Why is it that new synths seem to concentrate on features?,
I was going to buy the new Korg M3, i did think about it ,but when I listened to the sounds, One thing struck me -
it sounds thinner than a triton pro, i also listened to the yamaha XS6 , also this machine sounds thin(turn off the effects on a lead sound and it sounds more like a fly buzzing around your ear!).

When i had my original trinity from korg, that was a thicker sound ,more warm sound, then i got a triton which was thinner and now the M3 is thinner still, just better features and more Fx, Hardware synths seem to becoming more and more like softsynths , whats the point?.

Whats the point of buying hardware if its just software sounding with a hardware interface? ,if the manufacturers are going to sell new keyboards they need to concentrate on sound quality not features.

I am into old analog synths also , keyboards seem to be going backwards in my ears!, ive ended up getting a kurzweil K2661, which is not my ideal choice but at least it has a quality output , at least the presets work without being swamped in fx to make them passable.

I think myself that the technology used in synths, the chips seem to be made cheaper and this has a knock on effect on sound quality.

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A gentleman is a man who can play "jump" on keyboards, but chooses not to

We've known this for a while. The Trinity is _technically_ one of the best that Korg ever made, but it was fairly expensive. So they hacked and slashed internally and added silly stuff like arpeggiators and voila - the Triton. Feature rich, yes. Inherently good sound? Nah...

Same thing with the Rolands. The JD series were very slick and sounded awesome - ok, a slight upper mid sheen to the sounds, but it is a Roland. What's that Skippy? The JD series don't sell as many? Let's cut the quality of the engine and then play the 'cram as much into the box as we can' game and we can shift bucketloads! The real selling point for Roland synths in the 90s was the expansion cards - loads of presets so you can find the handful that actually sound any good.

But then we look at Kurzweil. How many people have thought 'this synth hasn't been updated in donkeys years - it must be rubbish'? Come on - hands up .. we all have at some point. Then we listen to the synth. And we hear a clean, clear, full sound with no silly lumps in the spectrum and we remember what a synth _should_ sound like.

No wonder we've had a resurgence of 'analogue' via VA synths. Take away the FX and most synths these days sound horrible. The manufacturers solution? Put more effects on!

In car terms, this is like the salesman saying : Yes this lovely Ferrari is a great car - look at the paint job, the special tyres, the shiny levers and fluffy dice. You don't need to know that we've only stuck a VW beetle engine in there...

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

I've got a Little Phatty and that doesn't sound at all like the examples you've listed.

It sounds huge, warm, distinctive and thick.

I guess if you want a workstation that by essence of its design is a compromise then there will be some sacrifices.

If you want a lead synth, get one. If you want a sequencer, get one. If you want an orchestra, get a sample library.

There are still some fantastic modern synths out there.

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www.mikeandersonmusic.co.uk

Good to hear you say that Dave...

I'm the first to admit that I dont know an oscillator from an LFO. I just dont really use synths ever, but a few years ago (when they were still expensive) I bought Triton because I needed 'those sorts of sounds' for the type of projects I was doing. What I noticed was that once you took off the chain of eight FX and the silly eq on every patch, you were left with...not much of anything. The basic sounds: Not good.

So I sold it.

J

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www.jackruston.com

Hi Dameo

IMO Korg are creating patches that will layer up and fit in a mix with the synths you're talking about but it's a different story with an MS2000.

The synth player in my band uses both a Karma and an MS2000. Entirely different animals from one another but between them there is a lot of coverage.

Perhaps by implication the M3 and the Roland synths aren't as textural or as rewarding in sound for a synth programmer wanting rich lead sounds that take up alot of the frequency range.

Peace,
octopussy

Quote thejazzassassin:

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I've got a Little Phatty and that doesn't sound at all like the examples you've listed.

---

Although that's a "modern synth"... strictly speaking, under the bonnet it's an old Moog with some tweakage. And very nice too.

