Why don’t u-he synths Sound as good as hardware?

[FapFilter]

Which version of Ableton? I think it’s common knowledge that Live 7.1 was the peak of analogue hardware juiciness, but it sounds progressively worse in all subsequent versions. Well, at least on Windows. Everything sounds like it’s being recorded through an entirely analogue chain on Macs because they use virtual gold plated Mogami cables for all DSP routings.

BS… i have my new M1 Macbook next to my Windows 7 i7 Duo Core laptop from 2010 and i can definitely say the Windows one is significantly warmer, you can really feel it… and it's also much louder!
(and everyone knows that warmer and louder = better! )

[Sebastiantheseeker]

I heard Mac mini’s use platinum instead of gold. Makes the sound more crispy (and punchy)

[BBFG#]

Perhaps all synths sound bad when the batteries in your hearing aids need changing?

[ssl4000]

^ hahaha

[arkmabat]

Slap some saturation on it. Hell, run it through a hardware compressor.

[Bulbizarre]

Because they use hidden soundgoodizing techniques which are not objectively good for sound quality, they just make it louder. Besides, hardware is more expensive so it will always sound better, even when the files match 100% the same data.

[kritikon]

Well, u-he synths don't have knobs on them, do they? Obvious innit. Knobs make everything sound better, and the fancier your knob, the better it sounds...or something like that. Though I suspect this comment belongs in a different forum.

[zerocrossing]

Define “good.” I had a room full of VA and ROMpler hardware and a few hours with Zebra 2 had most of it up on eBay the next day.

[BONES]

All VA softsynths sound more or less the same when you strip it all back. They all use the same basic maths to generate sound. Where they differ is in features and UX and effects.

That is the stupidest thing I have read this month (and you've been writing some pretty stupid shit in that other thread). There is infinitely more variety in the sounds of different softsynths than there is between different hardware synths. This is especially true of old analogue synths, where they often shared a lot of components. e.g. The Curtiss 3340 oscillator chip was used on Prophet-V Rev 3, Pro-One and OB-Xa, as well as on some Roland and Moog synths. That shit doesn't happen nearly as much with softsynths.

OTOH, a modern wavetable synth, for example, will sound like whichever wavetable you happen to load into it and there must be tens of thousands of wavetables around by now. And synths like DUNE or Pigments have dozens of different sounding filters to choose from, etc., etc.

[jamcat]

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[jamcat]

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[jamcat]

All VA softsynths sound more or less the same when you strip it all back. They all use the same basic maths to generate sound. Where they differ is in features and UX and effects.

That is the stupidest thing I have read this month (and you've been writing some pretty stupid shit in that other thread). There is infinitely more variety in the sounds of different softsynths than there is between different hardware synths. This is especially true of old analogue synths, where they often shared a lot of components. e.g. The Curtiss 3340 oscillator chip was used on Prophet-V Rev 3, Pro-One and OB-Xa, as well as on some Roland and Moog synths. That shit doesn't happen nearly as much with softsynths.

OTOH, a modern wavetable synth, for example, will sound like whichever wavetable you happen to load into it and there must be tens of thousands of wavetables around by now. And synths like DUNE or Pigments have dozens of different sounding filters to choose from, etc., etc.

No, there's really only one way to create a sinewave mathematically.
It looks something like this in C++

Code: Select all

float value = amplitude * sin(2 * double_Pi * frequency * time + phase);

You have this habit of attacking straw men. We're talking about VA synthesis, which means virtual oscillators, but you go on the attack about wavetables instead, which are digital samples.

You did the same thing in the other thread you're referencing here.

[kritikon]

WTF has a sinewave got to do with how a VA synth sounds? You reckon they all use sinewaves as oscillators? And of course all the filters are exactly the same too...

[jamcat]

A square wave is made from a sum of sine waves.
A sawtooth is a piecewise function where f(x) = x when x < 𝜋, and f(x) = x - 2𝜋 when x ≥ 𝜋.

The maths are what they are.

There are a few different filter techniques which are really all about weighing the tradeoffs of each when deciding which one to use. There are just a handful of algorithms out there that anyone uses.

Difference come from topology, and maybe some secret sauce (stuff like Arturia's TAE). But generally the difference exists only in UX and in your head. You're not going to be able to hear a difference in basic sound generation from one softsynth to another in a blind test. Sorry.

[BONES]

You can test this out for yourself and see how utterly wrong you are. Just sample a few raw oscillators in different softsynths and see how close they are to one another. In fact, you don't even need to do it yourself as there are several threads around where others have done it for you, like THIS ONE. You can hear for yourself that they are not all the same.

No, there's really only one way to create a sinewave mathematically.

You don't need to code a sine wave, you can use a sample or a wavetable if you prefer, just as there are different ways of creating a sine wave in an analogue circuit.

You have this habit of attacking straw men.

You have this habit of spouting absolute nonsense.

We're talking about VA synthesis, which means virtual oscillators, but you go on the attack about wavetables instead, which are digital samples.

A lot V/A synths, software and hardware, use wavetables or samples for their oscillators. They are usually those that alias badly at higher frequencies.