Are Analog Synths Overrated?

  On 12/15/2017 at 12:24 AM, marf said:

Back to painting. The pain is the digital, the Frame is the analog. Analog is texture and depth. Like the felt in your belly button. . Digital is glossy.

 

I think a better analogy would be "analog is oil paints, digital is a good airbrush" both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, both can cover a lot of similar ground but ultimately neither one can quite replicate the other (but why should they?).

 

The frame is the extramusical stuff like distribution medium and everything else that gives context to the actual music, whether it's programmatic things like a backstory for a concept album or the public image of the artist who made it or a video or whatever. Ceephax's sweaters are part of a frame.

 

 

EDIT: also, historically, painters working in older mediums like oil and watercolor had very similar criticisms of airbrush and (to a lesser degree) acrylic painting to the criticisms analog purists have of digital synths now, which are similar to the criticisms musicians had of synthesizers back in the 60s and 70s and a lot of them all the way into the 80s and 90s - in the early to mid 90s when I first started to take making music seriously as a kid you literally didn't want some people to know you owned a drum machine because "no soul, maaan." Actually come to think of it I heard almost literally that exact line used just two weeks ago by an older, Gen X era musician talking about the problem with modular synthesizers (because clock has "no soul") so I guess it's still around.

 

Anyway, every new technology in music in the last century and a half has gotten basically the same criticism from people who adopted the previous wave of new technology, all the way back to brass instruments and jazz which were criticzed wildly in the late 19th and early 20th century for being mechanical, soulless, sterile, industrial, capitalist, etc. etc. by a LOT of very influential people (look up what Adorno was saying about jazz back then for some classic examples).

Edited December 15, 2017 by RSP

I think the analog/digital dichotomy is kind of stupid. Not only are some of the most interesting synths hybrids of the two, every synth has its own texture and color and signature. The whole warm/cold thing is pretty tired. What about yellow, beige, blue, glassy, papery, metallic, breathy, hollow, skeletal, wet, muscular, bleeding, coughing, running, falling, flying, etc.

Analog is awesome and overrated.

Digital is awesome and overrated.

You are sorta right and wrong.

overrated? na

overpriced? ya

Korg Monologue is a well-featured synthesizer, easy to use (knobby, w/easy/intuitive menu control), with pretty good sound capabilities. For $300 new, it's a good deal.

  On 12/16/2017 at 4:38 AM, sweepstakes said:

I think the analog/digital dichotomy is kind of stupid. Not only are some of the most interesting synths hybrids of the two, every synth has its own texture and color and signature. The whole warm/cold thing is pretty tired. What about yellow, beige, blue, glassy, papery, metallic, breathy, hollow, skeletal, wet, muscular, bleeding, coughing, running, falling, flying, etc.

 

I totally agree with this and I still say that without a proper A/B test all the "analog warmth" could just as well be induced by your subconsciousness when you touch the actual hardware. In the end, the only thing that matters is what you get out of it in terms of sound.

 

I also think this argument sort of overlaps with "hardware vs software", because while there are VSTs and digital hardware synths, there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it. What I mean with this is that usually analog stuff also comes with a really thought out workflow and baked in connections (with all the creativity-inducing restrictions), whereas for digital you do have the same workflow/connections in the case of digital hardware, but when talking about VSTs on a computer, there is no set workflow because you can set up anything and everything. So if we are comparing analog vs digital, are we only comparing analog hardware to digital hardware or does digital encompass anything from a DSP chip to crazy Max/Reaktor patches?

 

Oh and with regard to RSP's argument about randomness in computers - technically it's correct but I find myself thinking "can I really tell the difference between true randomness and pseudo randomness?". This distinction matters a lot in cryptography, but I am not so sure about it mattering in audio processing. Besides, I can always seed my generators with logs from some external "true randomness" generator such as a particle detector.

Edited December 18, 2017 by thawkins

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it.

http://truenosynth.com

  On 12/18/2017 at 5:45 AM, psn said:

 

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it.

http://truenosynth.com

 

 

Holy shit! Even though it's still sort of digital because of the ADC, that's a really interesting piece of kit. Listening to the demos though I am not sure if I could tell if they have been made on an analog synth or not. So if it turns out to be popular - even though you could probably get similar synths as VSTs - I guess that destroys my argument a bit. :)

  On 12/18/2017 at 5:45 AM, psn said:

 

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it.

http://truenosynth.com

 

Ok now that admittedly is really cool. Steep price though for such a tiny little thing. :(

You could argue that the Analogfour can be VST with overbridge.

