indistinguishable from hardware ??

[A.M. Gold]

I'm just being proactive. I know this is a very hotly argued subject, and that's the reason why I stress the need for thoroughness and tight controls in any test (not because we are going to send the results to Scientific American for publication).

I would want to see a very well thought out test in which all variables are reported openly and understood before any "precedent" is set on KVR as to whether analog can be distinguished from digital. I don't want the way to be paved for people overgeneralizing and claiming the proof was established by such and such test in such and such thread when the test may have been designed in questionable ways.

[Gonga]

In science, it's often easier and safer to set up very narrowly-defined, strict guidelines if you want the result to be meaningful. For example, we know that some, perhaps most, old analogs have better transient attacks than most VAs. It would be easy to record a blasting analog attack and then see whether ANY VA, set up in any similar way, could do the same. Use one oscillator, turn off everything except the VCO (no filter or wide open with no resonance, etc.), and open the VCO sustain only. I suspect that until the last few years no VA could achieve the attack of the best analogs, and I think the average person could hear the difference. Today, I still think it's probably true, but much less so.

I think using scope / displays one should even be able to quantify exactly how much faster and louder the attack of say, a minimoog is than the fastest VA, say, Zebra. I've always wondered about that. The new VAs are so good that this would be interesting to see.

I'm not interestedin emulations per se. Just in being able to do the things I used to do. Until recently, there were a lot of things I couldn't do with my VAs. Those days are already gone. I'm a happy camper, especially since for the price of one old poly synth I could have every piece of software I could ever want, from the DAW right on down to the effect vst.

[ariston]

Gee, when I went to bed, this godawful thread had actually been salvaged and was turned into a fun, unassuming little listening test. What happened? Who let in the self-righteous smarty-pants?

Anyhow, when this supa-dupa grade-a scientific poll has reached its terrifying conclusion, someone alert CNN and tell them that the analogue-VA debate has finally been resolved. I'm sure this news will eclipse the current Greek crisis.

[glokraw]

What if, one day, a virtual analogue synth came out that simply sounds better than its analogue counterparts? It still wouldn't sound the same then... just maybe more snappy, more crunchy, more meaty and maybe less noisy.

If this isn't a clever pre pre product release announcement, you might include
a link for a certain less snappy, less crunchy, less meaty, and maybe less noisy instrument, one that was used in scoring that recent Batman movie thing.
I wonder if they used analog film?

[Sendy]

I for one am finding the poll and a lot of these types of discussions interesting, I can't participate because I've never operated an analogue synth apart from extremely rare sessions on an MC-202 and TB-303, but I'm curious about how it will turn out. Though I don't think the findings are going to be any Holy Grail on the digilogue vs. anatal war (why would anybody be that dumb?).

[A.M. Gold]

Gee, when I went to bed, this godawful thread had actually been salvaged and was turned into a fun, unassuming little listening test. What happened? Who let in the self-righteous smarty-pants?

Anyhow, when this supa-dupa grade-a scientific poll has reached its terrifying conclusion, someone alert CNN and tell them that the analogue-VA debate has finally been resolved. I'm sure this news will eclipse the current Greek crisis.

Are you talking about me? Self-righteous? That's a laugh.

I already stated very clearly---I'm trying to head off what I'm sure is coming, which is people far more self-righteous than me claiming that tests like these have "settled" whether analog synths and their digital "counterparts" are indistinguishable.

I have no idea if Peter intended to use the results of this "test" for that purpose, but I certainly know he shows up in many of these threads pushing his product as if it is somehow relevant to possibly resolving the question.

IMO, he isn't the best person to be presenting such a test, and it doesn't take any iota of self-righteousness (not to mention being a "smarty pants", whatever that was supposed to mean) it just takes plain common sense to see that that is the case.

[danbroad]

I will only participate in this listening test when I can find myself a purely analogue Internet portal.

[ariston]

Gee, when I went to bed, this godawful thread had actually been salvaged and was turned into a fun, unassuming little listening test. What happened? Who let in the self-righteous smarty-pants?

Anyhow, when this supa-dupa grade-a scientific poll has reached its terrifying conclusion, someone alert CNN and tell them that the analogue-VA debate has finally been resolved. I'm sure this news will eclipse the current Greek crisis.

Are you talking about me? Self-righteous? That's a laugh.

Well... what makes you think I was talking about you?

I understand your concerns, but to my mind, you're making too much out of this. Basically all makers of quality soft synths were being called into question by izonin, and he took up the gauntlet. I wouldn't dare use these poll "results" as a marketing instrument if I were him. He does show up a lot, but there are other developers that come to mind who I find are more aggressive (and at times obnoxious) that way.

[A.M. Gold]

I will only participate in this listening test when I can find myself a purely analogue Internet portal.

Very good point, but in a way that's a separate issue. reason being, almost all media these days are digital, which means even analog synths (and all acoustic instruments) become "digital" when they are recorded. Consequently, what we would really be comparing would be the analog source within the digital domain, versus the digital source within the same domain.

