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

[zerocrossing]

Awesome so if so post a sound from a software synth that the Moog One can't do that means that software is the clear winner right?

First of all, we all know that software can do things that are impossible to do in analog hardware. Secondly, any hardware synthesizer that has more features than a Moog One (easy to imagine) can do things that a Moog One can't.

One thing I've brought up that keeps getting ignored is that in high quality analog emulations, the feature set is considerably lower than a Moog One. I consider the UAD Minimoog the "gold standard" for analog emulation, and it's a mono synth that's not much more than a hardware Minimoog. Why isn't there a great analog emulation that has 4 LFOs and 3 EGs? This idea that software always trumps hardware is just incorrect. Not when doing a good approximation of analog, it doesn't.

Or just post a video of a soft synth that matches one of the Moog One videos.

No no no, let's not go there again. We've already seen how demo videos used for comparisson went apples and oranges from the start.

It is simple: post ONE Moog One sound that has a sound and/or quality that is not possible in software. You need only one sound to make that point. Let's hear it

There's only one way to do that, and it's not easy. You have to have both instruments at hand and carefully make adjustments to make the parameters equal. Even a slight change in oscillator gain can make a huge difference in the final results in sounds that are more than just detuned oscillators that are going though a modulated filter.

[IvyBirds]

Awesome so if so post a sound from a software synth that the Moog One can't do that means that software is the clear winner right?

First of all, we all know that software can do things that are impossible to do in analog hardware. Secondly, any hardware synthesizer that has more features than a Moog One (easy to imagine) can do things that a Moog One can't.

However, YOU are the one screaming on too many posts already that you can make The Legend HZ sound like the Moog One because it is three oscillators into a ladder filter

Actualy I said the exact opposite. I said it was pointless to compare the Moog One with software synths that emulate the Minimoog because even hardware Minimoogs don't sound like other hardware Minimoogs from unit to unit and the $5000 reissue doesn't sound like vintage units.

Then I was presented with a bunch of features that the Moog One has, ones that quite frankly are not that impressive especially for a synth that's costs $10,000. Features that are easily found in software that ranges in price from totally free to at most a few hundred.

Then you said a "winner" could be declared if someone posted a recording of a Moog One making a sound that the Legend HZ couldn't do, which as I had already pointed out was silly as the Legend HZ is a Minimoog Emulation with extra features and not a Moog One Emulation.

In the end Hardware or Software doesn't matter, what matters are the features each synth brings to the table. Even for hardware synth purists they will either end up with, or desire to have a room full of hardware synths that have a bunch of different features. Very few people will buy one hardware synth and call it a day and never buy another one and be totally satisfied or wish they could buy more

In these conversations and these threads however, we are never allowed to talk about features. Instead we are presented with declarations that "Hardware is Awesome" because of "reasons" that can never be defined or measured (as features can) and challenged to make timbres with software that sound exactly like some random piece of hardware

That's silly as even hardware synths can't sound exactly like other hardware synths

Or if we do talk about features it comes down to some esoteric things that some random piece of hardware supposedly has that sounds "better" in undefinable ways that can't be measured over some random piece of software with the same feature that makes a similar sound that sucks again in undefinable ways that can't be measured, usually by people who don't own said random piece of hardware

As for Moog hardware it has a "sound". That sound can be defined by VCOs going into a ladder filter with different models having different features but at the core it's VCOs and a ladder filter. That basic sound can be found in hardware made by the old Moog or the new Moog, made by Roland with the SE-02, made by Behringer with many products, made by Studio Electronics, even made by Sequential and others

You can also find that sound in a myriad of software Synths

What it comes down to if you want that sound is how badly do you want that sound and what features do you want to surround that sound with and yes price is a feature

There is no right or wrong answer. For some people it might mean dropping 10 grand on a Moog One for others it might mean a $300 Boog, for others it might be something else like software

For me I have a Boog that I paid $225 for. It sits in a closet in a box and I haven't used it in several years. I got it because it was small and cheap and figured it would be fun to mess around with and bring to gigs. The limitations of a using a Monosynth without presets, that needed to warm up, quickly became to much and into the closet it went with the rest of the things in the bone yard

I also have a bunch of software versions of the Minimoog also, and all of them have extra features not found in hardware Moogs, my favorite is The Legend HZ. Those features allow me to create and play sounds I can't create using hardware at any price with the added bonus of unlimited polyphony, patch storage, and tuning stability. If you want those sounds as I do you can only get them with software.

