u-He Zebra II Vs Arturia Complete (Analog)

[sounddesigner]

Electro wrote, quote "Who the hell cares what Scope is? Where is the cut down PCIe option for someone who just wants to sit 2 or 3 high quality Creamware emulations like the Pro12 in their DAW's VSTI rack next to native VSTIs like NI Kontakt?"



What it is will not allow for it to have a very cheap entry level solution. You may not care for all it offers but this does not mean others don't and that the developers should not be paid for offering all that it has. Electro there is plugiator wich is cheap and a alternative that many have no problem with. I'm finished with this and just respectfully disagree, offcourse your entitled to your opinions wich i respect.

[electro]

Electro wrote, quote "Who the hell cares what Scope is? Where is the cut down PCIe option for someone who just wants to sit 2 or 3 high quality Creamware emulations like the Pro12 in their DAW's VSTI rack next to native VSTIs like NI Kontakt?"


What it is will not allow for it to have a very cheap entry level solution. You may not care for all it offers but this does not mean others don't and that the developers should not be paid for offering all that it has. Electro there is plugiator wich is cheap and a alternative that many have no problem with. I'm finished with this and just respectfully disagree, offcourse your entitled to your opinions wich i respect.

What it is is a bunch of high quality algorithims coded for Sharc DSP. UAD-2 is exactly the same thing with 3 different hardware options so I don't get your point about it not being possible or practical.

Don't Plugiator and ASB require an additional A/D conversion stage to integrate into a DAW? That completely defeats the purpose of having an ITB setup.

[Syncretia]

See, I do think that Arturia's TAE burp is misleading, and you're falling for it.

Look, I'm confused. I appreciate your feedback on this, but there is something that is left out of all this. I'm not relying on what Arturia says. I'm relying firstly on my ears, secondly on the wikipedia article I pointed out, and thirdly: physics.

When I hear a key being hit on a real Minimoog playing a square, it's not the same as a digital square that I would hear in a digital instrument such as Zebra. There is something different about the way the sound is created. A digital synth will always create a perfect square wave whereas an analog synth simply will not. This is based on physics. Because of the circuitry involved with an analog synthesizer there will always be imperfections in the sound.

Therefore, in order to replicate analog sound, it is necessary to attempt to emulate the way the circuitry works. That's what the wikipedia article points out.

Arturia may be simply lying through their teeth about TAE, but from my point of view, the TAE might explain the certain something that I hear in the Arturia range that I only hear with other analog modeled synths.

Don't get me wrong Zebra is a great synth and I plan on buying it anway. It's just that I'm going to have to go through the patches mentioned above in order to judge whether or not it brings out the warm analog sounds that some people have claimed that it faithfully reproduces.

Anyway, the weekend is coming and I should finally have time to give Zebra a good going over. Looking forward to it.

[dalor]

I sold Zebra a while ago because the GUI wasn't for me. Hearing about future updates and Mr.Z hardware contributions for analyze purposes, makes me want to try future Zebra versions again. I know I'm in the minority (If not the only one on this planet) who can't get warm with its GUI - but I hope it will get a bit of overhaul.

[EvilDragon]

A digital synth will always create a perfect square wave

Not true either. The square and sawtooth waves can be the worst aliasing offenders ever (which means they are far from perfect!), unless you band-limit them first. And band-limiting takes away some of its sound.

[hakey]

See, I do think that Arturia's TAE burp is misleading, and you're falling for it.

Arturia may be simply lying through their teeth about TAE, but from my point of view, the TAE might explain the certain something that I hear in the Arturia range that I only hear with other analog modeled synths.

Okay, two general problems with Arturia's blurb:

1. They claim that TAE is "exclusive technology", when they're merely applying well known and commonly used dsp solutions to VA modelling. As Urs points out, the stuff they're doing may have been state of the art 10 years ago, but it's far from cutting edge now.

2. They say things like "the direct recreation of the analog circuitry in the Prophet V", which implies very detailed modelling of circuits - down to every last capacitor, resistor and diode - in code. This is clearly not the case (it would require far more processing power than their plugins use). They almost certainly use transfer functions (algorithms that model input to output behaviour) to approximate the behaviour of say a whole filter, or an oscillator, a VCA etc.

