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-- can u really tell the difference?? hardware/software.....
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That's the second time this week that I have seen a car analogy on this forum... what's the world coming to?

Nem

If it were an analogue vs software battle, or an analogue vs VA battle, analogue would win, hands down. But in the case of software vs VA, it just comes down to how much of your CPU can be devoted to making the software imitate the VA's routing. If you have enough power, and your software is high quality, then all things are more or less equal.

Not to mention, sometimes its fun to do some lo-fi sounds.

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Originally posted by staticblue If he coudln't afford the best car, he would probably realise that a slightly slower car costs less, gives nearly the same results and he can even take the turns more easily

Great reply, but while Schumacher has the money he will always go for the best!

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Originally posted by thoughtlessjex If it were an analogue vs software battle, or an analogue vs VA battle, analogue would win, hands down. But in the case of software vs VA, it just comes down to how much of your CPU can be devoted to making the software imitate the VA's routing. If you have enough power, and your software is high quality, then all things are more or less equal. Not to mention, sometimes its fun to do some lo-fi sounds.

It's not Software vs. VA

Ugh. If you put G-Media impOSCar in a breakout box you would think it was hardware. Its that fucking good. Same with Audio Realism Bassline - The saw wave on that you could mistake for a X0Xbox.

For some reason though people will always love hardware because its tangible. It feels like buying a toy and it has physical presence and worth. In sound terms I dont know why anyone would want to make monophonic analogue sounds with a Virus. It just doesnt sound anywhere near as good for that purpose as impOSCar.

Not that virus is capable anyway. My Waldorf Pulse triangle has 2x more low end at least =) I have to do more cutting the low end than I do boosting with the Pulse, definatly not the same case with virus. Infact I have to highpass at like 60hz not to rape my sub. And it's still fatter than the virus.

And I definatly don't agree with ABL saw sounding like the real 303.. Maybe your being decieve by it's nice distortion unit, when that's up is the only time ABL's saw seems acceptable to me, it's not that fat alone. 303 has no overdrive and it doesn't need it to sound FATTTT.

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Originally posted by Synchronicity It's not Software vs. VA

Indeed. It's software vs hardware, with a VA synth as an example of the hardware. Hardware means both analogues like Xpander, Minimoog and the TB-303, and VAs such as Virus, JP8000, Nord Lead, etc. Because of the differences between these two forms of hardware, I compared each to software in turn.

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303 has no overdrive and it doesn't need it to sound FATTTT.

It doesn't need a distortion unit because it distorts itself when the volume is raised over a certain level. ABL just does the distorting before the volume control, so that you can have more control over the output, something that is more important in digital production. If you don't turn a 303 up really high, it's got slightly more bass than the ABL saw, but otherwise it's almost the same. I don't know what kind of algorithm the distortion unit on ABL uses, but I assume it was made to imitate the way that a 303 distorts. You also must note that Derivative only compared the ABL saw wave to that of the XOXbox, which, despite essentially being a reverse-engineered 303, sounds ever so slightly less thick than the 303.

What if you write your own fpga? It is alot easier than you might think, I've been playing with this beast all summer at my job:


http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/14145

The thing really has enough power and IO capability to do audio. It has this really slick sotware you use to program it, kinda like a programming language, but kinda like reactor, its pretty interesting stuff.

I guess the point of the question is, what is it about hardware that makes it so special? You can take just about any algorithm and burn it into an FPGA or use an embedded processor like many of the VA's do, hell you could synthezise a chip if you had alot of money. Is it the fact that the code is manifested in the form of a circuit, is it in the interface to the device, is it the pretty logos and the huge price tag, is it the fact that is doesn't use the operating system or sound card, is it because the stuff isnt in a noisy ugly unstable beige box that makes it better?

I wonder what makes hardware so different and superior, cuz I could seriously do DSP on this FPGA, midi, realtime, it all works. I've mainly been using it to do control signals at this point. The question being, if I attempted such a thing, would it be able to take advantage of the traits hardware has which make you guys like it so much more than software?

