Yamaha CS-80 VST

[HunterKiller]

ME-80 is definitely the BEST sounding of them all.

[_leras]

Arturia: The weakest sounding of the bunch, but still quite good sounding. Definitely more going on under the hood to play with, and that makes it more fun for sound design.

I think Weval used the Arturia, and their production is fantastic.

I also think it can sound pretty great, but I haven't used it too much. Partly as the UI isn't super friendly.

[_leras]

Came across this comparison.

To be honest none sound that close but maybe the guy could have dialed in sounds a bit closer. However,

Arturia sounded pretty nice and quite musical
Xils lab had maybe the most present sound and sounded really great, probably the best
softube just sounded like a different synth, and really not that great
Cherry audio, to me, just sounded like almost any old softsynth

The real synth, sounded alive compared to all of them...

[martiu]

Morphoice UNSTABLE is the best one

[zvenx]

Good lord.. .I couldn't 't even get pass the first comparison..
Softube literally has an africa patch that sounds so much closer to the original compared what sounded like a random patch he choose.
rsp

[IvyBirds]

Arturia: The weakest sounding of the bunch, but still quite good sounding. Definitely more going on under the hood to play with, and that makes it more fun for sound design.

I think the Arturia version of the CS80 follows the same paradigm as all of the other Vintage Analog Emulations they do, and a few of their digital ones specifically the DX7-V and the CZ-V

Arturia tries and succeeds to give you the flavor of the original while also opening the synth up to expanded sound design options

So while you might not get an exact duplicate of the original CS80, or Prophet 5, or DX7, or Jupiter 8, you do get a really good sounding synth that has the flavors of those things that can do all sorts of things the originals couldn't

One thing I will also say about Arturia's competitors when it comes to vintage synth emulations is a lot of them are putting some kind of signal processing after the actual synth engine that we have little to no control over

For example very few of us have any real world experience with an actual CS80. What we know of it comes from albums and sound tracks we love. I think if we heard a real CS80, or Jupiter 8 that was fresh off the factory floor and plugged straight into a transparent Interface and we listened to it on our studio monitors we would be pretty underwhelmed

But take that synth and play it through a nice console, with lots of outboard, record it to high quality tape, play it back from tape through that board again at mix down, with more outboard, and then record it again to a different tape, and then have a mastering engineer play that take back through more expensive outboard and sweeten it, record that to a master tape and have it pressed to vinyl and that gives these Synths outstanding color and sonic sweeteners

I highly suspect there is a lot of that being emulated behind the scenes in a lot of these plugins that we all think sounds more "authentic".

[martiu]

Unstable is hard to recommend now that it's nearly the same price as the XILS. IMO, it was the best freeware synth ever when it was freeware.

Model 77 is excellent but I prefer the sharpness of the XILS. It just comes down to personal preference at that point because they're both great.

Not only is unstable 99 usd but it still is unsigned on Mac OS. Do we have to run code in terminal to allow it to run. Only worked for the AU for me though not vst3. I asked the dev about this and he was rather rude actually, saying that it’s common for small developers not to sign the plugin and how could he know every configuration of a user or why something doesn’t work. And said there will be no change as he has no control over it. If I’m not wrong it’s 100 dollar fee to Apple per year? Literally the cost of one license.

Shame, as it sounds great. But come on, even most free plugins are signed. But if the signing thing doesn’t bother and it works, it’s a really nice cs-80. Even improved filters.

the plugin is still in free beta

[Echoes in the Attic]

Unstable is hard to recommend now that it's nearly the same price as the XILS. IMO, it was the best freeware synth ever when it was freeware.

Model 77 is excellent but I prefer the sharpness of the XILS. It just comes down to personal preference at that point because they're both great.

Not only is unstable 99 usd but it still is unsigned on Mac OS. Do we have to run code in terminal to allow it to run. Only worked for the AU for me though not vst3. I asked the dev about this and he was rather rude actually, saying that it’s common for small developers not to sign the plugin and how could he know every configuration of a user or why something doesn’t work. And said there will be no change as he has no control over it. If I’m not wrong it’s 100 dollar fee to Apple per year? Literally the cost of one license.

Shame, as it sounds great. But come on, even most free plugins are signed. But if the signing thing doesn’t bother and it works, it’s a really nice cs-80. Even improved filters.

the plugin is still in free beta

only for the beta period

[martiu]

i am aware of that, but it was discussed like you have to pay now to have it and that is not the case

[Echoes in the Attic]

i am aware of that, but it was discussed like you have to pay now to have it and that is not the case

Because you don't get to keep the license for free once out of beta. But yes free for now, much like a trial period.

[martiu]

oh so after that it will stop working?

[Echoes in the Attic]

oh so after that it will stop working?

Actually good question. I’m not sure if the beta is time limited but once the beta is done my understanding is that you’re supposed to have a license to use it. So at the very least you’d not be able to update it ever again and might be using it illegallly once beta is finished. But I’m not sure, didn’t read the fine print.

[Uncle E]

I think if we heard a real CS80, or Jupiter 8 that was fresh off the factory floor and plugged straight into a transparent Interface and we listened to it on our studio monitors we would be pretty underwhelmed

A real Jupiter-8 is as lush sounding as it gets. If anything, many recordings failed to capture it in all its beauty, most likely because they had to thin it out to make it sit better in the mix.

With that said, I would agree that it's underwhelming in terms of value. It's certainly not a $20,000 improvement over plugins.

I highly suspect there is a lot of that being emulated behind the scenes in a lot of these plugins that we all think sounds more "authentic".

IMO, XILS and Unstable are better for the bright, brassy Vangelis sound, while Model 77 is better for the smooth Toto sound. I have no idea which is more realistic.

[Examigan]

I like the XILS version best, but I just wanted to mention I like OP-X Pro for the many sounds it has. It's not an emulation of the CS-80 of course, but the presets it has sound very good. It has a Toto/Africa preset that's pretty good, and you probably wouldn't guess it was from the OP-X.

[zerocrossing]

Arturia: The weakest sounding of the bunch, but still quite good sounding. Definitely more going on under the hood to play with, and that makes it more fun for sound design.

I think Weval used the Arturia, and their production is fantastic.

I also think it can sound pretty great, but I haven't used it too much. Partly as the UI isn't super friendly.

I honestly think the only way to give a CS-80 plugin a good interface would be to totally ignore the look and layout of a CS-80.