With All These Emulations Coming Out...

[TechHaus]

I remember going to a shop to check out an Andromeda and Minimoog Voyager.

There was a $600 Jupiter 6 and a $400 Sequential Circuits Pro One.

My dumbass bought none of the above - grabbed the just came out Korg MS2000r.

[Grizzellda]

I have no experience with the Andromeda, but soon I will be installing IKM's Syntronic, which includes an emulation. Will that give me a good taste of it??

[kraster]

The A6 sounds great, but its biggest problem IMO is that it lacks identity. It’s got an almost iconic status, but no resume to back it up. When you consider all the classic synths, like the Prophets, Obies, Jupiters, Junos, Moogs, and even digital synths like the DX7 and Virus, they all have identifiable sounds and you can point to well known songs, synth parts, even entire genres (e.g. Virus) that feature them. Personally, I can’t name a single well-known song that features an A6 and I couldn’t even tell you if I’ve ever actually heard one in a song. And, if someone said, ooh its got that “Andromeda sound”, would anyone know what that means? To be clear, I’m not saying it’s a bad synth, but it just doesn’t have a readily identifiable sound. I’d say the same thing applies to the PolyBrute - amazing and very capable synth, but lacks a distinguishable sonic identity. Just my 2c…

I think a lot of that is by design.

The A6 was designed as a kind of no holds barred analogue polysynth. Part Oberheim, part Moog and a bit of everything else.

It’s probably best described as an analogue workstation. 16 voices, 16 part multitimbral

The mix mode allows you to layer up to 16 programs in one go. Each of those programs is like an individual monosynth with 3 LFOs, 3 envelopes, 2 oscillators with multiple waveforms and FM, 2 filters etc.

A lot of the classics you mentioned are more immediate, more accessible and more “finished” sounding but ultimately more limited.

The Andromeda isn’t so much about having a signature sound but more about having the flexibility of a digital workstation but with analog oscillators and filters.

[Lbdunequest]

I have no experience with the Andromeda, but soon I will be installing IKM's Syntronic, which includes an emulation. Will that give me a good taste of it??

No it wount, its not an emulation, just sampled patches

[whassup]

I went back and read the Sound on Sound review from 2000 (I think it was). Author said he initially wasn't impressed because of the factory patches which he found were not very good (I think I read as much in this thread) but as he got to know it he really liked it a lot.

Yes, makes tons of sense to me. With any synth.

[dionenoid]

wtf is wrong with this site lately

[beely]

nm

[Teksonik]

I have no experience with the Andromeda, but soon I will be installing IKM's Syntronic, which includes an emulation. Will that give me a good taste of it??

It will give you some taste of it. I think Galaxy has some very nice patches but obviously it would be impractical to deep sample every sound an Adromeda can make otherwise it would be terabytes in size.

"Syntronik 2 Galaxy by IK Multimedia is a dedicated virtual synthesizer instrument modeled after the legendary Alesis Andromeda. It combines deep, multi-sampled analog oscillators with a hybrid sample-and-modeling engine, offering stunning sonic accuracy alongside modern features like advanced filters, arpeggiators, and multi-part layering".

No it wount, its not an emulation, just sampled patches

As I wrote before, one could argue that high quality samples can sound more accurate than a generated emulation. After all samples are the exact core sound of the instrument as you would hear it coming out of your speakers.

I acknowledge there is a general myopia at KVR surrounding samples but really sample based synthesis is one of the most powerful forms since anything you can hear you can sample.

The notion these days that everything has to be modulated a thousand ways is somewhat over rated because sometimes a great sounding patch is all that's really important without the need for modulation gymnastics. Sometimes people seem to focus more on what goes in to a Mod Matrix than what's coming out of the speakers.

The notion that "the hardware always sounds better" is another misguided concept and I say that as someone who grew up using hardware synths. The power we have "in the box" these days truly puts us in the golden age of synthesis. But again I realize this is KVR where hardware is automatically deemed to be king and analog is faithfully worshiped as a god.

