Analog or digital ?

[WMP]

That's the only downside with analog, to get that digital type pad sounds you have to slap on the fx....but I still prefer the end result to using virtual synths.

But then I suppose this is a hybrid since the sound sources are analog with digital fx being played back by Kontakt 3.5 a virtual synth lol

As for the fx it's a dark stereo shifting reverb patch on the Lexicon Pcm81 and on the Eventide it's quite a bit of processing...reverb inot phaser and chorus.

I love the Eventide H8000FW so much, it's just not your average purchase and I certainly did not have the money for it...got a loan out to buy itlol....no pocket money for me for the next few years.

Saying that I just forked out for a Roland SVC 350...the Mrs will cut my nuts off when she finds out. But again software just couldn't come close, the Eosis Vocoder is probably the best software vocoder but I wanted that 'Air' sound... think 'Kelly Watch the Stars'. Software just couldn't do it.

[pschelfh]

the Mrs will cut my nuts off when she finds out.

Wow, you should sample that and process it with the Eventide!!

Peter.

[Epiphany]

I find this point about the difference in processing needed to tame quality outboard vs software/ITB, very interesting. I often wonder how some of my favourite electronic music was made, so organic and flowing; it sounds like the artist just wrote the music without endlessly fattening and locking all these disparate timbres together.

OTOH, all my creative energy is expended on engineering before I've actually written much at all. My sounds don't just "work" by themselves.

[WMP]

Yeah that's kindof it, you just don't need tons of plugins inserted over the analog sounds. If anything it kind of hurts the sound putting on digital eq and comps.

I want simplicity and to get the sound I want without the fuss. Analog gives me that, samples of analog sounds gives me the total recall I need when I need it.

The example I posted before was just me trying to make one of those JD-990 type pad sounds out of the analog gear.... it did need a lot of proccessing by hardware digital fx to get it there.

But normally for bass or a lead I just fire up a monosynth and let rip. It doesn't need any eq or plugins inserted it just sound right from the word go. Maybe a bit of analog compression to give it some control... but that's about it.

[Epiphany]

Yes, that was a very nice clip, as was living sounds'. Both had that simple, punchy, not over-engineered sound. It still tells in the low end, to my ears. Software isn't "there" off the bat, at least for me. I've been told hundreds of times to just bite the bullet and get 101 or something for bass.

To that end, I had a choice a while back between a monosynth (Pro One or SH2/9 were almost lined up) plus a decent poly of some description (something Roland or Korg) but, ultimately, I did a last minute 180 and went for the workhorse, centre-of-studio Access Virus TI.

Needless to say, this discussion attests to the fact that I'm not sure I made the right choice.

[living sounds]

To that end, I had a choice a while back between a monosynth (Pro One or SH2/9 were almost lined up) plus a decent poly of some description (something Roland or Korg) but, ultimately, I did a last minute 180 and went for the workhorse, centre-of-studio Access Virus TI.

Needless to say, this discussion attests to the fact that I'm not sure I made the right choice.

Ultimately we've got to accept we're not made of money (few exceptions do exist) and that it will take (a lot) of time to get a really studio together. In this day and age there are hardly any bargains left, on the contrary. An exception exists with DIY for certain high end outboard. Studio tape recorders that cost a fortune back in the day, as well as some good consoles.

[Mans]

It still tells in the low end, to my ears. Software isn't "there" off the bat, at least for me.

This is such a vague statement. I've heared this before but what about the low frequencies in software is not 'there'? Because physically they're definately all there. Or do you want them to completely disappear when you increase the filter resonance like in the SH-2?

[themossinator]

One thing I note, is that the analog examples that get posted in these threads are not usually trying to be musical. Let's hear an analog/VA comparison as it would be played in a song (without the foray into radical resonance settings and envelop swings). Under those extreme circumstances it is easy to hear the analog difference, but how about in more musical circumstances? When I compose a song, the bass is relatively monotonous. By that I mean it is as it is and there are not generally wild modulation swings etc. It is fulfilling a part in a greater composition. Under these circumstances, I believe VA holds up better than under the 'let's do every wild modulation to show how VA cannot keep up' method.

Here's an example using just a single sawwave oscillator of a Roland SH-2 and me playing around with the filter and the envelope. No processing added.

www.scherer.de/Download/SH_Saw.wav

[fas1piano]

i have listened to the clips linked above. my personal conclusions:

- they sound different
- so most people can tell them apart
- so someone who had read the thread on gearslutz would probably know which was which synth
- differences are to be expected from matching two diffent instruments. i am impressed by how good this worked. i could not do this.

both clips show more or less sounds "interesting" sounds, some of them i can imagine in a musical context i might like. example 2 is brighter in some extreme settings - why, i don't know, there are too many variables (e.g. settings on both instruments and parameter scaling).

some people show a preference for one of the instruments based on overall assessment, some like certain sounds shown in either clip better than other sounds.

what does this "show" me? not much, i am afraid. it is just difficult to compare instruments in a meaningful way.

we would need:

- at least 16 "musically useful" phrases (statistics! two alternatives is just guessing) and
- compare them in a blind test to 16 carefully matched phrases, sometimes digital matched to analog, sometimes vice versa.

[typos edited. ]

that would at least tell us who can realiable tell apart the digital synth A from the analog synth B. IMO that would be a start of a useful discussion, of course still not relevant to those that have a totatlly different understanding of a "musically useful" phrase is...

