital is a synth that can do so many cool things for me after I learned a few things: sweet spots. Has awesome workflow for me.
Hive doesn't, Synthmaster doesn't. Both sound really great. But making my own sounds with them: Not fun at all. And I can't put my finger on it why exactly. Unispiring looks, some workflow decision that are not mine, etc.
See?
I heard so much stuff that I would at best politely call uninspired and boring while other people seem to JUST KNOW how to get to sweet spots easily.
Databroth is one of my heroes regarding this.

Whenever I hear someone talk about "sweet spots," what I hear is, "pretty limited." While that's fine, especially if you have a pretty common type of sound in mind, it can end up feeling too confining to me. I like a synth that doesn't limit all the parameters to ranges where you're always going to be safe. I'm not sure why this is associated with hardware synths, though. Many software synths offer similar parameter ranges, and thus similar sweet spots. Earlier "harsh digital noise" was mentioned, as if it was a plugin from 1992, or music made from a video game console. That's not to say that plugins don't sometimes go there. They do. Sometimes purposely, but while I like to bring up Repro as a great emulation, it also has a built in per voice "Can" mod, which puts a distortion effect on each voice. Sounds great on lower or middle registers, but can sound a bit harsh and digital up high. Urs mentioned he improved it, and it is better now, but definitely not to the level that your modified Prophet 5 would sound if you put in an analog distortion per voice. It's still very usable, and frankly who's modifying their Prophet 5 to have that?

There are better plugins with per voice distortion in them. Massive X is fantastic at it. Serum 2 and multi/poly are also great. Knifonium is another notable entry in that world. MSoundFactory is another great one, but you need to make sure your various sections are set for high quality and oversampling. I was able to best a Novation Peak with it. That said, like you I'm a Nina fan, because it's great and won't tax your CPU as it's doing it. The Analog Four is another that has an absolute blistering distortion, but only four voices. Prophet 12 is another good one, and the feedback is sublime. For feedback, hardware still is really better suited than software, even if a few plugins do good jobs.

[zerocrossing]

Personally the big difference to me is sweet spots. Digital especially in software can sound amazing, but to get there you wander through harsh digital noise. Give me a random setting on hardware over software any day of the week.

Sweet spots is a cool topic.
There are synths that to my taste are plastered with sweet spots and then there are synths who are almost completely the opposite.
And that is personal as I tend to different things than you do.
Leipzig, while nice sounding, doesn't itch me. Nina does.
Diva has many sweet spots.
A DX7 and their replicants doesn't have sweet spots at all. To me that is. Yes, I heard great sounds made with them. But I can't be a****d to wade through all those thousands of presets to find a FEW good ones. Tried that lately and gave up after a few hundred or so.
Vital is a synth that can do so many cool things for me after I learned a few things: sweet spots. Has awesome workflow for me.
Hive doesn't, Synthmaster doesn't. Both sound really great. But making my own sounds with them: Not fun at all. And I can't put my finger on it why exactly. Unispiring looks, some workflow decision that are not mine, etc.
See?
I heard so much stuff that I would at best politely call uninspired and boring while other people seem to JUST KNOW how to get to sweet spots easily.
Databroth is one of my heroes regarding this.

I'm not sure you 100% get what I meant by that? I meant that digital and soft synths tend to have areas they just don't excel at. Whereas I just got a Dreadbox Hades, and everything out of it sounds thick no dirt areas. I'm sure there are analog synths that have dull spots, but digital and software in general have areas where it sounds bad in general.

In terms of soft synths, I don't own Vital but Hive is dead easy for me to build patches in. That difference is more about taste.

Seems like this dude found a lot of ways to make it sound pretty bad.

[_leras]

Matt Johnson Softube demoa

I have the Model 84 and its a great synth. I think it is the closest in software. This demo keeps very much in the lounge music vibe though, it's a shame he doesn't do much with the filter very open, then we'd be able to see how well it matches the brighter end of sounds, like some in these examples

[kraster]

This is a fairly thorough comparison between the model 84 and Juno 106.

As I said above any differences that exist between them are probably bigger between two 106s.



And between the Model 80 and the Prophet 5 Rev 4



Again it's as close as you're going to get.

[D-Fusion]

Behringer 2-XM VS Vst.

[whassup]

Whenever I hear someone talk about "sweet spots," what I hear is, "pretty limited." While that's fine, especially if you have a pretty common type of sound in mind, it can end up feeling too confining to me. I like a synth that doesn't limit all the parameters to ranges where you're always going to be safe.

EVERY synth has limitations.
Call that sweet spot or whatever.
My sweet spots might limit you and vice versa.
Mini Moog vs. K5000.
Who wants to seriously make presets with 5000 partials all controlled by 512 segment envelopes for amplitude, pitch, phase and what not?

[whassup]

Behringer 2-XM VS Vst.

And funny enough I like the filter of the Behringer the most.

[_leras]

I'm not sure you 100% get what I meant by that? I meant that digital and soft synths tend to have areas they just don't excel at. Whereas I just got a Dreadbox Hades, and everything out of it sounds thick no dirt areas.