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www.bemuso.com

Geddy from Rush was playing a Little Fatty on the recent tour.
(assuming it wasn't midied to a rack full of other stuff)

It sounded superb, huge sound that was warmer than hot buttered toast in a sleeping bag with a fresh hot water bottle.

Whilst I don't strongly disagree with any of this, I would like to say that this obsession with fatness manifests its own problems. Too many fat things in a mix are about as welcome as too many fat people in a lift. You end up squishing them into some very weird shapes, or kicking some out entirely.

Just another perspective.

Paul (stroking his new Prophet's lardy thighs)

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http://www.bogusfocus.com/

Always fun & informative to read your posts Paul
Wish yoou'd visit more often

With Tangerine Dream their timeless 70's stuff uses down to earth soounds.

Their stuuf that sounds dated uses all those fx laden presets from 80's, 90's synths.
Which at the time they with many oothers probably thought was so cutting edge & "modern".

I have a problem with VA PWM sounds.
They nearly always sound harsher and "hashier" as you go up the keys, whereas even my DCO analogues sound thick and silky - & you can get away with less filtering on them to retain detail.
The Trinity rack (and D-50) was cool for that overt digital thing IMO, and I didn't care to "upgrade" once I heard the Triton. In fact the only digital synths I've bought in 10 years are the Nord modulars and a TX81z.
I played with an again SH-1 recently, and for a cheapish single osc synth, that was one fat beast.
It does seem to be mostly a case of sticking bells-and-whistles on crap nowadays.

This is the thing,
people i suppose like's lots of feature's.

I like a sound that is beutifull and musical.
Cheaper and cheaper made, this is reflected by the sound quality.

my all time fave synth's are :-
oberhiem xpander,
Emu EIII sampler,
Korg mono/poly,
Yamaha Dx7,
Korg trinity.

Not but i own any of these right now, but i have in the past.

Nobody will be bothered about hardware synth`s if they dont start to make output quality and musicalness a priority.

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A gentleman is a man who can play "jump" on keyboards, but chooses not to

Quote table for two:

---

With Tangerine Dream their timeless 70's stuff uses down to earth soounds.

Their stuuf that sounds dated uses all those fx laden presets from 80's, 90's synths.
Which at the time they with many oothers probably thought was so cutting edge & "modern".

---

I think it's sorta down to the size of your building blocks. With simple things *you* have to be creative. It's much harder to build something unique out of large, pre-shaped bricks. Once highly polyphonic multitimbral synths packed with samples, effects and patch memories etc. came on the scene, it became so much harder to use them and keep your own identity.

And at the same time came MIDI and the beginnings of computer-based MIDI 'sequencers' with their graphical arrange pages that relieved our ears of some of the work - in favour of our eyes getting in on the act. MIDI gave us polyphonic sequencing with high resolution so you could capture or edit a full performance. Previously the sequencer was easily spotted doing the 16-step blippy blip stuff. Ans, as a by-product, MIDI also screwed "live" performance for many, opening up a scary new era of MIDI backing that put the synthesizer back in the dark ages as an appreciated solo instrument. It had not long since escaped thanks to the Minimoog etc. Of course you still couldn't really fake guitars and drums etc. but now who really knew what the keyboard guys were doing? There was much frowning at the sudden rise in complexity and polish of live "performances" Ah, don't get me started. Oh.

Anyway, all these things had an impact on TD - and others - IMHO. There, that'll teach you to encourage me.



Paul

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http://www.bogusfocus.com/

I feel that I must put in a word here for the Alesis Andromeda A6. I have one of these. I also have a Prophet 5 and a Super Jupiter. The A6 can make every sound that the other two can make. That cannot be said of the other two.

I hear what people here are saying about modern synths, but it's all too easy to generalise. IMO the A6 is the best all-round analogue synth I have played. Ok, it's not a Moog; but then the Moog has always been a one-trick-pony as far as I am concerned. And it would be highly unfair to compare the A6 with any of the late great modular beasts. But it is a far lot more versatile than any other synth you can name.

