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When will the obsession with "analog" stop? (pg. 20)
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| Innocence Lost |
| quote: | Originally posted by Raphie
See and that's your problem. you can play with VSTi's with 5000 "oscilators" or wavetable synthesis nerve, or serum or ..... at the end of the day it still all sounds like , harsch flat, hollow stale my first Fischer Price sound.
you still don't get now do you, analog oscilators or real DCO's sound together with analog filters and output stages sound so much better than a piece of code on a PC. |
I remember Rann saying that the moog founder said that digital is better :p
I never forget! I was flamed to hell for what you're saying,. |
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| Raphie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Robotrance
amen lol, praize jah.
absolutely no logic behind, only biased through own equipment.
my speakers are the best because i have them. i wouldnt buy them if they werent lol. this kind of mentallity is the problem.
the world is flat. |
my speakers are pretty good yeah, so is my room, I play with software too, Hence i've got an informed opinion on both.... maybe you should upgrade your monitoring too, so you can appreciate the difference, but then again you've got nothing to compare your vst's against, so basically you've got an uninformed opinion..... |
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| Innocence Lost |
| quote: | Originally posted by Robotrance
the problem with current VSTs is that to save CPU they have to have effective code not allowing enough harmonic overtones in the oscillators, filters and the distortion.
the fourer series just doesnt have enough sums (resolution) just yet. but when they all turn 64bit with quad core support things will begin to look good. thats why i have big hopes for Reason to be the first because they are one of the few that still invest time in making incredible native synths in their Daw. Logic is the second, and probably better instruments just today. The problem with great sound is that it costs CPU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_series |
OOOOOO :eyespop: |
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| AlphaStarred |
| quote: | Originally posted by Robotrance
if anything is "best" it is the endless possibilities of digital... |
This is exactly what Brian Eno mentions in my bump. "Endless possibilities" is often detrimental to the creative process, and has resulted in the Ping Pong Trance and Dubstep of today. |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| Oh sweet jebus, make it stop. |
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| Raphie |
Again you are confusing digital as a recording / playback medium (which has been fine for many many years) with digital as in dsp modelled sound generation/modulation, which still sounds like compared with analog sound generation/modulation.
Your mixing up technologies, DSP based modelling has NOTHING to do with digital audio reproduction, but you know that right?
| quote: | Originally posted by Robotrance
i have never said multiple bad oscillators will help, what i say is that using more resolution (more harmonics) in the math behind EACH oscillator it will probably sound better than analog, the waveforms will be perfect without any noise. it costs CPU power and nothing more. Its not there today, I guess most digital oscilator today use 8-10 harmonics only, while you should have maybe 50.
if you analog equipment sounds so good, how come it sound just as good when recorded as wav, then played back from computer? magic there too? no its digital waveform being able to reproduce anything in the analog domain.
yeah I dont have the best monitor situation I know that. But the fact that you have tried some VSTs and comparing with your better engineered analog equipment doesnt prove that the digital technology by default are unable to produce more accurate waves than any analog machine. it just show me that first of all you havent tried all that much using soft synths (again like Thor), secondly you bias your equipment and are of course very afraid to realize that all that equipment is redundant in a few years, replaced by one single synth.
even then I guess you will sit here saying "what about the capasitors and transistors!!!" when everyone is making noise-by-unintention free music while the distortion is only where you want it, in the sound design. you are basically basing your arguments on "you are wrong because i like what i have", and no theoretical reason behind it. i say that digital is just as good or maybe even better based on the theoretical mathematics behind is more accurate + flexible and cheaper, as well as easier accessable. |
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| Innocence Lost |
| ROBOTRANCE,ROBOTRANCE! |
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| Raphie |
No, digital synths don't sound like full stop, but compared to their analogue counterparts they do sound stale and hollow
I sort of agree with your thesis, though in reality we haven't made real progress in resolution and all kinds of add ons like non linear artifacts and stuff. Digital emulation has reached a plateau, with a limited set of formulas and though marketing wants you to believe otherwise the gap with analog gear still has't been closed.
I mean Diva or MONARK still doesn't sound anything as rich and thick / sticky as a minimoog.
The gap in outboard (EQ/Compression) is even bigger.
