Gforce Oddity2

[Ingonator]

So, can an attempted or even failed emulation also be referred to as an emulation?
Is a copy a copy when something of the original is missing?

So we should use the term "emulation" based on the grade of authencity? Seriously?

Due to that only very few plugins would fit in that category and even Oddity 2 while it is great it could maybe fail there when directly compared to the Korg ARP Odyssey (and not just 1 or 2 patches where they maybe sound similar...)

Also SQ8L which is seen as one of the best emulations would maybe fail then. At low Resonance the filter sems to emulate the real thing quite good but recently at a comparison with my Ensoniq ESQ-1 (ESQ-1 and SQ-80 have the same filter and also overall are very similar except soe additional features in SQ-80) i found that at higher Resonance the plugin seems to be quite different. It looses quite a lot of the low end at higher Resonance, opposing to the real thing.

Due to that definitiion currently i would only see those plugins as "emulations":
NI Monark, TAL Bassline-101, TAL U-NO-LX V2, Waldorf PPG Wave 3.V, Korg M1, Korg Wavestation.

For Minimoog, PPG Wave 2.3 and Wavestation i could confirm this as i have owned or played the real things in the past and still own a Wavvestation EX. Even with Wavestation i would say the plugin sound wise is closer to the SR rack than to the older versions like the original keyboard, EX keyboard and A/D rack (i had owned all of them except the original keyboard while the EX keyboard besides additional features like bigger ROM and more FXs should be similar). The SR seems to have a cleaner sound and maybe less "balls" and/or "character" than the older versions.

Some people mentioned that e.g. the Xils Lab plugins are no perfect emulations but how would you get your hands on synths like a Synthex (plugin: Xils LAb Syn'X 2 and MiniSyn'X) or even the very rare RSF PolyKobol or PolyKobol 2 (plugin: PolyKB II). XILS 4 seems to be based on an EMS VCS4 proptotype that was never released. All Xils Lab synths got zero delay feedback filters so the yusually still sound good at extreme filter settings like e.g. Self oscillation.

Arturia Matrix-12V is the only synth that includes all features of the real thing while maybe sound wise it is not 100% authentic. Anyway it seems to soudn nice as it is which is also true for most other Arturia plugins. You could also further improve them by using external FXs including e.g. a Bass boosting FX for better low end.

Not to forget maybe Diva was not intended to be a proper emulation of all included synths and/or synth modules (for Oberheim there only is teh Uhbie filter so far...) but it could come very close or even nail lots of those sounds while the patrameter ranges do not match the real synths which makes re-prohramming patches in Diva difficult. I had done that myself with my Diva factory patches that i did during the public Beta and which is includd in teh "3rd paryt" folder.

I could give more examples but could not discuss all plugins taht are intended to be "emulations" as those are a lot...

[2ZrgE]

He could of course say that, but then it would be a miserable emulation, and people may laugh at him.

You can claim any kind of things, but chances are that you are not taken seriously if your claims are rather ridiculous.

[Ingonator]

I believe Arturia uses single cycle samples of the oscillators of the instruments they are trying to reproduce but every filter sounds the same. It's probably all the stock filters. Same as tone 2 stuff. Made one set of filters and uses it for all their instruments. They all sound the same to me.

I do not think Arturia uses samples and i also do not think that the filters are all the same, especially with newer plugins like Matrix-12V or SEM.

Concerning Tone2 indeed some filters were included with multiple synths but usually newer plugins also include updated and/or additional new filters (which is also true for the upcoming Icarus synth).
The Saurus 2 filters seem to be differemnt from teh other plugins and they also use a zero delay feedback implementation. Recently when i tried to use Self oscillation in Saurus 2 i fisrt was a bit irritaed as there seemed to be noise at Self oscillation that i did not remember from v1. Then i found that in the setup you could add noise to emulate the behavior of vintage synths). With "init analog" the noise seems to be on at the lowest level and with "init digital" it is off. With that noise switched off the Self oscillation was clean again.

[fluffy_little_something]

I was not referring to Arturia in particular. I don't know their stuff well enough, nor have I played the original hardware. But a lot of people say that Arturia stuff sounds all rather similar, which I suppose it shouldn't if their emulations were really good.

Good, that is the point, where to draw the line between a good and a bad emulation. One has to draw that line somewhere. I mean, just think of those Manx emulations...

[Dasheesh]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

[2ZrgE]

I was not referring to Arturia in particular. I don't know their stuff well enough, nor have I played the original hardware. But a lot of people say that Arturia stuff sounds all rather similar, which I suppose it shouldn't if their emulations were really good.

Good, that is the point, where to draw the line between a good and a bad emulation. One has to draw that line somewhere. I mean, just think of those Manx emulations...

Dude you are around here quite a long time now - haven't you realized yet that it means literally nothing when people depict their hearing impressions?

[Ingonator]

I was not referring to Arturia in particular. I don't know their stuff well enough, nor have I played the original hardware. But a lot of people say that Arturia stuff sounds all rather similar, which I suppose it shouldn't if their emulations were really good.

Good, that is the point, where to draw the line between a good and a bad emulation. One has to draw that line somewhere. I mean, just think of those Manx emulations...

Nobody "has" to draw such line. Anyay the Manx plugins seem to be some of the worst examples of "emulations".
Compared to them all Arturia plugins could be considered as proper emulations, same about TimewARP 2600 and many others...