At any rate the fact that there isn't already a generated Andromeda emulation may mean there will never be one for whatever reason so we may be left with options like Galaxy and other synths that in combination will give us a sound very close to the A6 and almost certainly well beyond what the hardware can achieve.

[Teksonik]

wtf is wrong with this site lately

"Lately" ?

[Lbdunequest]

I have no experience with the Andromeda, but soon I will be installing IKM's Syntronic, which includes an emulation. Will that give me a good taste of it??

It will give you some taste of it. I think Galaxy has some very nice patches but obviously it would be impractical to deep sample every sound an Adromeda can make otherwise it would be terabytes in size.

"Syntronik 2 Galaxy by IK Multimedia is a dedicated virtual synthesizer instrument modeled after the legendary Alesis Andromeda. It combines deep, multi-sampled analog oscillators with a hybrid sample-and-modeling engine, offering stunning sonic accuracy alongside modern features like advanced filters, arpeggiators, and multi-part layering".

No it wount, its not an emulation, just sampled patches

As I wrote before, one could argue that high quality samples can sound more accurate than a generated emulation. After all samples are the exact core sound of the instrument as you would hear it coming out of your speakers.

I acknowledge there is a general myopia at KVR surrounding samples but really sample based synthesis is one of the most powerful forms since anything you can hear you can sample.

The notion these days that everything has to be modulated a thousand ways is somewhat over rated because sometimes a great sounding patch is all that's really important without the need for modulation gymnastics. Sometimes people seem to focus more on what goes in to a Mod Matrix than what's coming out of the speakers.

The notion that "the hardware always sounds better" is another misguided concept and I say that as someone who grew up using hardware synths. The power we have "in the box" these days truly puts us in the golden age of synthesis. But again I realize this is KVR where hardware is automatically deemed to be king and analog is faithfully worshiped as a god.

At any rate the fact that there isn't already a generated Andromeda emulation may mean there will never be one for whatever reason so we may be left with options like Galaxy and other synths that in combination will give us a sound very close to the A6 and almost certainly well beyond what the hardware can achieve.

I think you misunderstood me, because what you are saying is entirely different point.

My answer saying NO to the question "will it give me a good taste to it" doesnt mean its bad or you can't get good sounds from it by playing around with modulation and effects.

Lets face the fact Sampletank 4 is a sample player, it doesnt have an architecture of Alesis Andromeda A6, it doesnt have the same routing or modulation system, effects, different voice tunings, . You essentially playing a snapshot of a preset. And if a preset is just init saw sound it might as well be any synth saw sound. You cant do tricks in ST4 that makes Andromeda A6 special.

[Grizzellda]

Thanks guys!

[kraster]

I think the issue with a sample based emulation won't (at least to the same degree) be able to capture the natural variance between each voice.

The asics (the circuits that handles the oscillators and filters) Each Asic contains a pair of ASOs for oscillators and a pair of ASFs for filters.

These are never exactly the same even when calibrated so each voice is subtly different.

The Andromeda also has two auto tuning modes, a digital tuning mode and a temperature based one. You can turn each of these off if you want really drifty oscillators and filters.

As I said above a lot of the Andromeda's sound ( and indeed any analog polysynth) comes from the slight variations in the oscillators and filters.

This kind of behaviour can be emulated to a certain degree in digital with modeled oscillators and filters.

[cvale]

Well, I hear something unique. But by all means, point me to the VST that sounds just like it and I'll go and get it.

Obviously I don't hear something unique, so pointing to a VST that sounds "just like it" is not going to get us anywhere. Whatever I point you to you're just going to say that it sounds nothing like it. If you like the sound and want one, that's fine, no one's telling you otherwise. But comments like this come off as needlessly defensive.

[IvyBirds]

I think the issue with a sample based emulation won't (at least to the same degree) be able to capture the natural variance between each voice.