[A.M. Gold]

Gee, when I went to bed, this godawful thread had actually been salvaged and was turned into a fun, unassuming little listening test. What happened? Who let in the self-righteous smarty-pants?

Anyhow, when this supa-dupa grade-a scientific poll has reached its terrifying conclusion, someone alert CNN and tell them that the analogue-VA debate has finally been resolved. I'm sure this news will eclipse the current Greek crisis.

Are you talking about me? Self-righteous? That's a laugh.

Well... what makes you think I was talking about you?

Ah, ok, please excuse. I came into this thread late so from your wording (i.e. mentioning scientific, since I used that word) I thought you meant me. I haven't read most of izonin's posts. I saw that this had turned into a big pissing match and I really felt that an off the cuff test, particularly one posted by a VA developer and featuring his own product, wasn't necessarily the best way to approach putting much of a resolution to what was turning into a very argumentative subject.

[Rangtangtang]

I would like to point out that all hardware comes in boxes and they all share many of the same type of components. So does the radio for example it makes noise and has switches to press and knobs to turn that affect the sound. Some even come with a remote controller with buttons too. Some have operating systems in them and others are purely analog. But they are all hardware and can come in metal, plastic or even wood boxes and some sit in racks or stand on shelves. Usually there is a lot of black but some people enjoy a bit of wood grain. The good news is they are all a lot of good wholesome fun.

[MaxSynths]

MaxSynths patch nailed it pretty well. Which synth is this used on the OSCTest2.wav file?

Thank you Gonga. It's not an existing synth. It's a synth I've put together in SE to test a new oscillator "inspired" by these threads (in particular the thread about "analog bass").

[trimph1]

This thread is still alive?

Wow.

I'm going to say this again. The argument "Analogue vs VA" is getting sillier every year. They are different sounds in an ever widening pallet. No heirarchy here guys...only difference.

Try to imagine other than the old either/or of ranking one over the other

[whyterabbyt]

This thread is still alive?

Wow.

I'm going to say this again. The argument "Analogue vs VA" is getting sillier every year. They are different sounds in an ever widening pallet. No heirarchy here guys...only difference.

Try to imagine other than the old either/or of ranking one over the other

then how will we know if we have teh bestest gear evar?

[Peter999]

Uff, just read through the part I missed during the night. Here some quoted replies:

For those who missed, I just put the examples because izonin said OP-X PRO-II sound "poor" and crippled, as well as all VSTis in general sound poor and crippled compared to hardware. So you understand that I had to reply, and wanted to give him the chance to say which A or B of each examples sounds poor then since he had to know. Unfortunately he wasn't willing to leave his vote, otherwise it would have been ended at this point. But then some other members left their votes, and now we are on page 27. In fact I would have expected that everyone should be easily able to say which is the real synth, didn't expect such a variety of different votes

As far as I know (frequently in the past a limitation!) Zebra is the only VA that can do anything like this.

?? Lots of VST's can do clicking envelopes if that's the behaviour you want. Here's OP-X Pro II. I did a rough copy of the sound you played and set it to snap. As the title suggests, your sound first, OP-X is second.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37542806/OPXis2nd_SNAP.mp3

Yeah, that's a good attack. That makes two VAs! I've spent time with the OP-X and it's a great synth. It doesn't have the pitch bend settings I prefer - 3 up and 12 down.

To check the "clickiness" of the envelopes you can load the PROII_TESTPATCHES bank (OP-X PRO-II, also available in the demo), and here the preset 2 "Envelope Test".

However if an envelope feels fast for percussive sounds using longer times is not dependent on the shortest time (which can be very short in OP-X PRO-II, like in the real OB-X, so has the snappy analog "click"), but on the curve. And here the OB-X wasn't the fastest of the bunch.

the ones I picked as 'more analog' could have been processed otherwise to obtain that result, I have no doubt of that much.

No, nothing is processed, it's all pure, no effects, no eq. OP-X PRO-II was rendered directly to disk, OB-X recorded directly to disk over an apogee converter (which doesn't colour the sound). So it's a fair and pure comparison. As said several times, I never said they sound identical! So you SHOULD be able to hear a difference. The only question was if one of the two sounds poor (so must be the VSTi), and then which one.

Hmm, not sure what you mean. You mean how it responds to midi data? Oscillator 1's pitch does default to moving up in octaves. You can setting the sides of FQ1 / FQ2 to "LIN" and that will change how they behave. You can then control the pitch in finer amounts with the FQ1/FQ2 trim pots, though its a more limited pitch range than the main pitch knob.

When you set the "QUA" (quantized) to "LIN" then also the big knobs change pitch seamlessly (without steps) for full five octaves.

Thanks PAK. I like to assign the sync sweep to pedal. That and the pitch bend killed it for me.

You can learn the pedal to OSC2 pitch and set it to LIN, then you have the sync sweep on the pedal