BTW what about checking the Arturia plugins yourself and not just listen to what others tell you? It also helps doing some of your own patches with them, not just playing with te presets.
Many people out there seem to be very happy with the Arturia plugins and many do not even care how close tehy sound to the real thing. Actually even if i was quite picky in teh past i mostly agree to taht and like the Arturia plugins for what they are.
With the recent sale the whole V-Collection 4 was only slightly more expensive than Oddity 2 at the full price at the GForce website (and with VAT added). I had luck to get Oddity 2 cheaper at JRRShop using the KVR discount and with no VAT necessary there but it was still quite expensive for a plugin (similar to teh more expensive Tone2 plugins).

[fluffy_little_something]

Nobody "has" to draw such line. Anyay the Manx plugins seem to be some of the worst examples of "emulations".
Compared to them all Arturia plugins could be considered as proper emulations, same about TimewARP 2600 and many others...

BTW what about checking the Arturia plugins yourself and not just listen to what others tell you? It also helps doing some of your own patches with them, not just playing with te presets.
Many people out there seem to be very happy with the Arturia plugins and many do not even care how close tehy sound to the real thing. Actually even if i was quite picky in teh past i mostly agree to taht and like the Arturia plugins for what they are.
With the recent sale the whole V-Collection 4 was only slightly more expensive than Oddity 2 at the full price at the GForce website (and with VAT added). I had luck to get Oddity 2 cheaper at JRRShop using the KVR discount and with no VAT necessary there but it was still quite expensive for a plugin (similar to teh more expensive Tone2 plugins).

Well, when speaking of emulations it is only natural that one draws such lines. You are doing it yourself when you say that Manx emulations are among the worst out there. So obviously you distinguish between good and bad ones, i.e. you are using certain criteria and draw your line based on them.

Because my eyesight sucks. If the J8 emulation had a usable GUI, I would indeed get it, provided it sounded great to me (not even as an emulation because I never played the original anyway).
The GUI problem goes for most of their stuff, except the SEM, which however seems to use a lot more CPU than the earlier emulations.

But frankly, I am more and more unhappy with synth plugins the longer I use them, I have yet to find one that doesn't have a flaw in my view

[Ingonator]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

Any proof about your claims about the sampels and filters?
Some Arturia plugins like e.g. Mini V, modular V and ARP 2600V2 are also available as FX plugins theoretically this could be tested uisng an external sound source and then the different filters.
I just did a fisrt tset using a single Osc of the Minimoog SOc from Diva as a source and teh FX plugins of Mini V and ARP 2600V2 as filters using similar seting for the 24dB Lowpass filters (of course the other filters in the ARP 2600V multimode filter sound different...). So far i could not confirm taht those filters do sound similar and the filter in ARP 2600 V2 seems to have a much better low end than Mini V (of course this is better in certain other Minimoog emuations like Monark or the correspondin modules in Diva). ARP 2600 V2 is currentkly at v2.7 and the filters seemed to be improved since the very fisrt version. Same sems to be also true for e.g. Modular V (currently v2.8 ). You will hardly find another native plugin that feature and sound wise is close to the Moog Modular from Arturia.

Concerning audio rate modulations the problem is usually the filter and with zero delay feedback filter usually this works properly.

[chk071]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

You should really stop assuming and claiming things you have no clue about.

[Gamma-UT]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

I don't know how you did it, but you seem to have created a new class of Wrong beyond Wrongest and Not Even Wrong.

[Dasheesh]

I just don't have any ties to the developers. Sorry if you don't want to hear it. Sorry if it hurts hour image. Cpu optimization equals limiting the quality of the instrument. I know the kiddos don't want to hear it.

[chk071]

I just don't have any ties to the developers. Sorry if you don't want to hear it. Sorry if it hurts hour image. Cpu optimization equals limiting the quality of the instrument. I know the kiddos don't want to hear it.

It's rather something you'd tell kiddos if you're too lazy to optimise code.

[Ingonator]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

You could hacve a look at this website concerning arturia oscillators:
https://www.arturia.com/products/ipad-s ... /tae%C2%AE

Quote:

One of the main reasons is that they are "free-running"; i.e., they are not sampled, wavetable-based or generated from a 0-point when a note is played. Each waveform is generated dynamically, which is more consistent with the way the original devices worked and with the laws of physics. Thus our oscillators avoid one of the major tell-tale signs of digital waveform generation and provide that level of "liveness" found in the classic analog synthesizers of the past.

Of course the Prophet VS plugin uses single cyces like the real thing.

Proper adjustable PWM and/or adjustable Pulsewidth is not possible using simple samples, except if you use a wavezable with smooth interpolation. Anyway using a PWm wavetable usually seems to sound different to what you get from PWM in those plugins.

[Dasheesh]

Almost all modern software synths are using single cycle samples as oscillators mapped across the frequency spectrum. It's that shiny new sound made famous by sylenth that sold so well. It's unofficially called "cpu optimization". It's also why most software synths won't modulate at audio rates. It's the worst and most annoying part about software... cpu optimization. The filter is all we got left. The matrix 12 and SEM is probably a newer filter but the same filter.

You could hacve a look at this website concerning arturia oscillators:
https://www.arturia.com/products/ipad-s ... /tae%C2%AE

Quote:

One of the main reasons is that they are "free-running"; i.e., they are not sampled, wavetable-based or generated from a 0-point when a note is played. Each waveform is generated dynamically, which is more consistent with the way the original devices worked and with the laws of physics. Thus our oscillators avoid one of the major tell-tale signs of digital waveform generation and provide that level of "liveness" found in the classic analog synthesizers of the past.

Of course the Prophet VS plugin uses single cyces like the real thing.

Proper adjustable PWM and/or adjustable Pulsewidth is not possible using simple samples, except if you use a wavezable with smooth interpolation. Anyway using a PWm wavetable usually seems to sound different to what you get from PWM in those plugins.

^^^If true that's impressive and not what I expect from them Ingonator.