Have Modern VST Instruments Replaced Your Hardware Synths ?

[iPlogger]

noob.
main benefit of software over hardware...
no need to tell the wife you are buying even more musical equipment!

Hahahahaha. Thanks for the reply and the good laugh.

[BONES]

From a man who use a Uno synth and a Focusrite audio interface and who's claiming a CS-80 is crap,it is pretty hilarious.

And you've spent how much time, exactly, with a Uno? It is, after all, a proper two oscillator analogue monosynth.

I couldn't help noticing that you have pretended not to have seen my offer to put your money where your mouth is and pick the hardware from the software in a blind test. Could it be that you are actually full of shit and you know it?

And funny that you're saying you know the Alpha Juno when you just tried a few minutes in a shop,when I work every day with it.

Funny you are so dismissive of Uno when you've probably never even seen one. I know the Alpha Juno because it is basically not much different from the SH 101 I owned for several years. Same oscillator, same filter, just a few extra add-ons, typical of Roland.

are you even aware how the operators and it's sine + variants are processed in the tg77 ( that goes for al yamaha fm synths ) ?

Did you miss the bit about me owning a DX-9? A brand new one I bought in 1984, after agonising for months over how best to spend my $1500. It was either that or a JX-3P or a Poly61.

The sines are not just code like any vst , its a quarter sine stored in a lookup table

Yes, just like a lot of VSTi or the shitty "wavetable" synth in most soundcards.

The tg77 is abit more complex then a dx9+cs2x combined , the feedback routings are out of this world and I am not just talking about the 3 available feedback loops or awm elements as modulators .

You're missing the point - it is still just software and samples running in a dedicated box. There is nothing special about it that couldn't be done with a VSTi if anyone wanted to bother.

The Alpha specs you listed are the same as those of the great classic Juno's.

Also about the same as an SH-09 or SH-101, just another in a long line of boring, unimaginative synths from Roland that people only bought in the 80s because they couldn't afford anything better. That's why everyone was happy to abandon that stuff for digital synths. It was very ordinary then and only looks even moreso today.

[e-crooner]

Also about the same as an SH-09 or SH-101, just another in a long line of boring, unimaginative synths from Roland that people only bought in the 80s because they couldn't afford anything better. That's why everyone was happy to abandon that stuff for digital synths. It was very ordinary then and only looks even moreso today.

And yet they made great music with them because those were quality products, despite limited features.

And no, some people kept using such synths alongside later digital synths, samplers, workstations...

[gentleclockdivider]

From a man who use a Uno synth and a Focusrite audio interface and who's claiming a CS-80 is crap,it is pretty hilarious.

And you've spent how much time, exactly, with a Uno? It is, after all, a proper two oscillator analogue monosynth.

I couldn't help noticing that you have pretended not to have seen my offer to put your money where your mouth is and pick the hardware from the software in a blind test. Could it be that you are actually full of shit and you know it?

And funny that you're saying you know the Alpha Juno when you just tried a few minutes in a shop,when I work every day with it.

Funny you are so dismissive of Uno when you've probably never even seen one. I know the Alpha Juno because it is basically not much different from the SH 101 I owned for several years. Same oscillator, same filter, just a few extra add-ons, typical of Roland.

are you even aware how the operators and it's sine + variants are processed in the tg77 ( that goes for al yamaha fm synths ) ?

Did you miss the bit about me owning a DX-9? A brand new one I bought in 1984, after agonising for months over how best to spend my $1500. It was either that or a JX-3P or a Poly61.

The sines are not just code like any vst , its a quarter sine stored in a lookup table

Yes, just like a lot of VSTi or the shitty "wavetable" synth in most soundcards.

The tg77 is abit more complex then a dx9+cs2x combined , the feedback routings are out of this world and I am not just talking about the 3 available feedback loops or awm elements as modulators .

You're missing the point - it is still just software and samples running in a dedicated box. There is nothing special about it that couldn't be done with a VSTi if anyone wanted to bother.

The Alpha specs you listed are the same as those of the great classic Juno's.

Also about the same as an SH-09 or SH-101, just another in a long line of boring, unimaginative synths from Roland that people only bought in the 80s because they couldn't afford anything better. That's why everyone was happy to abandon that stuff for digital synths. It was very ordinary then and only looks even moreso today.

I am not gonna respond to all your posts
But sh101 and alpha juno the same filter ???
The juno ( not alpha ) , jupiter 6 , jupiter 8 and sh101 all used the same filter chip , namely Roland IR3109
Yet all these synths sound different and have different filter behaviour , esp when resonance is crancked up , the jupiter 6 sounds nothing like an sh101 etc.. still it's the same filter chip
I am sure you know the answer as to why that is ,

[e-crooner]

The Alpha's oscillator is also different, many more waveforms than on the SH-101.

[FapFilter]

Also about the same as an SH-09 or SH-101, just another in a long line of boring, unimaginative synths from Roland that people only bought in the 80s because they couldn't afford anything better. That's why everyone was happy to abandon that stuff for digital synths. It was very ordinary then and only looks even moreso today.

And yet they made great music with them because those were quality products, despite limited features.

And no, some people kept using such synths alongside later digital synths, samplers, workstations...

true, but same can be said about software.
Use what you have and / or enjoy. Simple as that.
It's not the tools that prevent you form making potential hit songs, regardless of what you use. Even with some old VSTi from 2000, despite definetly not sounding exactly like a 303 or Minimoog.
If you are creative and don't insist something has to sound 100% exactly like this or that, you will make awesome stuff regardless of what you use.
A 808 doesn't convince anyone it's a real drum set, a 303 is a lousy acoustic bass replacement, same goes even for some holy grails like a Minimoog if you want it to replace your grand piano.

