Analog and Virtual analag hardware synths

[yoshitosser]

hey xh9o

sorry to be the one who breaks this to you but I think somebody has hacked your website. I downloaded "wedding song" and somebody appears to have linked a sort of wanna be Nick Cave track (eek!!) instead of the cutting edge superbly crafted stuff you uploaded.

Sorry about that man, just thought you should know.

[Khazul]

Lets say you;d still be able to hear the digital and your absolutely right about everything (which imo you are not) what difference would it make anyway to the consumer listener? None. Its about the finished song, not whether or not digital or analog was used.

For the listener, its about the finished song, for us as producers its about inspiring tools and an inspiring workflow to get there, tools that lets you focus on the end result with minimal technology distraction etc. Synth and other processing that has the character you like to start with, hands on control that allows you to stay focussed on the music and sound etc.

For some of us that typically ends up meaning working with hardware because thas what we like (hands on workflow wise) and working with specific hardware synths because they naturally have the character your are after and you dont have to spend ages faking it up with EQ, saturation etc.

If one day someone comes up with a really good hardware controller board specifically for programming synths, then perhaps I may start to use more soft synths, untill then - working with a physical hardware synth over a VST+mouse and randomly assigned knobs on a generic controller - the physical hardware wins out - and I dont need the comuter on either - can just switch thing on and play without distraction.

[lerky]

If you've ever sent nebulae some of your music, and he's given his feedback on it you will know he knows his stuff, If my music was half as good as his worst track I'd be quite happy, great bloke too, this xh90 guy is a bit off if you ask me

[nebulae]

^ thanks for the kind words, Lerk

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, but honestly, instead of focusing in the douchebag's irrelevant comments, I'd much rather continue the debate of real analog vs. digital-to-analog vs. in-the-box.

To that end, anyone got any feedback between the two links I posted?

http://www.nebulae.com/collect/desantis.wav
http://www.nebulae.com/collect/desantis-tube.wav

[LoopStationZebra]

hey xh9o

sorry to be the one who breaks this to you but I think somebody has hacked your website. I downloaded "wedding song" and somebody appears to have linked a sort of wanna be Nick Cave track (eek!!) instead of the cutting edge superbly crafted stuff you uploaded.

Sorry about that man, just thought you should know.

ROFL. Priceless.

[LoopStationZebra]

i have no ideas, no concepts, no experience, bad poetry in my sig, hate electronic music,and have a lot of time to come trolling on the Abe forum - where i'm setting myself up to fail time after time. my contribution is minimal, but i don't really want to think about that.

fixed.

[dcease]

b0unce may be an ass, but def. not an idiot. plus, i find it hard to believe b0unce would go so far out of the way to make it sound like english is not the first language. b0unce usually writes fairly well... i know b0unce isn't the most popular, but comparisons to this dork are wrong


neb, to me, the bass sound and the buzzing sound sound the most different- i preferred the tube versions. the higher range sounds aren't a whole lot different, and it seems like the levels are off- the itb sounds a wee bit louder, but this was a comparison in two webpages, which was a bit more of a pita than two tracks in live would have been. i was expecting more distortion on the drums with the tubes, maybe they were a little more... whats the word i am looking for? smoothed out, subdued?

[nebulae]

^ Interesting - I'd agree with those comments. The bass is most noticeable to me because in the first version, it sounds digital. But wit tubes, it feels a lot more "airy".

The drums, especially the hats, in the tube version have more "sizzle". Also, the synths feel like they're pushing air when they do their big swells. All of that adds up to a more pleasant smoothness in the sound.

I'll admit that the non-tube version is cleaner, but I'd argue that the tube version is nicer on your ears.

More thoughts welcome

[Tone Deft]

doesn't matter who x9h0 (or whatever) is, he's introduced himself. he has no game and he's not a nice person. 'nuff said.


meanwhile, back at the conversation...
don't forget the wonderfulness of horrible digital 8 bit sounds, they have their place as well. perfect analog isn't the best choice in all situations.

[aisling]

Totally software, totally in the box. But keep in mind, I send my soft synths out of the box, through an analog tube preamp, and record back in as audio. Then I mix in the box.

Why do that? According to xh9o, its a total waste of time.

yes, its too much effort for not enough result. sending out sending in, even latency might become an annoying issue here.

but thats nebulas general problem. much work, no glory (honkboard glory does not count). but not only his, its the problem of the whole generation of irrelevant wanna be artists spreading their crap all over the internet. i´m not just pissing, i really wish you would be exciting. i´m bored of todays music.

Hey sizzle chest, or is it Brock Johnson, Isaac Yacokoff? Who exactly are you there, snack shack? I took a listen to your music and did not hear the highbrow essence you profess (i'll not directly insult your music). Having logged many formative years with folk music ala joan baez, bob dylan......while those people recordings are not cutting edge, something magical still shines through that gives it soul.....

Actually I have no doubt that your just playing games with everybody, you're expending to much nonsensical energy to be for real

[aqua_tek]

I tried to go vegetarian once, many years ago. Not really for the love of vegetables over meat, but for the sake of the poor little cows, chickens, piggies, etc.

That lasted for about 2 weeks. Then I went crazy and went on a meat eating rampage. I have zero willpower

[aisling]

I tried to go vegetarian once, many years ago. Not really for the love of vegetables over meat, but for the sake of the poor little cows, chickens, piggies, etc.

