Retrologue by Steinberg

[Gam456]

It's a really nice synth. Will be great if Steinberg will improve this one... but seems, that they don't do it with their old products...

Which improvements do you suggest?

Simple, look what Diva can do. Alternate pan, drift, component modelling vco, vcf, vca,
zero delay feedback no artefacts or aliasing

It does have a drift control at the top. Simplistic but it works.
Pan spread is automatic, which might not always be welcome, especially with basses, where stereo is not so good.
I don't hear aliasing or artifacts, frankly.
What do you mean by modeling? That it is not emulating any specific hardware?

It's a random pitch, the drift in Diva works like slow wavering
Diva also have a drift called variance for vcf, env, glide and pw
Yes Diva modelling is per component based on hardware

I'm not saying Retrologue is bad, but for analog feel Diva is undisputed... and definitely not a toy

[cobaia]

But why would a quality synth be a toy? I don't get that. By that logic most classic hardware synths would also have been just toys because many of them were much more basic than Retrologue 2 for instance. And yet those "toys" were used to make classic songs.

Now you're getting it. That's why I sold all of my analog hardware synths. Sure they were used in songs because....that's all we had back then.

I sometimes use the word Toy when comparing one synth with another. It's a comment on the feature set....or lack thereof.

A three Osc synth with a fixed waveform set doesn't hold much appeal to me these days when I have several synths with 24 or more Oscs and theoretically unlimited waveforms that sound just as good or most often even better....to me. After 46 years of owning synths the simple ones with a limited feature set just bore me. YMMV.

Yeah back in 2012 when I started this thread Retrologue was much more impressive to me than it is today due to the other options available literally at our fingertips in 2026. Progress marches on.

We are truly living in the golden age of synthesis.

24 oscillators? What is the point of that? Or do you mean stacked waves?
Do you have an audio clip of what it sounds like?

Usually when one uses more than 2 oscillators, they cancel each other out in terms of character and it turns into a mess.

You can create custom waveforms in Retrologue 2 as well, in any synth whose oscillators have phase control:

[cobaia]

It's a really nice synth. Will be great if Steinberg will improve this one... but seems, that they don't do it with their old products...

Which improvements do you suggest?

Simple, look what Diva can do. Alternate pan, drift, component modelling vco, vcf, vca,
zero delay feedback no artefacts or aliasing

It does have a drift control at the top. Simplistic but it works.
Pan spread is automatic, which might not always be welcome, especially with basses, where stereo is not so good.
I don't hear aliasing or artifacts, frankly.
What do you mean by modeling? That it is not emulating any specific hardware?

It's a random pitch, the drift in Diva works like slow wavering
Diva also have a drift called variance for vcf, env, glide and pw
Yes Diva modelling is per component based on hardware

I'm not saying Retrologue is bad, but for analog feel Diva is undisputed... and definitely not a toy

Yes, I know that trimmer page. I don't really want or need variance except for pitch because without pitch variance, playing the same note twice can sound ugly when there is a longer release time and they overlap.
Cutoff and envelope variance is usually achieved via velocity.

[BBFG#]

The difference between a tool and a toy is who is using it and for what.
If you insist it's a toy, then that really says more about you than it does it.

[concealed identity]

The difference between a tool and a toy is who is using it and for what.
If you insist it's a toy, then that really says more about you than it does it.

100%, attitudes like that are a huge red flag when it comes to credibility. I've been hearing for decades about how "X is a toy" or "You can't use X if you're a serious musician/audio engineer", all while seeing professionals use them to make groundbreaking and beloved music. At least it's useful to help sort out the opinions worth listening to.

[SamDi]

It's clashing sound design vs. music making. For music in 90% of the cases, you don't need complicated synths. That's the reason, why in jazz and funk combos many musicians are pretty fine with analog Prophets, Moogs and whatnot.

Retrologue isn't on par with Diva obviously. The other question is, when you are doing a piece of music and throw dozens of synths on it, on which tracks do you really need a very detailled analog emulations, on which tracks do you need the most complex supersynth sounds and where is it sufficient to throw a decent analogish sound on it. It's always a compromise between sound, CPU-performance and workflow. Up until now, I don't have Retrologue not so much on my RADAR. But there are some cool VA patches in HALion and it's said it encapsulates the Retrologue engine. So maybe it's worth to consider to use it more.

[cobaia]

It's clashing sound design vs. music making. For music in 90% of the cases, you don't need complicated synths. That's the reason, why in jazz and funk combos many musicians are pretty fine with analog Prophets, Moogs and whatnot.

Retrologue isn't on par with Diva obviously. The other question is, when you are doing a piece of music and throw dozens of synths on it, on which tracks do you really need a very detailled analog emulations, on which tracks do you need the most complex supersynth sounds and where is it sufficient to throw a decent analogish sound on it. It's always a compromise between sound, CPU-performance and workflow. Up until now, I don't have Retrologue not so much on my RADAR. But there are some cool VA patches in HALion and it's said it encapsulates the Retrologue engine. So maybe it's worth to consider to use it more.

I have various demo versions on my computer. When I compare Diva to the Tal JX-8P emulation, they don't sound the same, not even close. In fact, I think soundwise the Tal and Retrologue 2 have more in common than the Tal and Diva.
Yet, the JX-8P was one of the last big analog synth if I am not mistaken.

Can you tell or give me a Diva patch which shows that "analog superiority"?


