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

[IvyBirds]

Way too often people equate expensive gear with serious musicians.

Nah, it's like the expression 'a bad workman blames his tools'. The reality is a good workman has sought out and invested in the right tools.

All the strads in use are with serious musicians. Any musician who plays multiple hours a day will invest in an instrument that has better action or better tone.

Even among non professional and aspiring electronic musicians there is a search for the best sound and tone.

That's not to say that people don't start out using what they can get hold of, or with what they know how to use. Or that there aren't people out there with amazing studios that only really noodle around.

Yep. And then there was Ed v Halen. Couldn't afford any pedals back then. Formed his style. Just sayin.

And yes, I am in for best tone. For the context. Whole situation. So no hardware synth for me right here and now. That might change as it did before. I allow myself room to change my perspective on things.

I’d bet money on the EVH story being apocryphal. My first electric guitar and amp set me back $60 in the 70s, and I was able to make enough money on a paper route to buy a used Big Muff Pi.

He said that himself in an interview with the Smithsonian Museum of American History. He said

“The main reason I squeeze so many, you call them tricks, whatever, out of a guitar is out of necessity. I couldn’t afford the pedals, the fuzz box and all the toys everybody else had. So I did all I could to get all the sound I could out of my fingers.”

You can see the whole thing here, it's a fantastic watch



Edit: Looks like YouTube doesn't like that video being embedded so you have to click it and watch it on YouTube, still a good watch

My bullshit detector is pegging the meter. People love to create origin stories about themselves that show them heroically overcoming adversity. If you can afford an electric guitar and tube amp, you can find a bit of cash for a fuzz. Just think about it for a minute. It’s not a convincing story.

Maybe but both him and his parents were poor immigrants, his father was a janitor and his mother was a maid

His first guitar was a cheapie from Sears, he couldn't afford an amp and used to play it unamplified

Maybe his entire origin story him and his brother talk about it BS, awesome let's say it is

Something caused him to forgo the latest and greatest gear and create a distinct playing style and build his own guitars and amps

Maybe it was because he was broke, or maybe it was because he was stupid crazy rich and could buy whatever gear he wanted but found it lacking

I don't know, don't care, as the music and fantastic playing is what mattered more?

I try to imagine what it would be like today if he was still alive and not famous and visiting gear forums online?

Would people mock him for not having the latest and greatest gear instead of opting to buy a cheap guitar from Sears or building his own with parts from other guitars?

[vurt]

not me, i play a dan electro.

[jancivil]

if one can't get the character of 'analog' with the tools available today, one is either not trying or in the wrong area of endeavor. I rhink caring a lot about this is a great distraction if you want to procrastinate forever on making music with the stuff.

there are the edge cases where one wants to preserve the instability and character of a synth's error, but that's built into a fair bit of software as well. I miss noise and tape hiss, nothing to it to cause it with the push of a button.

[Scotty]

You average a hair under 4 posts a day.

if one can't get the character of 'analog' with the tools available today, one is either not trying or in the wrong area of endeavor. I rhink caring a lot about this is a great distraction if you want to procrastinate forever on making music with the stuff

[jancivil]

muted

[Scotty]

Your comment was edited. I was responding to your dig at spending too much time on the net. You’ve got over 25000 posts on KVR alone. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of your statement (and the not so subtle air of superiority which went with it) which has now been awkwardly truncated and that is fine. Most of us post things that should be edited more carefully or deleted altogether.

I'll guess you care more about that than I do

[ghettosynth]

I think so, but in a different way. Even looking at Diva, it’s pretty far off from the inspiration for the modules. It all doesn’t sound as good as the originals, but it also allows for new sounds and exploration, and sounds great in its own right.

For me, Diva is the right direction. It's not an emulator so much as it is a a very high level polysynth construction kit. You want DCOs with a SEM filter, you're there. I know Urs is focused on Zebra, but I wish he would do the Cat and then roll that filter into an updated Diva. I'm probably one of a few who would buy it twice, so I guess that's just not enough.

Arturia adds a few gimmicks here and there, but IMNSHO, they don't get it as right as they could for fear of competing with themselves.

All that said, when B releases their poly source, I'm buying two day of. My guy knows this and is on alert to put two on reserve for me.

[justin3am]

I can kinda agree with her. If you can't get the sounds you are looking for in hardware or software, it's probably a skill issue. We live in a golden age of music technology. Even niche interests are catered for and there are entire communities based around them. Heck, there are communities built around the consumption of tools/instruments rather than discussion of musical applications or technique. Nothing wrong with that!
I'd venture to guess 25% of people who purchase music equipment don't even intend to write a tune. Lots of people just like messing around with gear and chatting about it. Nothing wrong with that either.
People who are using gear but not making music tend to be abrasive to musicians who care less about the gear than the musical output. I think it's fair to say that folks on opposite ends of this spectrum can't relate to each other. That's fine.

As far as I'm concerned, using hardware isn't about sound and from that perspective I'm as happy to use a well thought out MIDI controller as I am using analog synths and signal processors. I talk more about analog gear because MIDI controllers are my job and it's just not something I want to chat about all the time. I do try to limit the amount of time I spend with a computer, but computers are a tool I rely on, like other things I'm not always super excited about a tool I'm using. Other things I have very active interest in. But mostly I'm interested in technique.

