Hardware synths vs sofware synhs

[Captain Johnson]

I believe the way to go is to use both worlds and not to say one is better than the other. I would still recommend every electronic musician to buy some day a hardware synth just to see what the difference is all about. Having an instrument in front of you with knobs that spits out sound created from the machine is just different then using a software synth.

Well said!

+1 Mix and match. The sooner you forget about what you are using and concentrate on what you're creating the better

[jlgrimes]

You get a real instrument that can be touched and manipulated directly.

Some DAWS handle this better than others. One of my favorites for this is Reason using a remote supported controller. Nektar panorama controller really makes Reason a sophisticated instrument.

Reasons one page synths are also perfect for this intimate style of workflow. Anything can be mapped easily and automated. You can tell they actually paid attention to capturing the intimate feel of hardware when designing their workflow.

Reason feels a lot like hardware to me and actually better because it is more easy to record these changes with a controller or even a mouse.


This type of workflow tends to be more difficult in other DAWS probably because of the nature of VSTs. The 3rd party nature of VSTs probably have a lot to do with it and also the controller itself would most likely be 3rd party in most cases.

Maschine also does a decent job with the Komplete synths.

[JuanSOLO]

softsynths have now reached the point where they are more convenient and definitely cheaper.

I imagine this thought process goes on for most of us.
Yet it begs to question,
does the pursuit of convenience make my craft cheap?
Is it really more convenient? HOW?

I got into making music with gear that was cheap, and I was inspired by acts that I saw, and thought to myself, I can do that too.
My favorite artists, wether they are painting, animating, or making electronic music,
I dont see much convenience in it.

Few examples,
Sonic Youth, hundreds of "cheap" guitars, hundreds.
Glen Keen, thousands and thousands of drawings with pencil and paper, price of pencil and paper?
Chuck Close, table spoon of paint, a brush, and a canvas.
The average person may look at an older Chuck Close painting and think, 'oh a very real looking black and white painting.'
When they find out it was done one tiny dot at a time with an ounce of paint, in a wheelchair, something changes.

The average listener will not care if I am using Operator with Saturator to get that gritty bass line, or a Minimoog overloading it's own circuitry.
As an artist I care about that detail, and I would hope that it my work reflects a pursuit of a craft not a convenient happenstance.

The computer is convenient, is an illusion to some degree.
I can buy a multi sampled Vintage Synth pack,
incorporate it into my "Live" set with my keyboard controller
map my controller
click here, click there
explore effects
explore presets
dial in dial in dial in, chase chase chase that sound
record it to a song or something.
Now maybe I want to use that sound later or in some other "Live" set,
bet your ass somewhere along they way, there will be a whole lot of clicking and tweaking.
SO, for a cheap keyboard controller off ebay, possibly $60
Vintage Synth Pack, lets say $25
We'll leave out the computer/DAW cost since we already own it, expense paid.
So roughly under 100 bucks and a lot of mouse clicking.

I just dont see how thats more convenient than buying a Poly 800 for $120

I'm not trying to pic apart an individuals comment, I just relate to that thought process and over time re-evaluate it.
Ultimately, creatives I know will make great art with whatever is at hand, they HAVE to get it out.

[DJTIVA]

@JuanSOLO

In some points you are right but in others not. You showed some examples where the quality of instruments is less important but depends more of what is done with them. It always depends on what is done with something...
I must say ok but there are a lot of examples out there where quality of how something was produced is very important.
Money and cost, are if you ask me, not a point of this discussion. It`s a matter of fact that hardware costs more and it is clearly why this is so and probably will never change in the future.

Everyone has to decide if the cost of a product being software or hardware lies in his financial possibilities. Going all the way with software will have positive effects on your wallet but that is an other discussion.

[BoddAH]

I think that he's right when you think about it. What you do is really much more important than what you use to do it. It's all about the creativity and the skill of the artist.

I mean, there are smartphone apps today that are technically more powerful than whole studios used to record Dark Side of the Moon 40 years ago.

Before synthesizers and sample libraries, most instruments had only ONE sound and they were far from perfect. In fact, most of these instruments sounded pretty shitty by today's standards and even if they were perfect, they could only produce ONE sound. A piano weighting half a ton or a $ 5,000 violin is basically a sound generation device with a SINGLE preset. Make it a dozen if you were lucky enough to have a whole orchestra at your disposal. For hundreds of years, a dozen different sounds were enough to create most of history's most beautiful music, nowadays most producers have thousands of presets and are still not happy.

Probably the worst part is that the listeners don't give a flying fuck about whether you used a Minimoog or Analog in your song ans long as it's catchy and interesting.

[DJTIVA]

And again I say whatever. You have to do things for your self and not for the others. If you like to play and posses a hardware synth then buy it and have fun. If you think it`s way to expensive and that people who listen to the music dont care on how something was done then let it be and go with software.

I dont care what other people think. I just listen to my heart and do things the way I get happy and do not lie everything on the balance to check out what`s the cheapest way to solve an idea.

As mentioned before there is no better or worse, it`s more of a feeling and the way you want to do things.

Just stay open minded and check out different options, maybe you will fall in love with certain sounds and want the real thing and no emulation of it.

