Mark Mothersbaugh on Classic Hardware vs Software Emulations

[D-Fusion]

Most people don't give a flying f**k either way, they are more interested in Serum and Zebra than in emulations. My only interest in emulations is in having easy to use synths that sound good. I couldn't give a toss how much it does or doesn't sound like some crappy old piece of hardware I left behind 30 or 40 years ago or only ever heard on records. Why would I? In fact, the more slavishly faithful to the original it is, the less interested I am likely to be in it. Arturia's SEMulation, for example, might be the absolute closest to the original (it's probably not but work with me here) but it doesn't have unison so it sounds like shit next to Cherry Audio's free version. And I have no idea how close to a real one bx_oberhausen is, I just know that with 32 voices of unison, nothing else can come close to its hugeness (except maybe Union).

Another good example is LegendHZ - how much better is that than any MiniMoog could ever have hoped to be? Those are the kinds of emulations that make sense to me, ladder filter not withstanding.

I have done some personal comparisons myself and know my way around these simple synths.

That's not the same thing, you go into it with all your bias intact. The very nature of the comparison will always disadvantage the emulation. In a blind test you have to make an assessment without knowing which you are assessing. i.e. Instead of starting with a known patch and trying to make another one exactly the same, you just get to hear two similar patches and you have to decide which one sounds better, which one you like more. It's a completely different thing. Of course, to make it fair you'd have to hobble the emulation, which will always have more features than an old hardware synth, so its' still not completely fair. in a fair comparison the softsynth will always win because it will always be better.

Some Emulations are as close as 2 of the same Analog synths can be but many of them are not the same.

Well, of course they aren't all good, that goes without saying. FBM, for example, doesn't even try to sound like the instrument he's "emulating", he just copies the functionality and layout, which is fine by me. FBM's MonoFury sounds better than my hardware MonoPoly ever did and, therefore, better than Korg's own emulation of it.

I am not Biased I do this sometimes when i am bored and in hope that i can Replace the HW with a Vst so i don't have to rely on 15-30 minutes warmup time and constant re-tuning which i find to be annoying and with the Heatwave going on it is impossible to use them because it gets to hot in the room after 10 minutes.

Legend HZ is excellent and the difference is very minor and so close that i prefer that one over the HW most of the time + it can do more and I also Love Proxima which is also a excellent Companion or replacement for the HW + it has a larger range in the filter if I want it to sound brighter than the HW i Have.

U-he Repro replaced both HW for me the Repro 1 and the repro 5

Same with Cherry audio Cat which i liked the sound of more so there was no reason for me to keep the HW and their Yellowjacket is also more usefull and better than the Behringer Wasp Deluxe.

My list of Hw being replaced with Vst's is getting bigger for each year when i stumble up on some of the good Emulations that can recreate the sounds I like and made on the Hardware

So for me it is more about finding a replacement that get close enough ITB

[aMUSEd]

Arturia's SEMulation, for example, might be the absolute closest to the original (it's probably not but work with me here) but it doesn't have unison so it sounds like shit next to Cherry Audio's free version. And I have no idea how close to a real one bx_oberhausen is, I just know that with 32 voices of unison, nothing else can come close to its hugeness (except maybe Union).

I realise this was meant as an analogy and agree with your underlying point about emulations being overly 'slavish' to the point of undermining their use musically, but fyi the Arturia SEM v3 does have unison as well as lots of other cool features such as great voice modulation, a great polyphonic ARP and multi stage function generators. Not 32 voices though, just 8 but the voice modulation means you can do interesting things with each voice.

[BONES]

Oh, yeah! I bought the update last year but I haven't really had time to look at it and I'd kind of forgotten about it. Looking at it now, I seems like a really useful upgrade and the "Super Unison" effect might make up for it only being 8 voices? Thanks for the heads-up, I'll be very keen to see how it goes, bx_oberhausen is not without its problems and it would be nice to finally find something in the V Collection that's actually worth using.

I am not Biased

Of course you are. The fact that you can't see it is proof of it.

My list of Hw being replaced with Vst's is getting bigger for each year when i stumble up on some of the good Emulations that can recreate the sounds I like and made on the Hardware

Why does that matter? I've replaced the sounds from dozens of hardware synths over the last 35 years, over and over again, and every time I did, the songs were better for it. Surely that's more important than slavishly recreating exactly the same sound? I still do it now, as softsynths also continue to get better and better.

Just this morning I replaced a part in one of our songs with Rumble. A year or so ago I'd replaced the same part with a Proxima patch I was really happy with. But the Rumble patch I've used sounds better, so that's what the audience will hear at our next gig. And if I get my hands on something next year that does the job better than Rumble, I won't hesitate to swap it out again, because there is always room for improvement.

Honestly, it's the only way we can keep playing our old songs alongside the new material we've been working on. If I left this particular song the way it was on our 2016 album, it would sound like shit in a set with newer material but over the past two years I've replaced every part from the album version with something better.

[rACatkvr]

@BONES Don’t forget Zebra3!