It doesn't distort anything like ABL's overdrive when you turn volume up on a 303! Infact, it gives it less highend. You need a distortion unit/pedal to get that sound from a 303.

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I wonder what makes hardware so different and superior

The developers.

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Originally posted by dj_palm i say again its all about knowing your equipment, whether its hardware or software, as mentioned airbase make killer tracks with software and armin doesnt make shit with expenisive hardwares and stuff. tho there are clearly diferenses between hardware software to my ears, hardware usualy sounds warmer and fuller while software feels abit sticky, its just like the comparision of vinyl vs cd, where vinyl is prefered in my ears. again airbase tracks are realy cool but have you ever listened to them in a club realy loud? its like hes trying to kill your ears with ticky kicks and hi-end-treble boost making me run out of there with my hands over my ears eventho the tracks are realy cool. when listening to a friend of mine which is not signed or anything but he is purely hardware and his trakcs sounds so mad nomather how loud u play. its just warmer, nicer,smoother, wider and all. hardware synths, rest on computer is what im gonna do.

Nearly everything you say is false, unless by hardware you're referring to ANALOG hardware.
That "warmer" feeling is all in your head because software and digital synths (aka VA) are essentially the same.
You CAN argue that a Virus sounds warmer than V-Station for example. But you can't say ALL hardware sound better, warmer... than ALL software.

I dont get the warmth shit. What the hell is warmth? More bass? Seriously. The only reason why the Virus sounds bassy is because the raw oscillators dont have that much top end and the filter is designed in a way where it doesnt kill the bass when the resonance is turned up. At least not that much.

Take Audio Realism Bassline - stick it through a tube amp or a tube simulator. Voila.

On the subject of 303s who the fuck uses a 303 without a shit tonne of effects? Kai Tracid, Aphex, even fucking Hardfloor stick it through tubes and guitar distortion pedals half the time.

The warmth relates to the 'glow' given off. Didn't you know that in the case in Pulp Fiction there is a 303.

The poll is software biased....how about....

5. I don't know ??

Re: can u really tell the difference?? hardware/software.....

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Originally posted by richg101 is there really any point to it. honestly!? i mean hardware is nice cos you have a proper piece of kit you can actually touch. and having something so powerful/looked up to is bound to increace your confidence.

It's worth it for the confidence boost alone.

its like using a piano or guitar in software, you can sample it, you can emulate it, you can make it sound damn good... but still it wont sound as good as a real piano or guitar.. the same applies for synths.

i think alot of software made synths sounds cold and plastic. and yes. I can tell the difference.. not always, but most of the time.

it's still a fact that even VAs (which are only software in a box) sound better than most softsynths. the hardware synths have this deep 3d sound which has so much more emotion and is more alive than the current VSTi synths. and yes, you can hear the difference really good. as already mentioned here, just listen to the airbase tunes and compare them to something like avb. you can hear how much more alive a hardware tune is. and that's not just the production skill.

also, if u listen to producers that has moved from Hardware to Software the change is pretty noticable.

Vincent de Moor
Airwave

although they still makes nice tracks, they sound colder and thinner.

1) All of that is subjective opinion.

2) You can bass anything up by running it through a valve amp or a valve simulator. Ive played on a Roland Juno 106 and yeah - its bassy from the word go but I genuinely think, oscillator waveforms and filter design aside, you could get a similar kind of presence with a well designed softsynth and a valve amp.

Also take note that doing that will make it a little bit harder for these instruments to 'fit' in your tunes - but thats to be expected in digital recording where there is a finite limit to the pre and post gain that can be applied to a signal or frequency range via an EQ or high Q filter.

3) It amazes me that anyone can collectivise *all* softsynths and say all of them don't sound as 'warm' or as 'fat' as hardware VAs when there is no common concensus on what these terms even mean.