Indeed, most genres except for EDM are fine with typical 2-oscillator subtractive synths. Especially the genres where the music itself is in the center.

[Gam456]

It's clashing sound design vs. music making. For music in 90% of the cases, you don't need complicated synths. That's the reason, why in jazz and funk combos many musicians are pretty fine with analog Prophets, Moogs and whatnot.

Retrologue isn't on par with Diva obviously. The other question is, when you are doing a piece of music and throw dozens of synths on it, on which tracks do you really need a very detailled analog emulations, on which tracks do you need the most complex supersynth sounds and where is it sufficient to throw a decent analogish sound on it. It's always a compromise between sound, CPU-performance and workflow. Up until now, I don't have Retrologue not so much on my RADAR. But there are some cool VA patches in HALion and it's said it encapsulates the Retrologue engine. So maybe it's worth to consider to use it more.

Yet, the JX-8P was one of the last big analog synth if I am not mistaken.

in the 80. Yes The last Roland analog a dco, not a pure vco
I believe the Andromeda A6 is the last original true analog in 2000.

[pepelogu]

Sorry for the silly self promotion but if anyone is interested I have made a 64 patch soundbank for the severely underrated Retrologue available here: https://skylarksounds.com/products/funk ... etrologue2

[SamDi]

It's clashing sound design vs. music making. For music in 90% of the cases, you don't need complicated synths. That's the reason, why in jazz and funk combos many musicians are pretty fine with analog Prophets, Moogs and whatnot.

Retrologue isn't on par with Diva obviously. The other question is, when you are doing a piece of music and throw dozens of synths on it, on which tracks do you really need a very detailled analog emulations, on which tracks do you need the most complex supersynth sounds and where is it sufficient to throw a decent analogish sound on it. It's always a compromise between sound, CPU-performance and workflow. Up until now, I don't have Retrologue not so much on my RADAR. But there are some cool VA patches in HALion and it's said it encapsulates the Retrologue engine. So maybe it's worth to consider to use it more.

Can you tell or give me a Diva patch which shows that "analog superiority"?

I just derived my statement from the fact, that Diva uses more modern and CPU-consuming technique of modeling, than Retrologue. If that doesn't lead to sound DIVA better in your ears, go with Retrologue.

I am anyway not the guy, believing in "analog superiority" at all. Mostly the emulations are limited in a way, which makes me unable to shape the sound as I want (e.g. define S-curves on ENVs). I am also not good to make sounds on analog emulations, they sound all like cheesy 80ies standard stuff. So when I am using analog emulations, I am sticking mostly to presets.

DIVA is not my favorite synth at all. It has something in the sound, which doesn't click with me. When I am using analog emulations, I use mostly Repro and Lush-2. Also there, the presets are way better, what I could achieve myself.

A convincing preset set and the reason, why I aquired Repro is this


Not sure, if this is considered "analog sounding", because Fx and resonating EQ bands are heavily used. But for my ears it sounds great.

Do you think Retrologue is capable of doing this the same quality in general, besides the different features?

[cobaia]

It's clashing sound design vs. music making. For music in 90% of the cases, you don't need complicated synths. That's the reason, why in jazz and funk combos many musicians are pretty fine with analog Prophets, Moogs and whatnot.

Retrologue isn't on par with Diva obviously. The other question is, when you are doing a piece of music and throw dozens of synths on it, on which tracks do you really need a very detailled analog emulations, on which tracks do you need the most complex supersynth sounds and where is it sufficient to throw a decent analogish sound on it. It's always a compromise between sound, CPU-performance and workflow. Up until now, I don't have Retrologue not so much on my RADAR. But there are some cool VA patches in HALion and it's said it encapsulates the Retrologue engine. So maybe it's worth to consider to use it more.

Can you tell or give me a Diva patch which shows that "analog superiority"?

I just derived my statement from the fact, that Diva uses more modern and CPU-consuming technique of modeling, than Retrologue. If that doesn't lead to sound DIVA better in your ears, go with Retrologue.

I am anyway not the guy, believing in "analog superiority" at all. Mostly the emulations are limited in a way, which makes me unable to shape the sound as I want (e.g. define S-curves on ENVs). I am also not good to make sounds on analog emulations, they sound all like cheesy 80ies standard stuff. So when I am using analog emulations, I am sticking mostly to presets.

DIVA is not my favorite synth at all. It has something in the sound, which doesn't click with me. When I am using analog emulations, I use mostly Repro and Lush-2. Also there, the presets are way better, what I could achieve myself.

A convincing preset set and the reason, why I aquired Repro is this


Not sure, if this is considered "analog sounding", because Fx and resonating EQ bands are heavily used. But for my ears it sounds great.

Do you think Retrologue is capable of doing this the same quality in general, besides the different features?

Hard to say, I would need specific patches in order to try and match them.

[Tracewidth]

Zahev's patch designs are dramatically better than most third-party soundbank offerings.

[starflakeprj]

Zahev's patch designs are dramatically better than most third-party soundbank offerings.

Definitely on my top 3. But on the other hand, most third-party sound designers are amateurs trying to convince us that they are good sound designers.

[SamDi]

Hard to say, I would need specific patches in order to try and match them.

Unfortunately they are commercial and not made by myself, so I can not share

Zahev's patch designs are dramatically better than most third-party soundbank offerings.

Yes on this set he shows his whole genius. The other stuff, which is on his website, is way too mainstream Trance orientated for my taste.

[cobaia]

It sounds bombastic, similar to Legend HZ stuff.