I do agree, though, that a lot of the VA synths of recent years have been a bit thin-sounding and lacking in depth, to the extent that one just as well stick to software.

One area of advancement was the sampler, and I think it was a real shame that the likes of the AKAI Z Series got rail-roaded by software equivalents.

Still, that's progress for you...

If you don't like sample based synths, then get a sampler, like an Emu, or one of the Kurzweils, as has been said. Tritons are for cabaret.

Nothing's changed, Korg made god awful stringers and organs back in the seventies "Oh it must be good, it's polyphonic". The thing is, when they make something really cool, it doesn't sell, like the Z1.

But if you want great sounding modern synths, they're still being made. Kyma, Nord Modular, Virus, Alesis Ion, the DSI stuff. If you want a workstation then apart from the Kurzweil, there's the Alesis Fusion. It sounds great and does lots of things very well.

--------------------
madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

Quote Paul Nagle:

---

as a by-product, MIDI also screwed "live" performance for many,
opening up a scary new era of MIDI backing that put the synthesizer back in the dark ages as an appreciated solo instrument.
... . but now who really knew what the keyboard guys were doing?
There was much frowning at the sudden rise in complexity and polish of live "performances" Ah, don't get me started. Oh.

Anyway, all these things had an impact on TD - and others - IMHO. There, that'll teach you to encourage me.



Paul

---

Heya Paul


Yes those "live" performances.

Sadly JMJ went down that route, though aparently his band played live.
I see of his 90's output you rated his Oxygene 7-13 (1997).

He is though going back to all analogue live performance in samll intimate venues acroos europe
if his recent performance at alfacam is anything to go by.
Masses of analoggue synth drool on stage.


Went to see TD in Brixton in May 2005.
SAD
Apart from Chronozon and the piano intro to Riccochet.


Rogue Element http://www.rogue-element.uk.com/photos.htm .... noow there's a band that keeps it real.
One of the best 70's TD clone bands.

Quote leslawrenson:

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Alesis Andromeda A6. I have one of these. I also have a Prophet 5 and a Super Jupiter. The A6 can make every sound that the other two can make. That cannot be said of the other two.

IMO the A6 is the best all-round analogue synth I have played.

---

Ah yes the Andy !

Quote:

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I do agree, though, that a lot of the VA synths of recent years have been a bit thin-sounding and lacking in depth,

---

The Norlead aparently one gritty machine for basses falls into this category .... thin, when compared to the rea thing.

Though, the Access Virus Ti is suposed to be easily the best of the VA'S .

Quote:

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to the extent that one just as well stick to software.

---

... Reason4



I have come across one or two synth nuts whoo say the Andromeda, Access Virus Ti Polar, Reason is all they need.

my little bit of input - i have owned synths since about 91 and about 40 all told from osc oscars to some new ones.What i say i guess comes down to my own preference and so remains subjective but.....i kind of agree to a degree.

I found many newer synths have terrible quality - thin - cold - digital ( and not in a cool way ).I find softsynths even worse or alot .You can however make ANY synths sound cool with an spl vitalizer ( tube ones lovely ) and i own a novation supernova and Ks rack and run through the vitalizer tube they sound stunning in their own way.

A big problem appears to be outputs . .. take the korg karma . . . my god that synth has bad outputs when alongside the korg z1 , try the z1 card in a karma and do an a/b test - i did . . . scary how bad the karma sounds . . . the karma resonant filter - its like stredding a cat - horrible horrible filters yet the novation ks and sn filter are lovely at times - ok not quite as lovely as some vintage sh filter or Arp 2600 but cool at times.

I dont think its features that caused all this i think whats happenned is that mankind as an obsession with perfection . . . coders with perfection and the net result is that we lost the character.Theirs no character in digital accept ' pure ' .I owned a mk1 nord -sold and bough mk2 - sold mk2 and bought back mk1 as the sound got worse as they sold each newer model ( as their code got better . . . and then they engineer back in the flaws or wow and flutter of analogue - its very sad . . . .

