Softube Model 80 Five Voice Synth

[zerocrossing]

Much more glaring and important differences come from features. My 6’s high pass can be made to do super cool things that move it far from what any 5 or 5 emulation can do. Repro’s got the nice effects and mod matrix, and 5 V’s got the function generators. Model 80 seems to have… nothing? I didn’t even see a way to assign aftertouch or velocity. I guess if you want a pure emulation, it’s probably the best, but I’ve really got no interest in synths with that level of simplicity.

If you click the right of the interface it opens a panel with a few options including velocity to amp and filter. Not immediately apparent to be fair.

Ah, thanks. That’s a UI fail, to be sure.

[cyberheater]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KM8pWfgHgU

Basically Softube Model80 -> Uhe Repro5 -> Arturia Prophet 5v

[electro]

Specific synths are suited for particular patch types and even polyphony/monophony comes into play. Onboard FX do nothing but ruin patch design by encouraging mutated patches unrelated to the hardware. Ditching onboard FX is always the right way, one thing Softube does right.

[hebex]

Some nice sounds here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlt3RrwvZ7M

[bonch]

Specific synths are suited for particular patch types and even polyphony/monophony comes into play. Onboard FX do nothing but ruin patch design by encouraging mutated patches unrelated to the hardware. Ditching onboard FX is always the right way, one thing Softube does right.

Onboard FX authentically replicate the common workflow of running a synth signal through FX pedals. Rarely would you have heard raw synth sounds with no processing.

FX also add more value to a plug-in. I'm surprised anyone would argue that less value is "the right way," especially when it comes to Softube, whose plug-ins are already expensive, stripped-down when it comes to features, and rarely updated.

[cyberheater]

Some nice sounds here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlt3RrwvZ7M

Very nice. Sounds like hardware.

[pdxindy]

Specific synths are suited for particular patch types and even polyphony/monophony comes into play. Onboard FX do nothing but ruin patch design by encouraging mutated patches unrelated to the hardware. Ditching onboard FX is always the right way, one thing Softube does right.

RePro-5 has the per voice distortion... you cannot do that with Outboard FX

[bonch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KM8pWfgHgU

Basically Softube Model80 -> Uhe Repro5 -> Arturia Prophet 5v

Geez, 45 minutes of oscilloscope waveforms. I don't understand the point of videos like this. Not only do they drag on forever, they're useless in practice when actual hardware units differ from each other, one of the VSTs is modeling a whole different hardware revision, and Repro-5 has an entire set of oscillator, filter, and envelope behaviors to choose from--how can any one be the "best" if they're all coming from different real world units?

I'd rather hear jams made with each plug-in. Anything with "no talking" in the title.

[christian f.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KM8pWfgHgU

Basically Softube Model80 -> Uhe Repro5 -> Arturia Prophet 5v

Geez, 45 minutes of oscilloscope waveforms. I don't understand the point of videos like this. Not only do they drag on forever, they're useless in practice when actual hardware units differ from each other, one of the VSTs is modeling a whole different hardware revision, and Repro-5 has an entire set of oscillator, filter, and envelope behaviors to choose from--how can any one be the "best" if they're all coming from different real world units?

I'd rather hear jams made with each plug-in. Anything with "no talking" in the title.

100%. It's really boring and silly.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

His videos are super geeky but I really dig them. He takes a more measured approach to A/B/C/D compares than I otherwise would making sure things line up in the scope, accounting for voice variation, etc. If you're not interested, lots of other folks do shootouts differently or you can just skip to the end.

[vitocorleone123]

Specific synths are suited for particular patch types and even polyphony/monophony comes into play. Onboard FX do nothing but ruin patch design by encouraging mutated patches unrelated to the hardware. Ditching onboard FX is always the right way, one thing Softube does right.

That seems like a very backwards and limiting kind of view to me.


Onboard effects are typically designed to work specifically with the sound of the synth. Further, they’re part of the synth and part of the design of the synth, else they’d have been left off. Not using the onboard effects is effective deciding to not use part of the synth you paid for and have given a home and given space to.

I always use onboard effects of my synths. Maybe not every patch, but many.

For example, those Repro5 effects have been very much designed to be part of the synth and expand its sound palette. If Dave Smith could’ve put onboard effects in the original P5, I’m highly confident he would have. Then he’d have put them in the reissue (can’t reissue something considered a “classic” and add a bunch of stuff or the target audience wouldn’t buy it - see those insisting on these limitations for a software emulation in this thread).

[Urs]

Geez, 45 minutes of oscilloscope waveforms.

I hope this time around he checks out Repro's waveforms at different samplerates. Their "jaggyness"
at lower samplerates is an artefact of downsampling, not an artefact of modelling. I think to remember he once just made some assumptions and drew conclusions that I thought gave a wrong impression.

[SebAV]

Specific synths are suited for particular patch types and even polyphony/monophony comes into play. Onboard FX do nothing but ruin patch design by encouraging mutated patches unrelated to the hardware. Ditching onboard FX is always the right way, one thing Softube does right.

Onboard FX authentically replicate the common workflow of running a synth signal through FX pedals. Rarely would you have heard raw synth sounds with no processing.

FX also add more value to a plug-in. I'm surprised anyone would argue that less value is "the right way," especially when it comes to Softube, whose plug-ins are already expensive, stripped-down when it comes to features, and rarely updated.

Apart if you want to have the exact same limitations of the time I prefer to have extended features and FXs. U-he has it right in that it can be the « raw » prophet but also much more than it.
I’ve got Model 84 and never design any sound on it due to limitations (but it’s very good at the Juno sounds, but it’s more or less a preset machine in use)

[Uncle E]

I hope this time around he checks out Repro's waveforms at different samplerates. Their "jaggyness"
at lower samplerates is an artefact of downsampling, not an artefact of modelling.

What sample rate should we be using?

[Urs]

I hope this time around he checks out Repro's waveforms at different samplerates. Their "jaggyness"
at lower samplerates is an artefact of downsampling, not an artefact of modelling.

What sample rate should we be using?

They're all fine, 44.1kHz and up.

It's just, if you want to interpret what appear to be waveforms and draw whatever conclusions, in Repro the closest you can get to actually see the waveforms is at 192 kHz.

That said, there's currently no way to stick an oscilloscope into Repro itself. Any waveform looked at is a waveform that is processed by virtual filters, amplifiers and OpAmps as well as up- and downsampling. The pure waveform of the oscillator is not accessible to users, and whatever interpretation of the visual result is, it's probably less audible than one might think.