How do you achieve a sound when the instrument you have at hand isn't ideal for that sound. Do you switch to a different instrument or do you make do with what's there? How do you manage dynamics, how much of the frequency spectrum is critical to getting the character of a sound to come through in the mix? I care less about what a sound generator is capable of and more concerned with what sounds I can generate. In this regard, the interface is a big deal and for some things I always want one set of controls to do one thing, so it's always at hand. Again, these are my concerns, based on the way I make music. It's totally reasonable for other people to have other interests/concerns. I just hate seeing people try to imply that there is a "wrong" way to approach this stuff or implying that some one is ignorant if they have "wrong" opinions.

[zerocrossing]

Nah, it's like the expression 'a bad workman blames his tools'. The reality is a good workman has sought out and invested in the right tools.

All the strads in use are with serious musicians. Any musician who plays multiple hours a day will invest in an instrument that has better action or better tone.

Even among non professional and aspiring electronic musicians there is a search for the best sound and tone.

That's not to say that people don't start out using what they can get hold of, or with what they know how to use. Or that there aren't people out there with amazing studios that only really noodle around.

Yep. And then there was Ed v Halen. Couldn't afford any pedals back then. Formed his style. Just sayin.

And yes, I am in for best tone. For the context. Whole situation. So no hardware synth for me right here and now. That might change as it did before. I allow myself room to change my perspective on things.

I’d bet money on the EVH story being apocryphal. My first electric guitar and amp set me back $60 in the 70s, and I was able to make enough money on a paper route to buy a used Big Muff Pi.

He said that himself in an interview with the Smithsonian Museum of American History. He said

“The main reason I squeeze so many, you call them tricks, whatever, out of a guitar is out of necessity. I couldn’t afford the pedals, the fuzz box and all the toys everybody else had. So I did all I could to get all the sound I could out of my fingers.”

You can see the whole thing here, it's a fantastic watch



Edit: Looks like YouTube doesn't like that video being embedded so you have to click it and watch it on YouTube, still a good watch

My bullshit detector is pegging the meter. People love to create origin stories about themselves that show them heroically overcoming adversity. If you can afford an electric guitar and tube amp, you can find a bit of cash for a fuzz. Just think about it for a minute. It’s not a convincing story.

Maybe but both him and his parents were poor immigrants, his father was a janitor and his mother was a maid

Dual income? Sounds posh. We got by on a single income from a public school teacher.

His first guitar was a cheapie from Sears, he couldn't afford an amp and used to play it unamplified

My first guitar didn't even have a logo or name of any kind on it. I'm guessing it was a Teisco, as the amp was a Teisco Checkmate 15, which I wasn't aloud to use when my parents were home... which was generally all the time as spending money was out of the question.

Maybe his entire origin story him and his brother talk about it BS, awesome let's say it is

I'm not saying he didn't start out with garbage gear, but if starting out with garbage gear was a factor in becoming great at guitar with a unique style, we'd be tripping over Eddie Van Halens on the way to our stadium concerts.

[seafire]

Dual income? Sounds posh.

Two people who both have jobs is posh?

[zerocrossing]

You average a hair under 4 posts a day.

if one can't get the character of 'analog' with the tools available today, one is either not trying or in the wrong area of endeavor. I rhink caring a lot about this is a great distraction if you want to procrastinate forever on making music with the stuff

I've got to say, this is poor performance, and I'll be speaking with management unless you can get your numbers up.

[zerocrossing]

Totally OT, but I find it hilarious that people are trying to get $800 USD for this piece of garbage.

https://reverb.com/item/81286393-teisco ... -japan-mij

[zerocrossing]

Dual income? Sounds posh.

Two people who both have jobs is posh?

Yeah, a family in the 60s with two incomes! They must have been swimming in it!

Actually, I just looked it up, and Eddie's father wasn't a janitor (BTW, we lived next to my middle school janitor's house) but he had janitor's job to supplement his income as a jazz musician, who evidently played at country clubs in the Pasadena, CA, a nice suburb of LA. So let's boost that number two a 3 income family. I'm sorry, but stop with the "I grew up poor so I had to come up with wild tricks on guitar" narrative. It's b.s. I'm not sure why people feel they have to come up with some sort or rags-to-riches story to bolster their credibility. Maybe "I grew up in a nice middle class area" isn't rock and roll enough. My origin story is more rags-to-riches than that, and am I claiming it's why I suck at guitar?

[vurt]

Dual income? Sounds posh.

Two people who both have jobs is posh?

having two parents in one house is posh round here!

[ghettosynth]

My first guitar didn't even have a logo or name of any kind on it. I'm guessing it was a Teisco, as the amp was a Teisco Checkmate 15, which I wasn't aloud to use when my parents were home... which was generally all the time as spending money was out of the question.

Matching guitar and amp? Sounds posh. I still have what's left of my first guitar. I can take a picture and post it, but well, I'm gonna need some upvotes on this post. My dopamine is not going to release itself you know.

If Eddy could tap on that piece of shit, I'll chew the paint off, lead and all.