Retrologue by Steinberg

[cobaia]

A sawtooth in Diva, Retrologue etc. is in no way inferior to a sawtooth in Dune 3.
The same goes for the filter. What there is, is at the same level. And what there is not, does not reduce the quality of what there is.

I, too, love inventing arguments I can easily win. When you're done fighting that straw man, let's return to reality.
​No one said Diva's, Retrologue's, or any other Synth's oscillators are bad. But trying to claim a synth's quality is defined by a single raw wave is embarrassingly reductive . The quality of a synth lies in its capabilities. If you restrict yourself to basic subtractive patches because you don't know how to utilize Dune 3's multi-voice engines, wavetables, or FM, just say that. Don't pretend a limitation is a feature.

Sound design is an evolutionary process, not a historical reenactment society. Having a massive palette of options—complex routing, spectral manipulation, and precise modulation—is what actually drives the medium forward. It is mind-boggling to argue that being artificially boxed into the restricted, basic choices dictated by 1970s hardware limitations is somehow a superior creative workflow. Those limitations weren't designed as 'aesthetic choices'; they were the byproduct of primitive engineering and physical component costs of the era. Pretending those ancient handcuffs are a badge of honor in the modern era is just a lazy excuse for refusing to paint with more than three colors

I am only interested in whether or not a patch sounds pleasant. I don't care whether it is simple or not.
There is nothing basic about Retrologue 2 to begin with.
A basic synth would be the original version of Charlatan for instance.

The funny thing is that as softsynths become more and more complex, the music they are used for doesn't become better and better, to the contrary.
Complex patches won't make music classic.

[Albert.VST]

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.

Sure you can use simple synths and sounds to make good music just like you can use only the color blue to make a painting but imagine what paintings you could make with all the colors of the rainbow or songs you could make with a wider range of sounds than are possible with a couple of Oscs with only a few different waveforms.

I'm done with this thread but I'll leave you with this old saying:

Simple things amuse simple minds.

To me it depends on the song. Sometimes a song only needs a sound by a simple synth and going to far in all kinds of options wouldn't work. Sometimes the other way around. Sure, "simple" sounds also can be made with a complex synth. But to qualify all simple synths, hardware and software, as toys for me is way out.
To compare with the toy screwdriver example, I could have an electric screwdriver that limits applied force not to damage anything and other features, compared to that a "normal" metal screwdriver that most professionals still use would be qualified as toys, as they don't have all features possible?

A sawtooth in Diva, Retrologue etc. is in no way inferior to a sawtooth in Dune 3.
The same goes for the filter. What there is, is at the same level. And what there is not, does not reduce the quality of what there is.

I, too, love inventing arguments I can easily win. When you're done fighting that straw man, let's return to reality.
​No one said Diva's, Retrologue's, or any other Synth's oscillators are bad. But trying to claim a synth's quality is defined by a single raw wave is embarrassingly reductive . The quality of a synth lies in its capabilities. If you restrict yourself to basic subtractive patches because you don't know how to utilize Dune 3's multi-voice engines, wavetables, or FM, just say that. Don't pretend a limitation is a feature.

Sound design is an evolutionary process, not a historical reenactment society. Having a massive palette of options—complex routing, spectral manipulation, and precise modulation—is what actually drives the medium forward. It is mind-boggling to argue that being artificially boxed into the restricted, basic choices dictated by 1970s hardware limitations is somehow a superior creative workflow. Those limitations weren't designed as 'aesthetic choices'; they were the byproduct of primitive engineering and physical component costs of the era. Pretending those ancient handcuffs are a badge of honor in the modern era is just a lazy excuse for refusing to paint with more than three colors

The same applies here. Limitation CAN be a feature. Making things overly complex just because you can doesn't always justify the song. But in other cases it does and you want to be able to do complex sound design. There's room for both.

[IvyBirds]

The same applies here. Limitation CAN be a feature. Making things overly complex just because you can doesn't always justify the song. But in other cases it does and you want to be able to do complex sound design. There's room for both.

Here is the thing however. You can use Virtual Synths like Dune 3, Falcon, HALion7, Omnisphere 3, etc to do very simple things if you want, and it's dead simple to do so

I can fire up any of those and rather easily use a single Oscillator, basic modulation, filter, and chorus and emulate a basic Juno type synth. Only I can swap out filters and chorus types with ease. In fact I made a custom GUI to do just that based on the Juno 106 layout for all of them that is also assigned to physical MIDI controllers

I have one for two, three, and four oscs as well

When you do that in HALion7 you get all of the same building blocks that are in Retrologue and they sound the same since it's the same Steinberg DSP

Then if I want to I can start adding things simply by referring to the original GUI or another custom one. That's the advantage of synths like there you can make them as complex or as simple as you want, but you can't do that if you are starting off with limitations from the get go

[digitalboytn]

The same applies here. Limitation CAN be a feature. Making things overly complex just because you can doesn't always justify the song. But in other cases it does and you want to be able to do complex sound design. There's room for both.