I can list a ton of things that Dreadbix Hades doesn't excel at. Can it play chords? Is it multi timbral? Does it have Wavetables? Does it have 8 operator FM? Does it play back multi samples? Does it have multiple filter types? Can you have a multi stage envelope with hundreds of stages? Shall I go on?

Every synth in hardware and software has a whole laundry of things it doesn't excell at, but Dreadbix Hades is far more limited than most

Who cares if it's limited when it sounds that good. No one said it's all those other things - why you say it isn't something no one claims it to be? Maybe give an opinion on the actual sound?

Oh right, because you're stuck on something and getting yourself all worked up. okay...

Seems like this dude found a lot of ways to make it sound pretty bad.

Really? There are some really tones in that demo. It would be a great little synth for techno.

[_leras]

This is a fairly thorough comparison between the model 84 and Juno 106.

As I said above any differences that exist between them are probably bigger between two 106s

Yes, on the fixed note stuff and basic filter sweeps they can get quite close for sure.

I gotta say though in that (really nice!) outro final thoughts section (37:14 ish) in the first section when the synth shown that is playing changes, then it does have quite a noticeable change in sound when it shows the software. It's not so clear in the second section of that though. It's really pretty close overall and hats off to the devs as there must have been a lot of effort gone into that.

So I still think that hearing more musical demos is the best way to compare compared to just listening to oscillators.

[IvyBirds]

I'm not sure you 100% get what I meant by that? I meant that digital and soft synths tend to have areas they just don't excel at. Whereas I just got a Dreadbox Hades, and everything out of it sounds thick no dirt areas.

I can list a ton of things that Dreadbix Hades doesn't excel at. Can it play chords? Is it multi timbral? Does it have Wavetables? Does it have 8 operator FM? Does it play back multi samples? Does it have multiple filter types? Can you have a multi stage envelope with hundreds of stages? Shall I go on?

Every synth in hardware and software has a whole laundry of things it doesn't excell at, but Dreadbix Hades is far more limited than most

Who cares if it's limited when it sounds that good. No one said it's all those other things - why you say it isn't something no one claims it to be? Maybe give an opinion on the actual sound?

Oh right, because you're stuck on something and getting yourself all worked up. okay...

Only I am not stuck on anything, you on the other hand have made it abundantly clear that you are stuck on the sound of your beloved software. Why don't you tell us what you love the sound of software so much that you posted multiple videos to showcase your love of software

As for the Dreadbix Hades is a very limited synth and doesn't have the software sounds that you love so much

Seems like this dude found a lot of ways to make it sound pretty bad.

Really? There are some really tones in that demo. It would be a great little synth for techno.

But it doesn't have the sound of software that you love so much, and that demo sounds pretty bad. I mean you have made it abundantly clear that you greatly prefer the sound of software which is why you have posted so many examples of software you love

[IvyBirds]

This is a fairly thorough comparison between the model 84 and Juno 106.

As I said above any differences that exist between them are probably bigger between two 106s

Yes, on the fixed note stuff and basic filter sweeps they can get quite close for sure.

I gotta say though in that (really nice!) outro final thoughts section (37:14 ish) in the first section when the synth shown that is playing changes, then it does have quite a noticeable change in sound when it shows the software. It's not so clear in the second section of that though. It's really pretty close overall and hats off to the devs as there must have been a lot of effort gone into that.

So I still think that hearing more musical demos is the best way to compare compared to just listening to oscillators.

Well according to your previous posts the best way to judge a synth is to post random YouTube videos, where the sound of the synth is drenched in effects because you love the sound of software so much, you need those software based effects to drown out the sound of the raw analog hardware for you to think it sounds good

For people who understand how music production works, we know those videos you posted unless you love the sound of Software as deeply as you do are actually a bad way to judge the sound of the actual synth

Because once you add processing and effects as in the videos you shared you no longer hear the raw sound of the synth itself

You can't judge the "presence" and "life" of a synth when it's been processed as any character is coming from the effects

[crimsonwarlock]

Go to about 20 seconds in to hear the "performance." Feel free to take the clip and apply a chorus of your choice. I'll wait.

Hmmm.. where did I say I was talking about the patch in that video (never saw that video before).

I did look up the patch, and it is the FATSYNTH 01 patch that you can find in most (if not all) DX7 patch libraries that are floating around the internet.

I just did a quick setup with a tiny bit of EQ, a random chorus (not a bi-mode like I did back then), and some delay and reverb to get a little closer to the original (again, not closely matched):

https://whyp.it/tracks/289848/dx7-jump?token=yPMU1

feel free to discuss the differences betwen a DX7 (again, ROFL), and the analog emu vs analog hardware.

Nicely out of context, well done

I talked about that DX7 patch in relation to the fact that synthesizers are hard to recognize in a produced track. So either hardware, software, analog or digital, it doesn't really matter from a production pov.

[faun2500]

TBF, with software like Serum 2, Dune 3, Diva, etc... sounding so good, I don't know why anyone would want more than just hardware knobs.