Synthy poll

Ok, I'm in a synth mood. I just have to know:

Which do you all prefer?

Me? Hardware all the way. I have an extreme dislike for software synths. If I had the money, I'd be True Analog all the way. Now, where to find a MiniMoog...

Most of the synths listed can be found at either sonicstate.com or synthmuseum.com

Whatever sounds the best.

90% of the time it's hardware, but there are also some excellent soundfonts available which sound far better than any hardware I've ever heard.

BTW, mine.

Yamaha's XG synths. I don't have a hardware one at the moment. But my software one with a 2MB wavetable sounds a lot better than a Creative synth with a 40MB soundfont.

Demos and fun shit at yamaha-xg.com

piano

Despite my knowlege and love of music, I don't know much about synths. That's why I'm going to school to learn such things. :P Moogs own though.

I have about 500MB of soundfonts. Some of them are great, my problem is mainly that I can't set per-channel treble and reverb levels with MIDI :\

software. mainly out of necessity.

What I prefer: Hardware...doesn't get any better than that

What I can afford: Software

Python_Junkie said:

What I prefer: Hardware...doesn't get any better than that

What I can afford: Software

Ditto.

Heh...Fruity Loops!!!1

This topic is more and more making me want to buy my friend's synthesizer and interface it with my computer...after hearing that, I've got a feeling I'd cream my jeans hearing a DOOM MIDI on that ;)

FM/PSG, whatever that falls under.

Of course I like wavetable for MIDI. I have an SBLive (which I've been disappointed with, but Yamaha stuff is expensive) and I also have WinGroove, which is a pretty good, light software synth.

Whatever's cheapest (better even: less expensive) will have to do.

spank said:

Whatever's cheapest (better even: less expensive)

Actual ad in a newpaper:

"Get 50% off or half-price, WHICHEVER IS LESS!"

all I have really is the GM wavetable on my comp, no reverb or chorus effects. I wanna buy my school's Roland Juno 106, they never use it, and it's a killer classic synth.

i'll use whatever works for what i'm needing at the moment (within my budget, of course), but i perfer hardware over software. yamaha's xg is great, my sis got a yamaha rxg500 for her birthday and it's quite useful. still, i can usually only afford software, i'm just glad that i got a yamaha synthesiser for my laptop, MIDI just doesn't sound the same without it. i'm trying to find a yamaha qy70, my friend's got one and they're the shit. i'd like a 100 though seeing as the MIDI overdriven guitar sucks.

oh yeah, Reznor says to buy a G5 if you can afford it. :)

Anyone seen an OPL3 emulator? I miss FM midi. The last computers with those chips were made in about 1999. I have emulators for Adlib and SID but not OPL3.

analog synth as heard in goa and psytrance is much superior to digital and software synths... software analog simulators are nowhere near perfect. There are some decent digital synths but I still believe analog is much better. Hopefully in the future the quality of software synths improves.

Most software that emulates some kind of hardware is written in a high-level way that emulates what it outputs vs. what it actually does. For example, Ken Silverman's Adlib emulator has rather short code and there's no way it actually emulates the chip. If it did, he wouldn't be complaining about some of it sounding weird.

The best way to emulate an analog synth would be to literally emulate the electronics. Would be a much fatter and processor-intensive program though.

I still miss my FM midi and I can't put an old SB16 or whatever in my laptop. :(

Aliotroph? said:

The best way to emulate an analog synth would be to literally emulate the electronics. Would be a much fatter and processor-intensive program though.

The thing with analog is that you really can't fully emulate it. Once you digitize a sound wave, in any way, you still introduce error due to the inablility to be precise. If you were able to zoom in on a sine wave close enough, you'd see stair stepping due to the 1s and 0s that, in the base form, make up a digital sound wave. After this, it has to pass through a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter), which takes 1s and 0s and connects the dots.

In a true analog synth, the sound is produced by a VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator). Since it is a true oscillator, using the fluctuations in voltage rather than 1s and 0s to produce the waves, it's precise enough to loose the stairstepping, causing a smooth, natural wave, something a computer can't do. Sure, there are different levels of precision for the oscillators. Some are more precise than others. But, they aren't digital, so they aren't stairstepped.

Computers will never be able to emulate them in software 100%. Thus, computers and digital synths will never have the warmth true analog has.

See here for a more detailed explination: http://www.iaekm.org/archive/p11.html

Kurzweil synths

Aliotroph? said:

Anyone seen an OPL3 emulator? I miss FM midi. The last computers with those chips were made in about 1999. I have emulators for Adlib and SID but not OPL3.

Hell, I'm still looking for a CMF player that works on a newer machine.

TeamKill said:

The thing with analog is that you really can't fully emulate it.

Computers can and do emulate analog sound digitally to the point that it is indistinguishable from the "real thing" to human ears.

Fredrik said:

Computers can and do emulate analog sound digitally to the point that it is indistinguishable from the "real thing" to human ears.

I beg to differ. I can tell by sound the difference between the two.

TeamKill said:

I beg to differ. I can tell by sound the difference between the two.

For low quality digital sound, obviously.

Fredrik said:

For low quality digital sound, obviously.

nope, Digital synth, 16-bit 44kHz vs. analog directly coming out of a speaker. I'm the sound specialist where I work.

TeamKill said:

16-bit 44kHz

Is low quality.

Fredrik said:

Is low quality.

How about 24-bit 96kHz? Same thing there. Or 24-bit 192kHz?

OMG Roland 0\/\/nz jüü!!