If you want the hardware get the hardware again there is no right or wrong answer

[ghettosynth]

Awesome so if so post a sound from a software synth that the Moog One can't do that means that software is the clear winner right?

First of all, we all know that software can do things that are impossible to do in analog hardware. Secondly, any hardware synthesizer that has more features than a Moog One (easy to imagine) can do things that a Moog One can't.

One thing I've brought up that keeps getting ignored is that in high quality analog emulations, the feature set is considerably lower than a Moog One. I consider the UAD Minimoog the "gold standard" for analog emulation, and it's a mono synth that's not much more than a hardware Minimoog. Why isn't there a great analog emulation that has 4 LFOs and 3 EGs? This idea that software always trumps hardware is just incorrect. Not when doing a good approximation of analog, it doesn't.

Or just post a video of a soft synth that matches one of the Moog One videos.

No no no, let's not go there again. We've already seen how demo videos used for comparisson went apples and oranges from the start.

It is simple: post ONE Moog One sound that has a sound and/or quality that is not possible in software. You need only one sound to make that point. Let's hear it

There's only one way to do that, and it's not easy. You have to have both instruments at hand and carefully make adjustments to make the parameters equal. Even a slight change in oscillator gain can make a huge difference in the final results in sounds that are more than just detuned oscillators that are going though a modulated filter.

Exactly so. We don't even need to go to the Moog One level of complexity. I don't think that you can recreate the fun FM chain of VCO1-> VCO2, VCO1->VCF, or VCO2->VCO1->VCF with OSC Sync enabled of the Cat. It's not just about one sound that you painstakingly compare. Those chains are drones for hours with sweet spots that are amazing and that move in and out of surprise.

It's the combination of FM with the 2040(ish) filter. My original Cat sounds better, but the B.Cat is hours of fun.

I have built a rough Cat EMU in Reaktor with Blocks internals to get something similar. It's not useless, but it's definitely not the same thing. Of course, I did not go to great lengths to model the components accurately, I just set up the closest Blocks with a few tweaks.

Whether the limitations are my own, or the DSP, however, is not the point. The point is that, for how I use that synth, the digital experience falls flat and it's not worth my time to convince you or to model it in detail. A big part of the hardware experience here is that the B.Cat is in my modular, my hands are all over all of the knobs and other modules enter the mix.

So yea, I'd definitely still buy a Uhe Cat and I'd follow in detail the development process if Urs were to discuss it in the way he's discussed his projects in the past. However, you're still not going to get a zero latency path from audio out back to modulation inputs that can be passed through other analog circuits.

So, for me, you don't yet have the Cat, or anything with a similarly complex audio rate modulation chain, let alone a modular experience that, sonically, trumps analog modular. That's before we start talking about the actual experience of using it.

[IvyBirds]

One thing I've brought up that keeps getting ignored is that in high quality analog emulations, the feature set is considerably lower than a Moog One. I consider the UAD Minimoog the "gold standard" for analog emulation,

But you are comparing a Minimoog Emulation with a synth it's not emulating

The $5000 Minimoog Reissue has a feature set that is significantly lower than the $10,000 Moog One also made by the same company and both of them are analog hardware

I think UAD, U-he, GForce, or Synapse could make a pretty kick ass emulation of the Moog One if they wanted to.

[pdxindy]

One thing I've brought up that keeps getting ignored is that in high quality analog emulations, the feature set is considerably lower than a Moog One. I consider the UAD Minimoog the "gold standard" for analog emulation, and it's a mono synth that's not much more than a hardware Minimoog. Why isn't there a great analog emulation that has 4 LFOs and 3 EGs? This idea that software always trumps hardware is just incorrect. Not when doing a good approximation of analog, it doesn't.

