software emulations of vintage synths

This topic is about vst or vsti software instruments that emulate vintage synthesisers and / or drum machines. feel free to post what ever comes in mind

Arturia is as close as it gets but like all vintage vst's they start to sound a little cartoon in the higher octaves

CPU processing cant yet replicate the natural harmonic distortions of real analogue circuits in the higher frequency ranges

whether you need this sonic range in your music is another matter

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:16 PM, soundwave said:

Arturia is as close as it gets but like all vintage vst's they start to sound a little cartoon in the higher octaves

 

CPU processing cant yet replicate the natural harmonic distortions of real analogue circuits in the higher frequency ranges

 

whether you need this sonic range in your music is another matter

sure none of these are perfect as they are just emulations. I am just looking for a list of stuff to see if I miss something

yeah the D16 group drum machines are pretty awesome....apart from the nithonat hasn't quite nailed the 606 sound and i find the kicks muddy and distorted which is a shame...but the nepheton and drumazon are really good!

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:08 PM, oscillik said:

d16.pl

these are awesome. I always tend to forget about them for some reason

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:24 PM, BCM said:

yeah the D16 group drum machines are pretty awesome....apart from the nithonat hasn't quite nailed the 606 sound and i find the kicks muddy and distorted which is a shame...but the nepheton and drumazon are really good!

yeah, i'd definitely agree. the Nithonat (TR-606) is a bit off, but the Nepheton (TR-808) and Drumazon (TR-909) are pretty much bang on. hihats on the Nepheton are a little off though, at least compared to the 808 i used to have. but then again, we all know how analogue stuff is.

are there any refills / presets for reason that fall into the vintage category by the way? (forgot about this as I started the topic)

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:26 PM, oscillik said:

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:24 PM, BCM said:

yeah the D16 group drum machines are pretty awesome....apart from the nithonat hasn't quite nailed the 606 sound and i find the kicks muddy and distorted which is a shame...but the nepheton and drumazon are really good!

yeah, i'd definitely agree. the Nithonat (TR-606) is a bit off, but the Nepheton (TR-808) and Drumazon (TR-909) are pretty much bang on. hihats on the Nepheton are a little off though, at least compared to the 808 i used to have. but then again, we all know how analogue stuff is.

yeah, shame about the nithonat - i'd like to get a good 606 emulator nevertheless....i love those metallic hats! anyone know of a good 'un?

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:34 PM, BCM said:

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:26 PM, oscillik said:

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:24 PM, BCM said:

yeah the D16 group drum machines are pretty awesome....apart from the nithonat hasn't quite nailed the 606 sound and i find the kicks muddy and distorted which is a shame...but the nepheton and drumazon are really good!

yeah, i'd definitely agree. the Nithonat (TR-606) is a bit off, but the Nepheton (TR-808) and Drumazon (TR-909) are pretty much bang on. hihats on the Nepheton are a little off though, at least compared to the 808 i used to have. but then again, we all know how analogue stuff is.

 

yeah, shame about the nithonat - i'd like to get a good 606 emulator nevertheless....i love those metallic hats! anyone know of a good 'un?

yeah, the 606 hihats have a certain abbrasiveness to them. the 606 may share a lot of the common ground with the 808, but it is certainly a different beast (at least unmodified).

sorry, i have no idea if there's a better emulation out there...my music making seems to have come to a complete standstill, with no hope of coming back.

besides the D16 one there's the AudioRealism ADM, it does all three classics in one soft.. It's more an instrument in itself then a 1 on 1 emulation I think though, and it loads samples too. I quite like it.

yeah, i've got ADM but it's a cracked version and never seems to work properly :(

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:16 PM, soundwave said:

Arturia is as close as it gets but like all vintage vst's they start to sound a little cartoon in the higher octaves

 

CPU processing cant yet replicate the natural harmonic distortions of real analogue circuits in the higher frequency ranges

 

whether you need this sonic range in your music is another matter

would have to disagree with this. The Arturia synths are very nice, they do sound pretty cool, but very far from faithful reproductions. As far as I know, all of the synths in the V range (2600v, CS80v, Moog Modular etc) all use identical oscillator and filter design. The only differences are in the interfaces, quite a piss take if you ask me, especially considering they sold them in a bundle. 3 identical synths in one box... Having said that, they do sound nice and the modular is really powerful, very CPU heavy also.

At least for an ARP emulation, you'd be better off checking out TimewARP from way out ware. Certainly more character than the Arturia efforts.

I still really like the pro5 from NI, not incredibly faithful, but pretty good. It's a very versatile synth though, find myself coming back to it a lot when I'm making synthy music.

audio Realism baseline is pretty cool, haven't they brought out a second version? Should check that out, though to be fair I'm not really one for 303 lines so much. Much prefer the SH101 for acid lines, less squark and more chunk.