  On 12/18/2017 at 5:45 AM, psn said:

 

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it.

http://truenosynth.com

 

 

nice !

  On 12/18/2017 at 12:56 PM, D4M0 said:

 

  On 12/18/2017 at 5:45 AM, psn said:

 

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

there are (to my knowledge) no analog synths which you use purely as a VST - there's usually some rack or knobby module to go with it.

http://truenosynth.com

 

 

nice !

 

very nice!

  On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, thawkins said:

Oh and with regard to RSP's argument about randomness in computers - technically it's correct but I find myself thinking "can I really tell the difference between true randomness and pseudo randomness?". This distinction matters a lot in cryptography, but I am not so sure about it mattering in audio processing. Besides, I can always seed my generators with logs from some external "true randomness" generator such as a particle detector.

 

 

 

Oh, I don't think it actually matters personally but I was throwing it out there as more of a metaphysical case for them being inherently different.

 

 

I do definitely notice a difference between analog and virtual analog though, I just don't really think it makes one better than the other or anything.  Mostly I just think it's fun to talk about.   think it mostly comes down to the design of the antialias filters, how low the cutoff of them is (a lot of VA hardware still runs at 44.1 or 48 so the antialias filter is going to be affecting phase well in to the audio range) and the quality of the clock that the DACs use.  Most VA synths cost less than the cost of a high quality clock alone, so it's a given they're going to be jittery, which is just part of their sound, and they can sound realy good even if they don't sound "authentic" or whatever. 

 

If I was going to get snobby about something I think I care more about DSP based digital vs. older digital designs that use a bunch of dedicated, task-specific DSP chips and things, like the difference between a DX-7 and the NI FM-7 for example, where the actual algorithms are identical but the sound is a lot different. 

 

But even that's down to taste, there's nothing that's objectively "better" or "worse" as long as it works and you like it.

Edited December 25, 2017 by RSP

  On 12/25/2017 at 9:27 PM, RSP said:

Most VA synths cost less than the cost of a high quality clock alone

Wait, what? To be fair I've not spent one minute investigating this (and frankly I'm unsure what search terms I'd use) but this sounds absurd.

 

As a point of reference, I bought a Nord Micro Modular in 2005 for $250. It is jitter-free and buttery smooth and I believe it runs at 96/24 which I always thought was total overkill.

Can i nominate this as the worst thread of 2017?

the answer to OP is still yes

since everyone loves Drukqs. Just get a G5 and PlayerPro. Fuck sheepshaver. 

That software s creams drukqs. Check it out for fun. Or make drukqs2

 

Unless you are making music with a string and a couple tin cans. You've been had

Edited December 28, 2017 by marf

  On 12/28/2017 at 9:01 AM, acid1 said:

Can i nominate this as the worst thread of 2017?

 

There's still time left for a worse one if we really apply ourselves.

LET'S DO IT!

 

  On 12/28/2017 at 5:44 PM, marf said:

since everyone loves Drukqs.

 

No.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Guest

  On 1/5/2018 at 2:09 PM, Wurstwasser said:

 

  On 12/28/2017 at 5:44 PM, marf said:

since everyone loves Drukqs.

 

No.

 

 

 

  On 12/28/2017 at 9:01 AM, acid1 said:

Can i nominate this as the worst thread of 2017?

 

Now you should.

everything is overrated. except underrating.

everything in overrated, except knowledge

 

  On 1/7/2018 at 10:02 PM, xox said:

everything in overrated, except knowledge

  Reveal hidden contents

...and love 

 

 

Those are overrated too.  True facts.

No not at all. Analog is like a fucking animal. Don't get me wrong digital synthesis is amazing and so crazy deep people are still just working out the potential with granular and wavetables and shit. But working with analog is almost like having a conversation with this piece of gear. And the ways that analog circuits natural resonate with pitches found naturally in nature. (i.e no odd harmonics in the overtones.) And plus its just more fun to be able to just grab a knob compared to micro editing some shit in serum. But also Tuning all the analog shit and fixing it when something gets fucked up is the my less favorite aspect of analog.