Saddest thing is that theirs been one HUGE dumbing down . . . many artists i know now regard the softsynths as totally cool and ' sounding great ' yet they sound so thin . . . do an a/b on the Fm7 softsynth next to a dx7. . . you will be shocked (using same patches ) . . . weve been dumbed down and sold packaged and cold digital sounds as ' the new ' .Whats cool is that its meant now that if you know your hardware and how to use it you stand out a mile away.

Digital is death in many ways (though the early digital synths had flaws and character !) and people really need to go back and listen to some 70's / 80's /90's electronica or something and then wake up.

Softsynths are perfect demos of real synths and most modern synths are indeed cold and sterile 'perfect code ' .Some are ' ok ' - i have the Access ti and its cool.....but alot of the time just sounds to cold and souless . . .wih occasional moments of genius .

Some eye openers.

Compare . . .

dx7 to fm7 - same patches - same volumn
Korg m1 to legacy bundle M1
Wavetsation to legacy bundle ws

and then you will see why so many softsynths are worth little more than to be pirated and downloaded . . . its really sad whats happened as its dumbed down the listener / their ears and also many musicians.

Modern synth manufacturers or the oldies lots the way years back . . . but look at the modualr guys . . . e.a.r
livewire . . doepfer and dave smith etc etc . . . theres hope yet

Perfection is death . . . perfect production is sterile and lifeless often and perfect code /synths and design is not where people should be looking to go . . . the beautys in the flaws in all things.

Last moan . .

Korg.........terrible what they have done to their sound . . .really terrible.........Roland ? well i hated the fantom but Love the Vsynth and its FAT.......?so there are some modern synths that sound cool.....even digital.

I think one way out of the coldness is to mix acoustic instrument samples with synths samples and to choose synths sounds very carefully.

This is where sw comes into its own : the sample banks.

I bought Sonik Synth2 (£149) which has plenty of meat and veg sounds (keys, drums, bass, geetar, strings, ethnic etc) as well as electronic stuff ... total about 5000 sounds.
And ZeroG Nostalgia, which has samples of classic synths from 3 decades.


Ofcourse the sound desing element is largely remooved, but combined in the right way, the results are not so cold nor sterile.

Quote Tomás Mulcahy:

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like the Z1.

---

Ah! Now you're talking!

This has got to be the best VA synth ever made! And it can do so much more.

God alone knows what happened to Korg after the Z1.

Quote table for two:

---

I think one way out of the coldness is to mix acoustic instrument samples with synths samples and to choose synths sounds very carefully.

---

You can, for example, record acoustic guitar, or electric bass, or vocals, or anything "real" into your favourite multitracker at the correct tempo for the song that you want to produce, and import that track as a wav into the sampler in Reason. It's a great way to get real sounds and vibes into a sterile digital environment, and to add a bit of character to your stuff.

Also, this trick in Reason kinda gets round the limitation that you can't record audio into it.

Quote sqeaking tamborine:

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Compare . . .

Wavetsation to legacy bundle ws

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Whoa there soldier! I agree with your point about cheap converters spoiling gear, but I reckon that it was earlier than the Karma. I've had every kind of Wavey that there has been and usually at least two at a time (still do in fact) and I was over the moon when they released the VSTi version. Now you don't have to use the slightly dodgy, early 90s converters any more - it just sounds _so_ much clearer, brighter and fuller. As Paul White puts it : There's a whole upper octave that's usable now! And the bass is less woolly sounding to me.

Some people defend sovereign nations, others a maiden's honour. Me, I'll stick up for the VST Wavestation every time!

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Depends who's using them?

Tony.

Quote Dave B:

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The Trinity is _technically_ one of the best that Korg ever made, but it was fairly expensive. So they hacked and slashed internally and added silly stuff like arpeggiators and voila - the Triton. Feature rich, yes. Inherently good sound? Nah...

---

Quote The Producer Formerly Known As Jack:

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Good to hear you say that Dave...