[living sounds]

So what about this one:

www.scherer.de/Download/Trio.wav

With all the resonance and filter tweaking, that's surely not how anyone would use it.

[raintalk]

what does this "show" me? not much, i am afraid. it is just difficult to compare instruments in a meaningful way.

we would need:

- at least 16 "musically useful" phrases (statistics! two alternatives is just guessing) and
- compare them in a blind test to 16 carefully matched phrases, sometimes digital matched to analog, sometimes vice versa.


that would at least tell us who can realiable tell apart the digital synth A from the analog synth B. IMO that would be a start of a useful discussion, of course still not relevant to those that have a totatlly different understanding of a "musically useful" phrase is...

I'd venture to say that it would be very hard to get two analog synths to sound like each other. I'd like to see a larger set of different analog synths. More synths and sounds on both sides of the fence would be good.

I'd also venture to say that if you added what I'd call nonsense artifacts to digital you have even a tougher time distinguishing them.
I read a blind test where a group "audiophiles" were given vinyl and CD. This group of audiophiles always picked vinyl as the best sounding. Then the testers recorded vinyl to CD and repeated the test. The audiophiles couldn't tell a difference. One could conclude that CD preserves 100% of analog, and that group of audiophiles like the artifacts of vinyl (snap, crackle, pop) but this has nothing to do with the music on them.

I bet if digital came first in the historical timeline, analog would be dismissed as inferior.

[The Chase]

One thing I note, is that the analog examples that get posted in these threads are not usually trying to be musical. Let's hear an analog/VA comparison as it would be played in a song (without the foray into radical resonance settings and envelop swings). Under those extreme circumstances it is easy to hear the analog difference, but how about in more musical circumstances? When I compose a song, the bass is relatively monotonous. By that I mean it is as it is and there are not generally wild modulation swings etc. It is fulfilling a part in a greater composition. Under these circumstances, I believe VA holds up better than under the 'let's do every wild modulation to show how VA cannot keep up' method.

Here's an example using just a single sawwave oscillator of a Roland SH-2 and me playing around with the filter and the envelope. No processing added.

www.scherer.de/Download/SH_Saw.wav

This is actually a funny phenomenon in these threads.

It seems that, the more musical the application, the less important the difference.

Which is why most anti-digital arguments go something like, "But, but, but, when you play C7 with the filter all the way open and there's no other music playing, you can hear aliasing!"

It's pretty much a given that when it comes down to the end result, or even a fully processed/mixed track on its own, the difference is typically nowt. I love the sound of analog synths but there are a handful of examples where their character is reflected in the end result.

[Vectorman]

Interestingly enough, I just wasted two hours this morning going 'round trying to get the right bass sound for a track. I started with a Strobe (Synth Squad) bass sound - actually two patches, one for the main bottom and a second layered a bit on top to add some "fizz." I figured I should try some analog samples and see if something might work better. I went through a dozens of multisampled basses from the SH-101, ATC-1, Mopho and Voyager. I thought some were okay and lined them up in Kontakt for comparison. Then I unmuted the Strobe track and it sounded better in the track to me than any of the above.

It's not the first time I've gone through that kind of thing only to find that the (sampled) analog magic I was hoping would slot like butter into my track just kind of...didn't. I've only done one track in the last two years where I was actually able to use one of my sampled analog basses - finally I found a decent fit on a song. I still have enough curiosity on the subject to contemplate getting an analog mono synth sometime to see if I'd have better luck having it "in person and tweakable." Maybe I'll snag an ATC-1 or an SH-2 or whatever sometime and have a go. If it makes a difference in my mixes, great. If not, I can put the subject to bed and not waste any more time fussing over it.

[living sounds]

It's not the first time I've gone through that kind of thing only to find that the (sampled) analog magic I was hoping would slot like butter into my track just kind of...didn't. I've only done one track in the last two years where I was actually able to use one of my sampled analog basses - finally I found a decent fit on a song. I still have enough curiosity on the subject to contemplate getting an analog mono synth sometime to see if I'd have better luck having it "in person and tweakable." Maybe I'll snag an ATC-1 or an SH-2 or whatever sometime and have a go. If it makes a difference in my mixes, great. If not, I can put the subject to bed and not waste any more time fussing over it.

Sampled never worked that well for me either. For one thing, you don't know how these samples were recorded, I've hardly ever heard a sample manufacturer (safe for things like Ocean way drums) use really good converters, especially not on synths. Most soft samplers don't sound good to me either, especially not when the sample is cut right at the beginning of the envelope. I've got a suspicion that the part before the envelope starts is important for the preceived impact of the sound. Very often with things recorded from analog there is some very low end thing going on before the envelope (think of the rise of the envelope as a very low sine wave), the same is true for outboard processing. Or that's how it translates into PCM-encoded waveforms (since it cannot actually be there in the analog domain). Ultimately this would mean that purely digital real time emulations are impossible, of course.

[Mans]

Or that's how it translates into PCM-encoded waveforms (since it cannot actually be there in the analog domain). Ultimately this would mean that purely digital real time emulations are impossible, of course.

Wouldn't that mean that a synth performance would not be able to be stored as sample values either? And what makes a waveform stored as sample values different from a waveform stored as say particles on tape with varying magnetism (other of course than the fact that stored as sample values sigficantly decreases the distortion and increases the dynamic range) when it reaches the ear? Or any other sound wave for that matter? Aren't you saying that nothing can be faithfully recorded?