Ableton Forum

i have automat and zebra cm. both are free synth downloads. i think they sound amazing. does anyone have these synths that they can compare to Ableton Analog (or AAS's Ultra Analog)?

in my limited experience with analog gear I've come to find this. soft synths oscillators sound fine, and in the case of zebra you can come up with alot of crazy ass tones you probably aren't going to get on hardware BUT where software tends to fail is filters. I've found that even cheap analog filters sound better than most vst filters out there be it a synth filter or a effect filter, most of them sound pretty weak when compared.

that being said there is nothing wrong with using softsynths of course I very much dig automat and zebra but I tend to stear clear of heavy filtering or filter sweeps with software as it really sounds week to my ears. you end up with alot of aliasing and distortion artifacts.

^ My experience has been a little different...I find most oscillators from softsynths to be weak or digital or harsh sounding. The latest crop has been a lot better, now with anti-aliased waveforms in Operator, and synths like Sylenth1, which sound really warm and smooth now. But as for filters, I tend to agree. However, the Zebra filter is amazing, and I also use Nitro as an add-on filter afterwards to give extra smoothness. My two cents.

As for Analog...I'm not a huge fan yet, but mainly because I'm still happy with the synths I've got. Sylenth1 floats my boat like no other virtual analog.

nebulae wrote: But as for filters, I tend to agree. However, the Zebra filter is amazing.

I'll agree that zebras filter is pretty awesome, which is why I still use it inspite of my dispossition with softfilters. but when you compare zebras filter to an analog one it's still not nearly as smooth, definetly about as good as software gets though no doubt.

The question wasn't if zebra and automat compared to an analog synthesizer, but if zebra and automat compared to the new synth named 'analog' which is included in the live 7 suite. correct?

From what little I've played with Analog, it doesn't hold a candle to Zebra. Hopefully that answers your question, if my opinion means anything to you...not that I care if it does or not, as you should go form your own

So does the integration with Live make it worth more because of workflow ?

nebulae wrote:From what little I've played with Analog, it doesn't hold a candle to Zebra. Hopefully that answers your question, if my opinion means anything to you...not that I care if it does or not, as you should go form your own

are you talking about analog gear in general or AAS ultra analog?

Ableton's AAS Analog

ohhhhhhh dude. I just realised he wasn't asking about analog gear but rather abletons analog. that changes everything, I thought he was asking about how analog gear compares to softsynths.

Johnisfaster wrote:

nebulae wrote:From what little I've played with Analog, it doesn't hold a candle to Zebra. Hopefully that answers your question, if my opinion means anything to you...not that I care if it does or not, as you should go form your own

are you talking about analog gear in general or AAS ultra analog?

AAS Analog.

now pass the dutchie on the left hand side

I always thought that song said "pass the ketchup on the left hand side" Imagine my surprise when I met my first Jamaican, and he asked for ketchup at dinner, and I passed it on the left, just like the song's instructions said. He looked met like I was a freak. Of course, he was also high...

And it wasn't zebra, but zebra CM, which is pretty stripped down from the full zebra 2 (though pretty powerful for what it is, I understand).

tylenol wrote:And it wasn't zebra, but zebra CM, which is pretty stripped down from the full zebra 2 (though pretty powerful for what it is, I understand).

Well, now you're comparing apples to oranges...a $129 synth vs. a freebie. If you get the dinosaur crossgrade coupon (see the u-he site), zebra's price is effectively $150. I don't think you can say that Analog comes anywhere close to the power of Zebra. My two cents.