That was one of the reasons I got back into hardware. All my favorite sounding softsynths use a lot of CPU and I was constantly having to bounce stuff and dance around the edge of cpu crackles. I run my projects at 96khz because at that higher sample rate, softsynths sound more like... well, hardware, particularly at the edges.

As you say, a 16V Moog One emulation that was accurately modeled would crush most cpu's. There's no emulation of the Elektron Rytm, but if there was, it would also munch cpu like crazy.

The UDO synths (Super 6, 8 and Super Gemini) are digital/analog hybrids. The digital section, before the analog filters, has an internal sample rate of 50mhz! Good luck making a plugin emulation...

[SLiC]

The UDO synths (Super 6, 8 and Super Gemini) are digital/analog hybrids. The digital section, before the analog filters, has an internal sample rate of 50mhz! Good luck making a plugin emulation...

I don't have an UNO, but I have a Summit (Oxford Oscillators) - The thing is, once they are recorded in the DAW and mixed, they don't sound that different (a bit like recording miked up guitar amps vs sims), they sound great in the room, but its really hard to capture that sound in a mix down (especially for online streaming, 24-bit, 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz max)

[crimsonwarlock]

The Legend HZ, I think it sounds good, but in context of the moog one, and some other moog demos it has gone down a bit in my estimation. It sounds big and it did when compared with the UAD, but I think it lacks some fidelity and clarity. The other things I listened to in context also seem to highlight that legend is more software than hardware sounding - more of a moogy VA.

Oh, but I didn't say The Legend HZ sounds as good as a Moog One. I just want the fight to happen

However, all the Moog One sounds in videos didn't show me anything that I would need beyond all the software synths I have now because I can get close enough with those. By the way, for me, I think Blamsoft's Viking VK-2 (not a VST) sounds way more analog than The Legend HZ (which I also have and like a lot as well).

https://soundcloud.com/lowgritt/vk-2-patch-examples

There's only one way to do that, and it's not easy. You have to have both instruments at hand and carefully make adjustments to make the parameters equal.

That would only work if we had a one-to-one emulation of the Moog One, we don't have that. But in many cases, you can come quite close by ear, Starsky Carr did that with the Moog One and a PolyBrute.

[dellboy]

For me I have a Boog that I paid $225 for. It sits in a closet in a box and I haven't used it in several years. I got it because it was small and cheap and figured it would be fun to mess around with and bring to gigs. The limitations of a using a Monosynth without presets, that needed to warm up, quickly became to much and into the closet it went with the rest of the things in the bone yard

Why not sample your Boog into Halion?

[ghettosynth]

The UDO synths (Super 6, 8 and Super Gemini) are digital/analog hybrids. The digital section, before the analog filters, has an internal sample rate of 50mhz! Good luck making a plugin emulation...

Yes, they use FPGAs. George Hearn has discussed this at length. I wish that I could find the video, but, it's really necessary for clean FM. That's not to say that you can't get better FM with standard DSP techniques, but, as he points out, once you go FPGA, many of the problems of (analog) modeling go away.

Starsky Carr writes:

“FPGA‑based oscillators can process frequency modulation at extremely high speeds, allowing for clean, artifact‑free audio‑rate FM ... essential for audio‑rate FM”

https://www.starskycarr.com/blog/fpga-oscillators

Now, one can argue that in some abstract sense that FPGA designs are "software", but that's a distraction because FPGA implementations require hardware to execute, however, they are digital.

So, digital hardware is closer to analog hardware than it's ever been in a programmable way, but not in the way that it's broadly accessible to anyone and not in a way that it is coming to your PC with all of the features that you love about software plugins.

[IvyBirds]

Now, one can argue that in some abstract sense that FPGA designs are "software", but that's a distraction because FPGA implementations require hardware to execute, however, they are digital.