You can use Virtual Synths like Dune 3, Falcon, HALion7, Omnisphere 3, etc to do very simple things if you want, and it's dead simple to do so

That's the advantage of synths like that...you can make them as complex or as simple as you want, but you can't do that if you are starting off with limitations from the get go

[Lbdunequest]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

[Alexander_D]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

Yes. But if you are in Cubase, they give an option to resize this synth in Cubase

[Lbdunequest]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

Yes. But if you are in Cubase, they give an option to resize this synth in Cubase

Yep, i tried, still looks like shit

[SamDi]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

Yes. But if you are in Cubase, they give an option to resize this synth in Cubase

No, not just Cubase. You can scale in all DAWs.

Yep, i tried, still looks like shit

All the Steinberg stuff looks like shit TBH.

[SamDi]

Here is the thing however. You can use Virtual Synths like Dune 3, Falcon, HALion7, Omnisphere 3, etc to do very simple things if you want, and it's dead simple to do so

Are you a paid chill to constantly and repeatedly talk about HALion and Omnishpere in almost all of the threads, you're involved? This is a Retrologue thread, so who wants to talk about HALion, Omnisphere and Falcon here? Please stay on-topic!

You miss the point. No one is really stating here, that you shouldn't use complex synths, if they are needed or make sense. The discussion is coming from Teksonik claiming, Retrologue and Diva beeing "toys" because they are very simple and limited synths.

And this is BS, not because them calling simple, but because them calling toys. If they would be toys, the VA-engine in your beloved HALion would be also a toy. And if Dune 3 would be the last synth, you ever need, why would Synapse Audio then climb down to release this simple toy, called Proxima?

That is, where the discussion was coming from.

[Alexander_D]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

Yes. But if you are in Cubase, they give an option to resize this synth in Cubase

No, not just Cubase. You can scale in all DAWs.

Yep, i tried, still looks like shit

All the Steinberg stuff looks like shit TBH.

Yeah. The GUI is not so perfect. My love is GUI of Fabfilter stuff. But many Steinberg stuff sounds really great!

[Gam456]

Im very surprised this synth still has no high definition graphics and scaling

Yes. But if you are in Cubase, they give an option to resize this synth in Cubase

you can resize out of Cubase

[cobaia]

I like the GUI. It is very intuitive, no need to consult the manual.
Sure, it is not flashy and futuristic, but why would it be?! It emulates old hardware.

[Alexander_D]

I like the GUI. It is very intuitive, no need to consult the manual.
Sure, it is not flashy and futuristic, but why would it be?! It emulates old hardware.

Yeah. And they sounds really nice! And the new plugins is also great!

[IvyBirds]

Here is the thing however. You can use Virtual Synths like Dune 3, Falcon, HALion7, Omnisphere 3, etc to do very simple things if you want, and it's dead simple to do so

Are you a paid chill to constantly and repeatedly talk about HALion and Omnishpere in almost all of the threads, you're involved? This is a Retrologue thread, so who wants to talk about HALion, Omnisphere and Falcon here? Please stay on-topic!

You miss the point. No one is really stating here, that you shouldn't use complex synths, if they are needed or make sense. The discussion is coming from Teksonik claiming, Retrologue and Diva beeing "toys" because they are very simple and limited synths.

And this is BS, not because them calling simple, but because them calling toys. If they would be toys, the VA-engine in your beloved HALion would be also a toy. And if Dune 3 would be the last synth, you ever need, why would Synapse Audio then climb down to release this simple toy, called Proxima?

That is, where the discussion was coming from.

So are we supposed to only talk about Retrologue or are we allowed to talk about how it fits in with other things? Or are we to do as you have done here and just go off topic and attack people? Should we all just follow the example you have now set by your own actions?

All I am doing is engaging in conversation with people like yourself who quote me and then engage me in conversation, it's weird how you seem to attack me for doing the very thing you then go on to do

I didn't start the conversation on Retrologue compared with deeper Synths, and I wasn't the one who started talking about the pros and cons of having more Oscillators and a deeper feature set. I just joined into the conversation which the the very reason this forum exists and is EXACTLY what you just did. Someone necro'd a thread from 14 years ago that compared Retrologue with another synth. I didn't do that

In the future please stay on topic and actually talk about Retrologue if that is so important to you, because you are doing the exact opposite of what you preached about and it's not a good look. Either staying 100% on topic is important to you or it's not, based on your own actions it's clearly not, despite your hypocritical lecture

Bringing it back on topic to Retrologue you do realize that is the same VA engine that is in HALion7 right? That's it's made by the same company with the same code right? Only with HALion7 you can do more with the same engine right? So it's 1000% on topic to compare Retrologue with it's bigger Steinberg sister

But why make any comparison and talk about the actual subject at hand? On a 14 year old thread m, on how Retrologue fits in with 2026 landscape, when you can simply go off topic and attack others as you have done

[cobaia]

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.

Why do you think so? Diva is a year older than Retrologue 1, 2011 vs 2012.