[XSIMan]

U-he DIVA very closely emulates analogue hardware and not one but a few analogue hardware and very soon a famous EDM VA synth. DIVA can run on multiple cores so it's not as hard to run as it used to be.

[jasefos]

As much as I became a complete software head once native CPU capacity was bountiful for running good sounding virtual analogues in software, personally I find there is nothing more inspiring than coming home to a wall of awesome hardware synths in your studio with all of their wanderful imperfections and non-linearities to multitrack into Live. I would rather my studio not look almost identical to the bunch of office equipment on my desk at my day job.

If you equip your studio in a manner whereby you can monitor each hardware synth with zero latency (I roll with UA's Apollo), you can always add more overdubs in your projects no matter how much PDC buffer creep your projects develop as they become increasingly more complex towards the end of the mix/engineering phase.

Encouraging yourself to committ hardware synths to audio tracks as early as possible is favourable for improving robustness of recall. I'm sure in the year 2020, Ableton Live 20 will have no problems opening a projects consisting primarily of audio clips. Your projects are less at the mercy of OS incompatibilities. This is valuable!

I'm about to starting populating my Eurorack case with various tasty modules after recently adding Korg Volcas, Korg MS20 Mini, MiniBrute, Sequential Pro One, Access Virus TI Polar among others to my existing rig of 70s, 80s and 90s analogue and digital synths.

I also love the way how my hardware synths take the chill out of the air in my "garage" studio on cold winter months (but the power bill sucks).

Hardware AND Software forever for me!

[JuanSOLO]

my point is not about better or worse, or analogue vs digital,
it's about the illusion that computers offer some benefit that is centered in cost and convenience.

Lets make a generic list

Laptop = $1000
Live Suite = $700
Used Novation Remote = $150

no sound card
no extras total = $1850

add a sound card
add some NI stuff
add some U HE stuff
add Omnisphere!
add a few more trial and error controllers
add some $12 sound packs
add some random purchases that you heard might float your boat that seemed "affordable"
add the time to learn it and explore it.

by the time your done you could have bought a Prophet 5 rev 2.

Sure you could say
OH yeah but I bought Komplete on an upgraded student discount, I have all the sounds I need for the rest of my life.
Have fun with the rest of your life searching through presets to modify chasing that dragon.
Did I mention all the time spent making your laptop rig somewhat customized and unique vs the next guy trying the same thing?
What about the time spent organizing folders and files?

Sure you can pitch the "it dosent matter what the people think" argument all you want.
However when they think it's good, it feels good.

I saw this band where the main guy used a crappy 4 track some weird FX pedals, some strange white noise side chain thing and a MicroKorg.
SOUNDED AWESOME!

Again, I will say the creatives I know HAVE to make it.
Doesn't matter if it's with and Roland TR 808 or a drumRack sound pack, they get it done.

That said, I will have a field day of beat creation with an Elektron device as opposed to making a beat with a drumRack and PUSH.

I'm no trying to sell ANYONE on the idea that hardware is "better," I just want to expose some myths about software.
It's easy to forget what it took to buy your laptop in the first place.
There is something special about hardware EVEN with Live as the hub.
Prime example, use a program change message to access a sound on some VST, compare that to sending a program change to a hardware synth from Live.
Live 9, still hiccups especially with a blown out Live set.

Live 9 and Reaktor are pretty much the hub of my rig for FX and sequencing,
all else is outboard gear,
not because it's better or worse, but because I need what works and nothing will stand in the way of my desire.
except my wife maybe, but she has a great ass.

[login]

Not all hardware is created equal also. SOme hardware could be even more boring and frustrating that software, as tetra for example.

Hardware should be fun, as Elektron boxes, or expresssive intruments, as any keyboard with enough expressión controls, keyboard split, etc.

[JuanSOLO]

Not all hardware is created equal also. SOme hardware could be even more boring and frustrating that software, as tetra for example.

OH, without a DOUBT!
Nevertheless pure Analogue, VA synthesis, or software a lot of the time share something in common,
they do that one thing so much better than anything else.

For me Operator makes a sub bass sine wave better than anything.
It just does it the way I like it done,
and thats what matters to the people I dont give a fuck what they think about.

[djadonis206]

https://controlvoltage.net/

Speaking of hardware. Last weekend I was at my favorite new store in PDX! I love this place.

[JuanSOLO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnW6G9Qj06M

[DJTIVA]

And I am addicted to those synths. In the next two weeks the SE Boomstar 3003 will find its way to my place and the new Clavia Nord Lead 4 is also preordered : )

[deva]

I believe the way to go is to use both worlds and not to say one is better than the other. I would still recommend every electronic musician to buy some day a hardware synth just to see what the difference is all about. Having an instrument in front of you with knobs that spits out sound created from the machine is just different then using a software synth.

Been there done that... I use a hardware synth as my midi controller. I never play the hardware synth anymore. And when I am playing my soft synths, it feels no different than if the sound was generated in the computer that is inside the keyboard or the computer that is on my desktop.

Most of the hardware digital synths out there do not have a knob for every parameter either. There are lots of menus to go through. I don't think there is any real difference between digital hardware and digital software.

Analog is another story, but the OP is asking about digital hardware.