I'm the first to admit that I dont know an oscillator from an LFO. I just dont really use synths ever, but a few years ago (when they were still expensive) I bought Triton because I needed 'those sorts of sounds' for the type of projects I was doing. What I noticed was that once you took off the chain of eight FX and the silly eq on every patch, you were left with...not much of anything. The basic sounds: Not good.

So I sold it.

J

---

Good to hear BOTH of you say that! How has the triton managed to maintatin so much hype? I have to admit, I get told I need one so often that about once a year or so I capitulate and go play one somewhere in a music store, thinking I must have got it wrong and it's really a lot better than I thought. Within about 10 minutes I walk away laughing, insisting to myself that I won't get taken in next year...

Horrible.

http://www.prophet64.com/

Everyone should have one. Check out the modded machines ones too.

I have 2 more C64s in the post.

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

Quote Dave B:

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Quote sqeaking tamborine:

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Compare . . .

Wavetsation to legacy bundle ws

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Whoa there soldier! ... Me, I'll stick up for the VST Wavestation every time!

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Yep, I have the Legacy Digital bundle as well and A/B'd it with my M1 before selling it, and I found the VSTi version sounded just the same only slightly better.

Tried a Karma out once though & was fairly underwhelmed.

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http://youngdavid.net

Quote Sonic The Hedgehog:

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http://www.prophet64.com/

Everyone should have one. Check out the modded machines ones too.

I have 2 more C64s in the post.

---

Blimey! Quite frankly, im stunned! Not only because anyone would still develop anything for the C64 in 2007, but actually develop something that has a genuine use in 2007 too. Impressive!
I still have a C64 tucked away somewhere.. I guess this makes it worth at least a fiver more now
I would try it myself, but these days Im attempting to use less gear, not more.
Which brings me neatly back on topic..

This argument is a little like CD's vs MP3's, or similar.. CD's to me sound better than MP3's without a doubt. But i still find myself listening to MP3's more than CD's these days (well, AAC's and other compressed music formats anyway). Why? Well its just so bloody convenient, isnt it!? For the small trade off in sound quality, I can carry my entire music collection around with me, and have near enough instant access to any tune, be it on my iPod, on my computer (connected to hifi) or in the car. Great!
Suddenly routing around for a CD on my shelves seems like a chore in comparison.

Synths in a roundabouts way are much the same. Software isnt quite as good as hardware, and digital hardware still isnt quite as good as good ol analogue hardware. The latter sounds better, but the former is massively more convenient to use. Hmm..

I've have stacks of pretty decent hardware littered about the house & mostly gathering dust now. So these days im trying to get stuck in to Reason 4. Its sheer ease of use and convenience mean i dont spend hours and hours configuring everything and tracking down problems, and I can spend more time doing what I was supposed to be doing in the first place, which is making music.
There is little use having a great sounding synth, if ultimately, you are inhibited from making music with it because of its antiquated technicalities. This is even more the case with multiple such synths, as they all become, in a way, worse than the sum of them all put together and thus more of a pain to use at once.

Just my 2 mhz worth..

Paul

Quote Dave B:

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Quote sqeaking tamborine:

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Compare . . .

Wavetsation to legacy bundle ws

---

Whoa there soldier! I agree with your point about cheap converters spoiling gear, but I reckon that it was earlier than the Karma. I've had every kind of Wavey that there has been and usually at least two at a time (still do in fact) and I was over the moon when they released the VSTi version. Now you don't have to use the slightly dodgy, early 90s converters any more - it just sounds _so_ much clearer, brighter and fuller. As Paul White puts it : There's a whole upper octave that's usable now! And the bass is less woolly sounding to me.

Some people defend sovereign nations, others a maiden's honour. Me, I'll stick up for the VST Wavestation every time!