Digital is good in clean, it's a nice addition to your palette of sounds, however digital is not very convincing in emulating analogue. The harder it tries to sound like analogue, the more hollow. phasey artificial it sounds. I mean listen to VCC for example, sounds like , NLS sounds like . has not nothing to do with analog.
It's "inspired" at most, but that widened phasey artifical tamed transients sound, sounds just plain awfull |
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| Raphie |
in VST land i like my Cubase 7.5 stock plugins as much as any new 3rd PTY hype
for limiting I'm happy with my Toneboosters Barricade, TAPE EMU, I find again Toneboosters Reelbus the best, though 9/10 times the artifical sound of tape emu's really start to bother me.
EQ wise Sonnox has been my "go to" digital EQ for ages.
At synth level I'm happy with my NI Maschine Studio, Massive and FM8, together with the Cubase 7.5 synths I've got no appetite to buy any of the next big synths.
I'm trying them all, but it's all more of the same to me. I mean omnisphere or serum it's all the same wavetable mangling e. I don't like it. Others might, but find it harsh bright, brittle reverb drenched dubstep cliches. impossible to give me goosebumps. However playing some chords on my P12 or P2 and i feel reborn.
So I'm not rejecting digital, I work hybrid, analog is still ahead in my book. Once digital gets there, I'm more than happy to seperate from my outboard as I'm not emotionally attached to it. But man.... for the last decade it still sounds so much better.......
On a different note, we could also call this topic, when will the obsession with digital stop? because the obsession is more about digititus: preaching from digital grown kids with no analog hindsight or experience trying to reform everyone that there is no longer a need for analog while not having any experience themselves.
VST(i)'s are a good deal. for what it's worth, people can make music for free, or spend a limited amount for a lot functionallity. That's all good. But a marketing buzzword like "metucilously" together with a nice GUI doesn't make it sound the same as the real analog counterpart. It might sound "good" i.e. better than using your VST synth without it, but that doesn't make it sound "good" if you know what I mean. Lot's of people lack perspective and experience to make these kind of statements. |
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| Raphie |
My AES/EBU monitors(K&H o 300d) are for sale, as my analog PLINIUS SB 301 + TAD S-1-EX speakers sound so much better together.
I've been running Class D amps for a couple of years, but now I'm back with analogue A/B amps with high A bias. |
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| Raphie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Robotrance
yeah class D isnt all there yet unfortunately. someday. all of it. im loosing my point here lol. suddenly all parts of digital seems low paar. maybe i was the religious bastard after all. |
No I get your point. The promise/potential is there. They just didn't fully crack the code yet. Once that's done I'm all inn. seriously.
But up until that time I keep experimenting with both domains and, outside the "clean" dept. For me analog still wins.
for recording / playback digital is clearly the winner
capturing and replaying detail is no longer a challenge.
but modelling /modulating remains a challenge for now.
Resolution for sure is part of it, but there is more which is not solved with something simple as adding 2nd or 3rd order harmonics. non lineair artifacts, or an artifical noisefloor.
Even impulses/FIRs like Nebula (basically sampling "tone") doesn't get you there. There is more.... once they decypher more. I'm all game. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Innocence Lost
I remember Rann saying that the moog founder said that digital is better :p
I never forget! I was flamed to hell for what you're saying,. |
I did not say that. I said Bob Moog told me that there was virtually no difference between a moog and Arturia's Software version. He said they have done an incredible of making the software sound exactly like the original hardware. They even did analogue randomization as an option so it would misbehave slightly and give you that ghost in the machine feel and sound.
Palm is somewhat correct that *theoretically* digital could sound the same as analogue but we are not there yet.
Until we develop systems that can reproduce sound without artifacts and aliasing to the level of resolution that we cannot tell it's not a single linear analogous wave (rather than reassembled slices of a waveform) then it won't sound the same.
There are people that argue that higher sample rates are required to hear overtones or harmonics to truly reproduce a signal, but then others that argue the higher sample rate just introduces more aliasing and due to the fact that DAC's can only truly use about 20bits of a 24bit architecture.
The irony is, it will probably work out more expensive in the long run to emulate true analogue than it will be to buy an analogue synth. |
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