All software requires hardware to execute. FGPA are great if you want low cost, low power consumption for parallel processing. This is an advantage in hardware synth designs that are software based compared with the bargain basement CPUs that usually go into hardware synths that are just running software for example the many Korg models that use Raspberry pi

If you have a good FGPA software engineer it will also be faster to design your system and write software to accomplish what you are trying to d

Especially as with Synths you often have voices and oscillators that run as parallel processes

Once you enter the desktop space however a modern CPU will easily meet or exceed anything you want to do relative to the FGPAs that exist in mass produced hardware synths

In theory if you spared no expense you could build a modern Synclavier or Fairlight CMI level hardware synth that would be priced well into the tens of thousands if not the hundreds of thousands that could run using FPGA that would outperform what is possible in desktop and analog Synths

The problem is that if you do that you are just changing one Software platform and the computer hardware that processes the ones and zeros for another

With digital hardware synths you are not only reinventing the wheel but buying the wheel over again when it comes to the computers inside of it that are just running software

[IvyBirds]

For me I have a Boog that I paid $225 for. It sits in a closet in a box and I haven't used it in several years. I got it because it was small and cheap and figured it would be fun to mess around with and bring to gigs. The limitations of a using a Monosynth without presets, that needed to warm up, quickly became to much and into the closet it went with the rest of the things in the bone yard

Why not sample your Boog into Halion?

I did do that, but ultimately it's not worth the hassle over sampling Minimoog Plugins or just using Minimoog plugins outright for Minimoog type timbres

One of my favorite things to do is sample Synths either hardware or software and load those samples into other things like HALion7 and Dawesome Myth that use resynthesis techniques. There is no hardware offering that can do those things

[pdxindy]

The UDO synths (Super 6, 8 and Super Gemini) are digital/analog hybrids. The digital section, before the analog filters, has an internal sample rate of 50mhz! Good luck making a plugin emulation...

Yes, they use FPGAs. George Hearn has discussed this at length. I wish that I could find the video, but, it's really necessary for clean FM. That's not to say that you can't get better FM with standard DSP techniques, but, as he points out, once you go FPGA, many of the problems of (analog) modeling go away.

Starsky Carr writes:

“FPGA‑based oscillators can process frequency modulation at extremely high speeds, allowing for clean, artifact‑free audio‑rate FM ... essential for audio‑rate FM”

Yeah, I remember one of George's interviews on the subject.

The Super Gemini FM sounds lovely. Of course any of the top devs today could model the Super Gemini, but the resulting plugin would crush everyones CPU.

[IvyBirds]

Yeah, I remember one of George's interviews on the subject.

The Super Gemini FM sounds lovely. Of course any of the top devs today could model the Super Gemini, but the resulting plugin would crush everyones CPU.

No it wouldn't. The average modern CPU used in desktop computers crush the processing capabilities of the FPGA used in the Super Gemini

Now if you want to compare the FPGA used in the Super Gemini with the Raspberry Pi used in Korg Synths or the Roland BMC hardware synths sure

But something like a Ryzen 7 or 9, an i7, I9 or M3 would blow it out of the water

[HAL76]

People who drive 1970 Camaros don’t know or care what Diva is. But they do know who Dave Murray is.

Indifference is also far spread among TOYOTA, NISSAN and MITSUBISHi owners. Not to speak of the LANDROVER and MINI Fractions.

[HAL76]

For me I have a Boog that I paid $225 for. It sits in a closet in a box and I haven't used it in several years. I got it because it was small and cheap and figured it would be fun to mess around with and bring to gigs. The limitations of a using a Monosynth without presets, that needed to warm up, quickly became to much and into the closet it went with the rest of the things in the bone yard

Why not sample your Boog into Halion?

I did do that, but ultimately it's not worth the hassle over sampling Minimoog Plugins or just using Minimoog plugins outright for Minimoog type timbres

One of my favorite things to do is sample Synths either hardware or software and load those samples into other things like HALion7 and Dawesome Myth that use resynthesis techniques. There is no hardware offering that can do those things

So true. Analog is great. But nothing can beat Samples in the hands of someone who knows how to use this weapon.