---

The original Legacy is my fav software synth . Regarding Wavestation, I couldnt believe it, comparing to original was so happy to get rid of those horrible keys- I had all WS models so I know what I am talking about.
The workstations like Motif and Korgs are made/equed/tuned to be used as............ workstations. I could never find, tweak a lead voice from any of those,ever.
Want fat and nasty modern synth- Dave Smith Evolver.
Clavia G2 is another modern synth that can be thin or fat depending what you make out of it.
I dont expect anything from those Tritons and Motifs, they are made for massive market of cover bands and arrangers. Reason with decent controller makes more flexible sketch station then any of those.

Wavestations are almost free in Cornflakes now, all types, so you may as well buy a real one, for the price of a curry and pint these days.

Tony.

I did like the sound of the andromeda,
that is one really cool synth but went for a
jomox sunsyn instead.
i also like the korg plug-ins they are really nice sounding,
but again the sound just doesent breath, i am not a total analog
synth nut but i do love old stuff, last year i had a korg trident mkII for a while and that really blew my socks off

You can get a thick sound on new synths, but when a sound is generated, its the variation and movement in the sound that makes a lot of difference.

I use softsynths like absynth and reaktor and there is a place for all new sounds with the old, It would be awfull if the synths that came out didnt evolve and we only had prophet 5`s and memorymoogs but , i need to see some quality
synths coming out otherwise i will just keep getting old stuff. The main synth manufacturers seem to be losing their way to me and sounding worse.

The new prophet looks nice through(ive not heard it yet!)!

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A gentleman is a man who can play "jump" on keyboards, but chooses not to


Edited by Dameo (05/11/07 12:47 PM)

Quote arpangel:

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Wavestations are almost free in Cornflakes now, all types, so you may as well buy a real one, for the price of a curry and pint these days.

---

Couldn't agree more. It's almost indecent not to plug a Wavestation SR into your rack for the pitiful price they go for.

I'm no purist, and I'm happy to use analogue, digital, VSTi, or whatever to get the job done. But it never fails to make me smile when a young band first hear one of my old analogue synths, or the snarl of my Hammond through a valve pre-amp, or (cue choir of angelic voices) the purr of my Moog Taurus pedals. The look of pennies dropping is priceless. So *that's* what analogue is all about...

Or maybe I *am* just getting old?

--------------------
An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Tell me about it... been trying to sell my SR for ages, and not a whisper of a taker

Love my new V-Synth GT though.... bleeps and bloops galore!

--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote Jumpeyspyder:

---

Geddy from Rush was playing a Little Fatty on the recent tour.
(assuming it wasn't midied to a rack full of other stuff)

---

Yeah I noticed this, I don't think it was MIDI'ed for most of the set (e.g. the big portamento sweeps in Entre Nous, they'd have been done on a Moog or Oberheim at the time, so perfect Phatty fodder, likewise the big chords in Subdivisions etc) but for some of the 80s PPG stuff he did, like Distant Early Warning, I bet he was using samples.

But wasn't it good to see him not surrounded by hundreds of f***ing keyboards! I was unlucky enough to see them struggle through a set on the Hold Your Fire tour, weighed down with bloody technology.

This time round they were absolutely incredible.

--------------------
Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

The lead sound for 'Subdivisions' was spot on - a silky smooth sound. Almost made me want to trade my Mini for a Phatty! Almost...

I actually love to see bands weighed down by technology! A obscene semi-circle of synths and keyboards is still a beautiful thing to see - and naming them all gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the gig to start!

Anyone notice the screen with Geddy's lyric prompts on it? Pity the poor guy who sits there every night scrolling through those for him. Sheesh!

--------------------
An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote The Elf:

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The lead sound for 'Subdivisions' was spot on - a silky smooth sound. Almost made me want to trade my Mini for a Phatty! Almost...

I actually love to see bands weighed down by technology! A obscene semi-circle of synths and keyboards is still a beautiful thing to see - and naming them all gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the gig to start!

Anyone notice the screen with Geddy's lyric prompts on it? Pity the poor guy who sits there every night scrolling through those for him. Sheesh!