That lasted for about 2 weeks. Then I went crazy and went on a meat eating rampage. I have zero willpower

Well I guess as long as you're not out there gobbling up sausage, then no harm done....
(no disrespect intended to anybody on the basis of lifestyle, it was just a little off color humor)

[Machinesworking]

You know that your coveted Matrix 1000 is a digital oscillator synth with analog filters right? DCO's, the D is for digital. It's a "hybrid from the eighties".

sorry, but you´re wrong again. dco only means digitally controlled osc, its full analog osc but they are controlled digitally due to a more solid and stable tuning. if you doubt it despite all reason, just listen to that little dream of a beast.

Nope, DCOs are definitely lamer that real analog oscillators. Side by side comparisons with real analog would very quickly change your views.

For a given capacitor charging current, the amplitude of the output waveform will decrease linearly with frequency. In musical terms, this means a waveform an octave higher in pitch is of half the amplitude. In order to produce a constant amplitude over the full range of the oscillator, some compensation scheme must be employed. This is often done by controlling the charging current from the same microprocessor that controls the counter reset value.
Especially in earlier implementations of the DCO or DGO, there tend to be high frequency components on sounds where one would not expect them to be and sounds lose some of the warmth that is perceived on purely analog machines in low tones particularly.
Also an aspect of perceived warmth involves the drifting of oscillators around each other. In some later digital synthesizers this effect was modeled and could be varied by the user within the sound's parameters. Without this the digitally generated oscillations have a very precise but static nature to them of course.
I should add that someone did some research a few years back as to exactly what it was that gave the Minimoog its particularly distinct sound on some settings. It was determined that there was jitter in the pulse widths, causing a continuously changing tone in the signal! So often as early designers worked with what they had and struggled to find a way to just make things work, *artifacts* like this would find their way into the mix and sometimes wind up creating a dynamic of expression in the sound that really made the instrument in a way. The human ear can perceive many dimensions of complexity in the sound, but perhaps it actually loves to hear a battle taking place in the very fabric that the instrument is created from. Some complexity comes across as rather arbitrary. Other complexity comes across like a voice echoing from the depths of creation. Perhaps it can best be said that DCO's utterly reduce one potential aspect of complexity from the sound in order to turn attention to others without distraction.

So let's see? artifacts in the high end? lack of perceived warmth? lack of movement between the individual oscillators? All of the problems with DCOs are the same problems I have with pure digital oscillators.
All an analog oscillator is is a single chip designed with generating a waveform, the beauty of them comes from the simple fact they never generate that waveform symmetrically. You introduce Digital control over the generation of that waveform, then there's little or no difference between the output and a well krafted VA synth. Your perceived DCO warmth is coming from two sources there, the filter section and the fact that Oberheim are a class company.
The Matrix 1000 is essentially the same synth as the Korg Poly 800 or Roland JX3P. This is why it will never sound as phat as a OB8, OBXa, Xpander etc. Why essentially it sounds warm, (analog filter) and thin (DCO).

Look, you're young, you like the sound of analog gear, but you aren't as knowledgeable as you think. You're knocking people for liking digital synths etc. while essentially using a hybrid yourself. It's funny, and sad at the same time.

There really is no way around it DCO's suck the life out of any supposed analog sound the oscillators have, there is essentially no difference between them and digital oscillators.

I'm pretty ridiculous about analog synths, I own an Xpander and a Memorymoog, plus one hybrid in the Poly Evolver. The fact of the matter is if you want real analog sound, you wouldn't be fucking around with a DCO synth, but you don't know what actually makes an analog synth any better than a digital one.

None of this is relevant to whether the Matrix 1000 is a viable synth in general,
of course it is, as much as a DX7, PPG Wave, POLY 800, or other classic synth is.

Does it have the analog quality of the true analogs? not at all, but it sounds great.

It's some sort of nordic trait I think to think of things too literally, to learn the basic rules of some art form and walk around chest out looking for battle as if you were the new master of that bit of knowledge. I love analog synths, but from years of actual experience with synths in general, I've always appreciated a well crafted machine whether it's analog or digital, or software. You come on here professing that analog is better etc, when your main 'analog' synth is a hybrid, and don't try to denny it, a DCO is a hybrid oscillator, with all the problems of digital oscillators in general. Go get an Arp 2600, OBXa etc. and come back to snob it up about analog synths, but sitting there doing that routine with Operator and a DCO synth in your signature makes you look stupid to anybody who actually knows analog gear.

[Tone Deft]

who's your daddy?



life's too short to not eat meat.


spending your whole life worrying about dying is not way to live. besides, genetics play a HUGE role in it all. there's always the stories of the wine drink cigarette smoking meat eating 100 year old grannie and the health nuts who keel over during their morning jog.

[bosonHavoc]

I tried to go vegetarian once, many years ago. Not really for the love of vegetables over meat, but for the sake of the poor little cows, chickens, piggies, etc.

That lasted for about 2 weeks. Then I went crazy and went on a meat eating rampage. I have zero willpower

my main staple is veggies but when i eat meat its a good cut.
just eat the good shit and you wont over indulge.
well unless your rich and if thats the case i could use some of those bail funds all those rich people are getting... so hook it u yo... give me your loots

i prefer organic veggies because they are phatter and have a more real feel to them.
plus they sit in the mix better too.