The asics (the circuits that handles the oscillators and filters) Each Asic contains a pair of ASOs for oscillators and a pair of ASFs for filters.

These are never exactly the same even when calibrated so each voice is subtly different.

Many sample based plugins can do that with sample playback. You can have round robin sample playback were each time you trigger a new note it will playback a new sample

Beyond that you have tools like the "Analog knob" and Analog Slider Omnisphere 3 which can be applied to the VA/Wavetable engine but also the sample playback engine. Using them will introduce random inconsistencies into the pitch and phase of each note you are playing back exactly as you are describing Andromeda is doing. I have found turning the Analog knob to around 55% and then tweaking the analog slider to taste will slightly detune and drift all the voices independently, turning a flat sample into a massive, living soundstage. Both of those controls can easily be permanently mapped to a controller also (as I have done). This allows you to easily turn them on/off and dial in just the amount you want, you can also make them targets for things polyphonic after touch or sequence them. The Omnisphere factory library includes tons of samples from vintage Synths including the A6 and they are all masterfully sampled under Eric's watchful eyes and ears.

You can do similar things with UVI Falcon, and HALion 7. In Falcon you have a particularly interesting tool called "drunk modulator" instead of a predictable repeatable LFO shape it's value wanders aimlessly, pauses, and even moves in an entirely unpredictable directions and speeds. If you go into your sample's Pitch tracking in the Modulation Matrix and set the speed very slow and the depth to a mere fraction of a cent it will do exactly what you want for pitch. In addition to that if you locate the Sample Start parameter, right click it and assign a LFO to it the magic really begins. Turn retrigger off and then turn bipolar off, and turn modulation down to just a few milliseconds. Then every keypress shifts the sample start position by a micro-amount, completely changing the phase behavior of the initial transient hit without ruining the timing. If you do that you will get exactly the behavior you are looking for. This is especially handy in the UVi ecosystem as they have so many sample libraries that are sampled analog synths including the A6 that you can load right into Falcon

[kraster]

I think the issue with a sample based emulation won't (at least to the same degree) be able to capture the natural variance between each voice.

The asics (the circuits that handles the oscillators and filters) Each Asic contains a pair of ASOs for oscillators and a pair of ASFs for filters.

These are never exactly the same even when calibrated so each voice is subtly different.

The Andromeda also has two auto tuning modes, a digital tuning mode and a temperature based one. You can turn each of these off if you want really drifty oscillators and filters.

As I said above a lot of the Andromeda's sound ( and indeed any analog polysynth) comes from the slight variations in the oscillators and filters.

This kind of behaviour can be emulated to a certain degree in digital with modeled oscillators and filters.

This is all valid sound-design advice, but it doesn’t really answer the argument.

Round robins only alternate between a finite set of recordings. They don’t create sixteen continuously varying analogue voices whose oscillators, filters, envelopes, VCAs and gain stages behave slightly differently and interact in real time.

Likewise, adding random pitch drift and modulating sample start can imitate two consequences of analogue behaviour: tuning instability and changing oscillator phase. But that is not “exactly” what the Andromeda is doing. Moving the start point of a static sample changes where you enter an already-recorded waveform; it does not recreate an oscillator running freely into a nonlinear filter and VCA whose response changes with pitch, velocity, resonance, modulation and signal level.

The Omnisphere Analog controls and Falcon’s Drunk modulator are useful abstractions, but they are still deliberately imposed modulation. The A6’s variation emerges throughout the entire voice and signal path, including places the programmer may not have explicitly modulated.

And any A6 sample library is fundamentally recordings of the synth at particular settings. Once sampled, much of the interaction that makes the instrument interesting has already been frozen. You can animate the sample afterwards, but you are animating a photograph of the system rather than operating the system itself.

None of this means the result cannot sound huge, organic or even indistinguishable in a mix. It just means “I can add drift and randomise sample phase” is not equivalent to modelling, let alone reproducing, the complete behaviour of a polyphonic analogue synthesizer.