I'm sick of vintage analog fx plugins

[dystonia_ek]

[Walter] Carlos was notoriously resistant to 'new music', dismissing it out of hand as 'unpleasant noise'.

But, confusingly, Wendy Carlos put out Beauty and the Beast in the mid 80s, an album full of tonal experimentation and non-standard tunings. Weird how these things turn out.

Though that album sounds rather quaint compared to some of the experimental landmarks of the late 70's and early 80's (try playing it next to Maurizio Bianchi's 'Endometrio' for starters, or Stapleton & Bennett's '150 Murderous Passions' collab.). And she was, after all, still using tunings.

[cron]

[Walter] Carlos was notoriously resistant to 'new music', dismissing it out of hand as 'unpleasant noise'.

But, confusingly, Wendy Carlos put out Beauty and the Beast in the mid 80s, an album full of tonal experimentation and non-standard tunings. Weird how these things turn out.

Though that album sounds rather quaint compared to some of the experimental landmarks of the late 70's and early 80's (try playing it next to Maurizio Bianchi's 'Endometrio' for starters, or Stapleton & Bennett's '150 Murderous Passions' collab.). And she was, after all, still using tunings.

Well, she had a go, but she's no Nurse with Wound that's for sure.

[3*s]

Awwwwww

[dystonia_ek]

[Walter] Carlos was notoriously resistant to 'new music', dismissing it out of hand as 'unpleasant noise'.

But, confusingly, Wendy Carlos put out Beauty and the Beast in the mid 80s, an album full of tonal experimentation and non-standard tunings. Weird how these things turn out.

Though that album sounds rather quaint compared to some of the experimental landmarks of the late 70's and early 80's (try playing it next to Maurizio Bianchi's 'Endometrio' for starters, or Stapleton & Bennett's '150 Murderous Passions' collab.). And she was, after all, still using tunings.

Well, she had a go, but she's no Nurse with Wound that's for sure.

Not many people in that league... when I was doing tape music in the mid 80's I remember trying to pull that shit off... never even got close. Steve is the Hendrix of the tape edit, I swear.

[shamann]

I've always had problems with the keyboardist monopoly on synthesizers.

I never thought about it like that. I've been playing piano since 1968. Synths have always been clavier instruments, and there have been attempts on the fringe to make things like guitar and wind and drum controllers, sure.

Why didn't the Theremin interface take hold?

Possibly economics. Lot more piano players in this world than two-handed antenna players. It's also convenient to have a recognizable interface to a machine, without requiring the end user to have an understanding of new machinery and design concepts. New ideas don't take off over night. Look at Ballard fuel cells. They figure it'll take at least 30 years just to make market headway.

But even through the 70s, non-keyboard synths were still visible. Or keyboards often had added function, like ribbons or other wobbly widgets, or responsive keys like on the CS-80. After the MIDI spec, though, other interfaces tended to be considered marginal. MIDI really was designed with simple keyboards in mind. That's why CCs are hard coded to mod wheels and sustain, note on/off and pitch value, etc, because keyboards had those functions. That's why those dreadful MIDI guitars in the 80s sucked so bad. Or why wind controllers never really took off. They're design was a kluge. Once marginalized, they probably were just too damned expensive for mass production. How many of us have laser harps? Even alternate tunings/scales were an afterthought by third parties.

I'm not against keyboards, play one myself, and have for most of my life. But synthesizers don't have to only be viewed as sound modules for a piano/organ metaphor.

Cheers,
Steve

[ouroboros]

just to dumb down the discussion a little;

what's the difference between a analog delay and a digital delay? Is it the matter of the digital world only approximating signals and sounding colder, er, more digital while the analog is saturated and warmer?

Just wondering. I don't know. Again..

[cron]

just to dumb down the discussion a little;

what's the difference between a analog delay and a digital delay? Is it the matter of the digital world only approximating signals and sounding colder, er, more digital while the analog is saturated and warmer?

Just wondering. I don't know. Again..

I'd say it's a matter of precision, the digital flavour being more precise (in context) than the analog variety. Analog delays essentially contain a tape loop, and tape of course stretches/fluctuates in a way that digital recordings don't. Timing isn't so precise, and as the feedback stacks up, the effect of all these things combined becomes more apparent. Oh, and of course you can do super cool effects (especially at high feedback levels) by altering the delay time (and thus speed that the tape is playing) as you go.

[shamann]

Wot cron said.

Digital delays originally didn't include signal degradation in the feedback loop path, sometimes still don't. They're just copies ad infinitum.

The bad things that happened on tape were sometimes the sound you wanted, and didn't always sound the same. I think a delay like Ohmboyz really changes that perspective. The sound can be coloured, but it really isn't built to be an emulation.

[whyterabbyt]

cron quoth Analog delays essentially contain a tape loop, and tape of course stretches/fluctuates in a way that digital recordings don't

Dont forget that bucket-brigade delays are analogue as well.

[cron]

Ah yeah, bucket brigade delays are analogue too.

Not really up on exactly how they work or whether you can get the same effects as tape echo machines out of them though. Anybody?

[whyterabbyt]

They work by means of hundreds/thousands of little capacitors on a single chip discharging into each other in sequence... The chips still turn up in flangers et.c., and back then were used in budget 'reverbs' as well, a la the Realistic (Audio Damage do an emulation of that, btw)

Lower bandwidth than tape, and the chips were expensive so the delay times were shorter. Quite different from tape, IMO

[Voidoid Surrealist]

whoa.. arrogance overload..

Yeah, and thank god you aren't being a hippocrite, because then some person would then point that out to you. Thankfully, I'm not going to have to do that, because you took the upper road and decided to be civil about things.

what kind of lowlife are you?

get a life dude. more importantly, try and get laid.. if for nothing else just to get rid of those zits, on your eyelids.

Wait, nevermind....

[scam_artist]

quantumFX can do it all

it can do standard analog fx, but also far out sound manglers! it's all up the user

http://www.quantum-fx.com