And regarding differences between some of the best current analog emulations and the analog originals the differences are so f**king small in most cases it's not even worth having persisting arguments anymore.
Yes, in some areas there might be still some differences here and there, but they will surely not hinder you in any way unless you only want to make the ultra bleepiest resonance kind of music imaginable, or the most distorted stuff with analog flavor from the 60's.
And even then there's often help from additional VSTs which imo do their job pretty well where at least i am satisfied enough that i'm not convinced i could reliably tell in blind listening sessions whether the source is actual analog, or “merely“ a digital emulation even in areas i generally think true analog might still have an edge over emulations.

And then there's also the possibility that sometimes even unashamedly digital (or modern) or just “flawed / not 100% accurate emulations“ might actually sound *gasp* better or cooler than some dusty stuff from half a century ago.
Like it has been mentioned before, at one point, “noone“ wanted analog anymore. And now even early VA which were once considered “crap“ are having a renaissance because even they seemingly didn't sound that crappy after all.
A lot of it is just current trends and fashion and not “superior vs inferior set in stone“

[gentleclockdivider]

No one except the analogue purists considered the early va’s as crap.
Their potential and benefits over analogue was immediately embraced by the pro and non pro musicians., and they were all hit sellers from the beginning

[BONES]

Perfect example of that is Korg's Prophecy. I would take one of those over any analogue synth you care to name. It's an absolute classic. An1x was also highly sought after and is still popular. The Alesis Micron was also a beast, although it came a bit later.

And yet they made great music with them because those were quality products, despite limited features.

No, they made great music with them because they were talented, creative artists unconcerned over such irrelevancies. It simply didn't matter to them what synth it was, they just used whatever they could afford or get their hands on. Remember, back then the Holy Grails of synths were all digital - Fairlight CMI, EMUlator, PPG Wave. Those are the instruments all those artists would have used if they could have got their hands on them. That they made such great music with such limited equipment is a testament to them, not to Roland.

I've used this example before but Talk Talk was a band who used synths because that's all they could afford. So their first two albums are synth classics but once they could afford to leave them behind, that's what they did and they went on to even greater critical and commercial success. This fixation on particular synths is very much a modern thing, nobody cared back in the day.

[gentleclockdivider]

I think the fixation is partly because of an over- saturated market

[Cro-magnon]

CS-80 sound bad too. Just use your ears and listen what did Jarre or Vangelis in the past with their vintage synths,and compare this music to the actual trap or EDM made with plugins.

That’s an unfair argument. While the technology changes, so does the fashion. Look at what Eric Clapton did in comparison to Jimi Hendrix with the same guitars. I imagine EDM made with hardware instruments would probably still sound much the same... but harder to produce. That is something that you can’t deny. Sitting down and being able to draw all sorts of crazy automation lanes is clearly in the realm of software. Of course MIDI has been around since the late 70s in one form or another, but the ease at which it can be manipulated has never been higher.

I was referring to the sounds themselves,not the genre.OTT,Sylenth,Nexus,etc sounds like **** in comparison to vintage synths and quality analog equipment.

[Cro-magnon]

80/90's music was very good,despite the artists had way less possibilities than nowadays.How good is most of the music nowadays?
So the argument that a SH101 or a juno is crap because it has 1 osc and 1 sub-oscillator is ridiculous.Sometimes,less is more.Less possibilities=less distraction=more creativity,more spontaneity,more productivity.

[dellboy]

This whole debate brings into focus the different reasons that people own synths, both hardware and software.

Some, like myself, are on an endless quest to find the perfect elusive sound. I do play my keyboards, but rarely, if ever, get around to actually making music. I guess I am a synth enthusiast who just likes messing with synths for the sake of it. But I will get around to finishing that album one day - promise.

Others are real music producers whose primary aim is to make music. They tend to have a prolific musical output and push their stuff out there for appraisal and acceptance.

They could use any old instruments at hand if they were competent to play them. Any old synth - guitar - acoustic instrument would do, but modern computers just make the whole process of home music making a doddle, and so VSTs do the job nicely - thanks.

So that's it.

In my opinion, its not so much about " hardware versus software", but "Synth enthusiasts versus music producers".

[ScrLk]

80/90's music was very good,despite the artists had way less possibilities than nowadays.How good is most of the music nowadays?

The answer to that depends on someone's age...

[chk071]

This whole debate brings into focus the different reasons that people own synths, both hardware and software.

Some, like myself, are on an endless quest to find the perfect elusive sound. I do play my keyboards, but rarely, if ever, get around to actually making music. I guess I am a synth enthusiast who just likes messing with synths for the sake of it.

Same here, unfortunately... I've come to accept it though.

[recursive one]

Great post, Dellboy! I think it indeed sums it up really well.

I pretend to be aiming at this

Others are real music producers whose primary aim is to make music. They tend to have a prolific musical output and push their stuff out there for appraisal and acceptance.

But in reality I'm pretty much like this

Some, like myself, are on an endless quest to find the perfect elusive sound. I do play my keyboards, but rarely, if ever, get around to actually making music. I guess I am a synth enthusiast who just likes messing with synths for the sake of it.

It may be different for others, but I have actual chances to finish a track when I only use software synths, but the thoughts like "wouldn't this part sound better if I had used an actual analog synth or a Virus for that" are always sitting on the back of my mind.

Also I tend to think that my favourite genres when people were using Viruses and Nordleads instead of Serum and Phaseplant but this might be just nostalgia, or maybe it's just these genres were relatively fresh and people were more inventive and creative with what they had back then. I know that many of the producers whose sound I always admired have actually ditched their hardware for plugins.