Is there a 101 emulation about, never come across one...

I started to make a few of my own attempts in Reaktor, first ones are a little naff, but I did have a crack at making a 101 which is pretty good. Filter resonance behaviour isn't quite there yet, but the oscillators behave really well. should try and upload it here when it's done. I also started trying to make a modular system, building separate modules designed to imitate various different synths. The idea being that you could combine them all to create new analogue sounding synth designs. Like a 101 oscillator section running through a MS20 filter, or a 2600 ring mod integrated into a 303. Loads to do, getting there though :)

Don't know too much about drum machine emulations. I imagine there are some but have never bothered to look. More often you'll find sample packs of things. There's a few about from an 808 which sound good, I expect the same for many of the Roland machines. I suppose it's just more practical for people to make sample libraries over emulations. Maybe you'd have more fun using something like an ARP emulation, or the moog modular to make your own synth drum sounds? Far more options for making some cool noises.

I own most of the real things that the D16 guys have made emulations of, and they did a good job on the software versions. I think the 909 is the closest they got, probably because the actual 909 had digital hats, cymbals etc anyway.

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:16 PM, soundwave said:

Arturia is as close as it gets but like all vintage vst's they start to sound a little cartoon in the higher octaves

 

CPU processing cant yet replicate the natural harmonic distortions of real analogue circuits in the higher frequency ranges

 

whether you need this sonic range in your music is another matter

I disagree about Arturia. I think they make some of the weaker emulations out there. Highly overrated. Whenever someone does a soundclip comparison, its always pretty easy to hear the difference with Arturia stuff. It just sounds like a cheap imitation of the real hardware. Other companies have gotten a lot closer.

my favorite modern recreation of an old piece of gear is the Madrona Labs Aalto synthesizer, which is a recreation of old and new Buchla modular stuff, sounds pretty damn close too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juEhTWeq3bI&feature=related

  On 6/23/2011 at 10:03 PM, Awepittance said:

my favorite modern recreation of an old piece of gear is the Madrona Labs Aalto synthesizer, which is a recreation of old and new Buchla modular stuff, sounds pretty damn close too.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juEhTWeq3bI&feature=related

wow that looks awesome. I didn't know about its existence

there is also a nice emulation of the juno 6 in NI Reaktor:

I have no idea how it sounds compared to the original but I really like the sound

  On 6/23/2011 at 9:00 PM, MrSparkle666 said:

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:16 PM, soundwave said:

Arturia is as close as it gets but like all vintage vst's they start to sound a little cartoon in the higher octaves

 

CPU processing cant yet replicate the natural harmonic distortions of real analogue circuits in the higher frequency ranges

 

whether you need this sonic range in your music is another matter

 

I disagree about Arturia. I think they make some of the weaker emulations out there. Highly overrated. Whenever someone does a soundclip comparison, its always pretty easy to hear the difference with Arturia stuff. It just sounds like a cheap imitation of the real hardware. Other companies have gotten a lot closer.

I put the Moog Modular V2 head to head with my mates Memorymoog and it was pretty close in the bass-mid range but started to lack in the higher octaves, filter self oscillation and hi frequency filter mod was out of the window tho

I remember EMS making an expensive VST AVS and the old Oditty sounded quite good for its time

the MS20, Iposcar and TimewARP sounded nothing like the real thing but still did some interesting stuff saying that it's been a while since I've looked at any analogue style VST's and that Buchla sounds good, albeit a little dull in the high frequencies but that could just be the youtube vid quality

gforce has some nice vintage synth stuff. i bought the impOSCar when they had a promo thingy going on...some nice sounds there

http://www.gforcesoftware.com/

http://www.gforcesoftware.com/ins_imposcar.php

cheers,

io

I recently found this list: http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/8-great-vintage-synth-vst-plug-ins-458875/1

there are more lists on the page that are pretty interesting even so they are not about vintage synths:

http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-17-best-vst-plug-in-synths-in-the-world-today-262145/2

sure most of them are very well known but I like these lists when I want to find guildline in the infinite amount of options

NI's FM8 can emulate the DX line perfectly. I love that softsynth so much.

my dream emulations (some of the less vintage ones would be amazing)

Arp2500

Serge modular

Wiard modular

Kawai K5000

Eventide H3000

Eventide Orville

Yamaha Vl 1 (physical mod units)

Yamaha Vl line (physical mod units)

yes please!

  On 6/29/2011 at 10:13 PM, Awepittance said:

my dream emulations (some of the less vintage ones would be amazing)

 

Arp2500

 

Definately this, kinda funny just how many 2600 emulations there ate, apparently no one has tried this though..

What I would LOVE would be some type of modular environment, similar to reaktor or whatever, with accurate emulations of classic synth modules. Not just one particular manufacturer, but many different ones, all available to drop into a virtual case and patch, without the worries of format etc..