KVR Audio

beely · Post by **beely** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:04 pm

I think we have enough Minimoogs in the world now, in every form imaginable...

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:12 pm

beely wrote:I think we have enough Minimoogs in the world now, in every form imaginable...

Behringer also seems to work on a low cost Model D rack module. Due to this article a prototype unit seems to be close now:
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/ ... k-preview/

When this is out a comparison to a vintage Model D, the new re-issue Model D and plugins like e.g. The Legend and NI Monark (which IMO are the most close emulations) would would be interesting.
Persoanlly i am very happy with The Legend and have no real need for a hardware Minimoog at the moment even if it would be cheap.

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 2:39 pm

fmr wrote:I think what we can extract from here is that none of them is bad, after all. All have their strenghts and weaknesses. The older ones show some more weknesses than the newer ones, which is not surprising, but overall they didn't behave that bad...

Arturia was sadly 'under-represented' because he used the new V3 version, which in my opinion is, for the most part, a piece of garbage. Had he used the old minimoog 1.6 instead his results would have looked quite different, especially in the FM department.

Let me give you 2 audio examples of 1.6 of areas where Arturias V3 has lost the most points.

1) VCF Resonant Harmonics. To make it clear right from the start: The old 1.6 doesnt have the slight Cutoff instability that accounts for the movement. But if you simulate (fudge) that via modulation, the result is pretty darn close. (Personally i would classify it as 'minor differences in tonality but more or less identical', but of course you will draw your own conclusion.) So while the emulation is not 100% in that regard it still can be made to sound virtually identical, which means except for this one aspect it is very close to what you would expect.

2) VCO FM. Like i said, V3 is garbage in that regard. (And so is V2, although it can actually give a useful result at times.) But 1.6 is an entirely different animal. Its FM sounds at least as good as the hardware, if not actually better, as strange as it may sound. (No idea how much damage youtube has done to the sound, but if it was significant then theres the explanation.) In any case, the audio speaks for itself. Personally i would rate this 'excellent' because the character is practically dead on. The maker of the video would have liked it for sure.

Archive contains:

- ResHarm: 2 passes, Hardware/Software/Hardware/Software

- FM: 1 pass, Hardware/Software. Software demonstrates FM at different Octaves for VCO3 and VCO1.

PS: The hardware audio is obviously from the video linked in the opening post.

Download here.

EDIT: Added PS.

izonin · Post by **izonin** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:02 pm

Very interesting comparison. On my listening setup Monark, followed by the Legend "Later" revision, was the closest in the pure saw/square test.

It also shows that the listening equipment might affect one's judgement.

zeep · Post by **zeep** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:56 pm

Too bad he didn't shoot out the Noise osc.

woodsdenis · Post by **woodsdenis** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 4:22 pm

Would have been surprised if the result was different, the Legend from the first play sounded and felt like the real thing to me.

Yorrrrrr · Post by **Yorrrrrr** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 4:46 pm

There's still room for improvement in the emulation, but The Legend is tremendously close. But I guess it would be a pointless task, since there are differences even between particular hardware units.

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:13 pm

Yorrrrrr wrote:There's still room for improvement in the emulation, but The Legend is tremendously close. But I guess it would be a pointless task, because there are differences even between particular hardware units.

There will be differences between the same hardware version playing the exact same thing twice in a row. Add a change in temperature or humidity, and even more changes. Add some more time and the tuning may drift a bit more and maybe the pot values become less precise. When it comes to emulations that are this close, the point becomes moot. If someone ran a Mini hardware to hardware shootout done with the same hardware unit on different days, but lied and said one was software, I'm sure there'd be folks saying variations of "the software is very close but it's not 100%," which is exactly where The Legend is right now. How much could something like The Legend really be improved upon at this point? The only changes I would want have nothing to do with the sound engine.

egbert101 · Post by **egbert101** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:14 pm

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:34 pm

I really enjoyed the video, thought it was very interesting and tbh just from what I read here I wasn't very surprised with the results. Myself I have been using minimonsta for many years (I bought the G-Force pack way back), while I think it's awesome that Legend is so close it surely doesn't make me want to go out and get it, nor do I want Diva at this point (I just bought Hive last month though).

When push comes to shove only a very small percentage of listeners if any will ever really know what they are listening to when it comes to synths, even less will ask if it's a real Moog and even fewer will know which emulation it is. However I like minimonsta, I like the "other" features and I'm quite use to working with it. Sound wise it is as good as a Moog emulation as I need and feature wise it really works for me.

It was nice to see it side by side with the moog and other emulations though so I do appreciate all the time and effort you put into making the video...well done

egbert101 · Post by **egbert101** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:46 pm

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:49 pm

An emulation will never be 100%. Thankfully. Imagine what everyone would say if there was the end-it-all, top of the line emu, and noone could do something about it.

Bad for the competitors, bad for GAS. This way, everyone profits.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:51 pm

egbert101 wrote:
Hink wrote:I really enjoyed the video, thought it was very interesting and tbh just from what I read here I wasn't very surprised with the results. Myself I have been using minimonsta for many years (I bought the G-Force pack way back), while I think it's awesome that Legend is so close it surely doesn't make me want to go out and get it, nor do I want Diva at this point (I just bought Hive last month though).

When push comes to shove only a very small percentage of listeners if any will ever really know what they are listening to when it comes to synths, even less will ask if it's a real Moog and even fewer will know which emulation it is. However I like minimonsta, I like the "other" features and I'm quite use to working with it. Sound wise it is as good as a Moog emulation as I need and feature wise it really works for me.

It was nice to see it side by side with the moog and other emulations though so I do appreciate all the time and effort you put into making the video...well done
I didn't do the video I just posted it on the forum. Full credit for the work done in the video goes to Starsky Carr.

I agree, the majority of people wouldn't notice the difference. However, for most of us nerds, we are particularly obsessive about such things, and want the highest possible quality or authenticity for the sounds we make.

what do I know, I'm just a rock and roll gi-tar player...with 6 tube amps

I amend my post to thanks for posting it

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:01 pm

chk071 wrote:An emulation will never be 100%.

Thing is, no 2 Minimoogs will ever be the same, apart maybe from the clones they produce nowadays.

I'm fairly sure if the guy who made the video had our Minimoog he'd gotten a different picture, probably with all of them sounding too harsh and bright

Also, the Minimoog I bought last year has an incredibly different sound to the one we had back then. It's like, pretty much all parts behave differently.

(makes me want to do a proper Minimoog clone again, but d'oh... when?)

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:12 pm

Instead of comparing Minimoogs to plugins, they should do one where it shows how different each
Minimoog is from the other.

Minimoog Softsynth Shootout: Diva MiniV3 Monark Legend Minimonsta vs Model D