And, more generally, a read through of Arturia's claims for TAE might lead one to think that their plugins are truly outstanding examples in the field of VA synthesis - "We bring you new levels of reality in a virtual analog synthesizer"... "giving the user a truly analog sound" - when the reality is that they are nothing special at all (by common consent around here Arturia's VA synths are *deeply* average).

[izonin]

To the OP - anything but Arturia! They are toy synths, comparable to NI Pro-52 and ReBirth.

[fmr]

To the OP - anything but Arturia! They are toy synths, comparable to NI Pro-52 and ReBirth.

This is "in your opinion", of course. Or do you have some scientific proven data that suports your statement?

[fmr]

1. They claim that TAE is "exclusive technology", when they're merely applying well known and commonly used dsp solutions to VA modelling. As Urs points out, the stuff they're doing may have been state of the art 10 years ago, but it's far from cutting edge now.

2. They say things like "the direct recreation of the analog circuitry in the Prophet V", which implies very detailed modelling of circuits - down to every last capacitor, resistor and diode - in code. This is clearly not the case (it would require far more processing power than their plugins use). They almost certainly use transfer functions (algorithms that model input to output behaviour) to approximate the behaviour of say a whole filter, or an oscillator, a VCA etc.

And, more generally, a read through of Arturia's claims for TAE might lead one to think that their plugins are truly outstanding examples in the field of VA synthesis - "We bring you new levels of reality in a virtual analog synthesizer"... "giving the user a truly analog sound" - when the reality is that they are nothing special at all (by common consent around here Arturia's VA synths are *deeply* average).

This is, of course, "marketing hype" as we see everyday, everywhere. Informed customers will always take this with a grain (or more) of salt, and will download the demos and make comparisons. And KVR is a good place to debate this, as long as people keep informative, and not biased.
That said, Arturia synths may not be the best emulations in the market, but thay are GOOD emulations, IMO. And if you were going to ban everything that uses marketing hype, the available options would be very few, I'm afraid.

[hakey]

"marketing hype"

Yes, but one might argue that the "exclusive technology" and "direct recreation of the analog circuitry" claims are so misleading as to overstep the boundaries of acceptable marketing hype.

[helium]

To the OP - anything but Arturia! They are toy synths, comparable to NI Pro-52 and ReBirth.

This is "in your opinion", of course. Or do you have some scientific proven data that suports your statement?

How do you "scientifically prove" that something is a toy synth?

[fmr]

To the OP - anything but Arturia! They are toy synths, comparable to NI Pro-52 and ReBirth.

This is "in your opinion", of course. Or do you have some scientific proven data that suports your statement?

How do you "scientifically prove" that something is a toy synth?

You don't. That's why you shouldn't make so hard statements, IMO, but instead say that "in your opinion" they sound like toys. Which, BTW, isn't my opinion.

[fmr]

"marketing hype"

Yes, but one might argue that the "exclusive technology" and "direct recreation of the analog circuitry" claims are so misleading as to overstep the boundaries of acceptable marketing hype.

I don't believe that, in the current state of technology, anybody can make a complete recreation of an analog circuitry, down to each component, that's playable.
By what Urs have been telling regarding DIVA development, he is squeezing every bit of CPU power to recreate not so complex elements of some old synths, and this led to a synth wehere you have problems playing more than four notes at a time, even in the latest computers.
Imagine what would have been recreating the circuits of a Prophet-5 AND Phophet VS together down to the transistor level.

[hakey]

I don't believe that, in the current state of technology, anybody can make a complete recreation of an analog circuitry, down to each component, that's playable.

Yep, and that's why Arturia's "direct recreation of the analog circuitry" claim is misleading, probably to the extent that it transgresses rules regarding fairness and accuracy in advertising.

[Urs]

Imagine what would have been recreating the circuits of a Prophet-5 AND Phophet VS together down to the transistor level.

The Prophet can easily be done in acceptable quality with 8 voice polyphony, and so can the VS, using our technology.

The massive cpu drain in Diva only occurrs with *highly* non-linear filters such as the transistor ladder (Minimoog...) and the Sallen-Key filter (MS-20). The rather tame OTA ladder filters (SSM, CEM, IR chips) are not so problematic, as their output is more predictable per sample.

Nevertheless, what I think hakey was getting at is that claiming "exclusive" access to state of the art technologies (bandlimitted oscillators, non linear filter responses) is misleading enough to imply a defamation of competitors and thus forbidden in Europe, or at least in Germany (if I understand my lawyer correctly).