4) Say all of that again when you have played G-Media impOSCar. It sounds more analogue than my Virus B and the raw oscillators absolutely shred. It saturates more realistically than my Virus B. The filter sounds more like an analogue filter than my Virus B. If I wanted to make convincing monophonic analogue noises I will use impOSCar over my Virus B any day of the week.

5) If you record via analogue ins, the signal goes through an additional A/D conversion stage. If you have shitty convertors like on pretty much every soundcard below an 828mkII then I just don't get why you would want to do this with any kind of regularity. Since the result is going to be mixed digitally anyway, it makes more sense to keep everything on the digital side if you can help it. Unless you have fucking spectacular convertors like, I dunno - an Apogee Rosetta 200 or something.

Same applies for people running outboard gear on shit convertors and Cubase - WHY?!

I can understand if its real analogue and the A/D conversion is necessary but think about it - taking a digital VA. converting it to analogue so you can send it via an analogue output into a soundcard input which converts it back to digital. Which then converts it back to analogue for real time monitoring.

At this point in time hardware VAs have a better specification than software VAs because it would take too many CPU cycles to replicate them exactly. And nobody likes adding a softsynth and it using 60% CPU load straight away. But as CPUs get faster we will start to see more softsynths in line with the specification of the average hardware VA and then I really see no point for external virtual analogue except for the user interface.

6) Software and hardware have completely different workflow. I admit I tend to prefer hardware in this respect. More hands on. The layout is individual on each synth and the layout is designed in a way which makes programming that synth fast and easy. Also, its easier to visualise the signal chain with loads of hardware as you have to rig it all up and you get a better idea of what the signal is going through. Software though requires no setup and it cannot ever fail (e.g. due to a kinked wire or a faulty module). Software is idiot proof.

I think there's probably not a lot of difference, especially if we're talking about digital hardware synths against software. Essentially a digital hardware synth uses software onboard anyway, the only differences are in terms of processing power etc.

But I just like having synths. The whole idea of people with no real musical talent or knowledge just downloading a piece of software and making music out of trial and error just seems ridiculous - but I guess that's the modern way, so we've gotta roll with it.

Also, I just feel more inspired by hardware because I get my hands on the keys of a real instrument and can scroll through the patches etc. and tweak sounds with my hands. Using a mouse isn't musical, it's formulaic and mathematical - and I personally believe such a difference would really show up in my productions if I was to suddenly switch to software only.

But at the end of the day, everyone has their own comfort zone so there's no better or worse option.

quote:

Originally posted by staticblue If he coudln't afford the best car, he would probably realise that a slightly slower car costs less, gives nearly the same results and he can even take the turns more easily

fastest <> best

since there are ppl who can identify which is a hardware and which is a softsynth va... do me a favour... tell me which of these 2 clips is software & hardware and why.

http://files.to/get/191754/9816/clip_a_and_b.zip

oh yeah, they're all fx'ed... but that wouldn't mask too much

quote:

Originally posted by LENG since there are ppl who can identify which is a hardware and which is a softsynth va... do me a favour... tell me which of these 2 clips is software & hardware and why. http://files.to/get/191754/9816/clip_a_and_b.zip oh yeah, they're all fx'ed... but that wouldn't mask too much

B is very strange eqd. but when the filter is open it has the typical softsynth sound. (static and liveless)

A is probably a jp-80X0 but it has too much white noise on top that you can't hear the synth really well when the filter is full open. but as far as i can tell it's hardware but imho the jp-8080 is a very digital sounding synth and not really great for something else than supersaws.


btw. today you can use something like nexus or other romplers and i wouldn't call them pure softsynths. but they sound better than most "softsynths"

exemple

Jupiter 6 4 life

hardware = humm, glitch, hiss, and warmth. i am no pro, and just recently started working on stuff with other peeps, but hardware is great feel.

TR 909
TR 808
SH 101
TR 707
TR 727 (latin percussion)
roland juno 60
several Korg electribes

Re: Re: Re: can u really tell the difference?? hardware/software.....

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Originally posted by richg101 i gave up on being signed... at least to a label other than 101 recordings.

why did you give up?

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