---

Missed the lyric screen... mostly cos I was too busy jumping around and singing along to it all myself. But strangely enough, the closest I ever got to the keyboard sound on Subdivisions was using the NI FM7 Xpress keyboards plug-in, i.e. digital model of a digital synth. And 'phat' with it.

Ironic?

--------------------
Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Quote The Elf:

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I actually love to see bands weighed down by technology! A obscene semi-circle of synths and keyboards is still a beautiful thing to see - and naming them all gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the gig to start!

---

You mean you didn't go look at Lerxsts Barbie doll collection.

Quote:

---

Anyone notice the screen with Geddy's lyric prompts on it? Pity the poor guy who sits there every night scrolling through those for him. Sheesh!

---

I'd imagine it's automatically synced somehow.

Regards, Andrew

(going through a major Rush phase at the moment)

I'm a sort of interested interloper here. Primarily, because i work in a genre where synths sounding like synths is very much part of the sound. Synths to me, anyway, come in two flavours, thos that do "whibble" and the rest.

The rest often sound, to my ears, like they are just aimed at the *Enya* with 3 fingers crowd.. If not that sound they just seem to be not very good samples of other *real* instruments..

My favourite *modern* sounding synth is the freebie "Crystal". Stupidly easy to programme and actually a bloody good sound.

--------------------
nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

+1 Ya, Crystal is great, even disrgarding the fact that it's free. And it is easy to program too even though it's wildly different. Excellent envelopes.

--------------------
madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

My pal brought an old Roland analogue monosynth around some time last year. SH1000 ? Something like that. Lots of preset switches.

It weighed a ton, wouldn't stay in tune, and tonally my Virus B did to it what the pidgeons to to Nelson in Trafalgar Square. From a very great height. On everything - basses, leads, strings, brass .... I think the old Roland has stayed in its rather nice fender-looking suitcase ever since.

Give me a vintage monosynth and I'll swap it for a modern Nord or Virus, and buy beer and sweets with the change.

BTW - as you have collectively mentioned freebie soft synths, do try the shareware Karma FX synth. It is staggeringly good. Easyish to program, good presets, rock-solid stability, wonderful sound. And if you donate US$20, they are really happy.

--------------------
Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Quote SecretSam:

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My pal brought an old Roland analogue monosynth around some time last year. SH1000 ? Something like that. Lots of preset switches.

It weighed a ton, wouldn't stay in tune, and tonally my Virus B did to it what the pidgeons to to Nelson in Trafalgar Square.

---

I don't know anything about the SH1000 so I can't comment on it. But the SH101 is simply superb! As good as a Mini Moog on it's day. I also have an Access Virus C, and good though that is (very good for a VA, in fact), the filter on the SH101 is one of the best you will ever hear.

But, then again, the Virus can do stuff that is simply impossible on the 101.

It really is horses for courses.

Quote SecretSam:

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Give me a vintage monosynth and I'll swap it for a modern Nord or Virus, and buy beer and sweets with the change.

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Cool-swap it with me-Ill swap you a Virus for a Minimoog/Pro One/Oscar/MonoPoly/SH2/CS40m any day of the week.

And give you some a beer and some sweets (nice combo....)

Quote leslawrenson:

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the SH101 is simply superb! As good as a Mini Moog on it's day.

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Ouch! Let's not have that kind of talk!

As to the other posting about the Roland SH1000...

...if the SH1000 is your sole experience of 'vintage' synths, then no wonder you have a dim opinion of them!!! The SH1000 was a very basic synth by *any* standards - it was a simple preset synth machine at the home organ market. Try something like the SH101 (or preferably a MiniMoog!), then you will see what a *real* synth sounds like!

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote The Elf:

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Quote leslawrenson:

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the SH101 is simply superb! As good as a Mini Moog on it's day.

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Ouch! Let's not have that kind of talk!

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It would be interesting to know how many commercial recordings the SH101 has been used on compared with the Mini Moog!

I never owned a Mini Moog, but my best mate, and former band member did, and we used to record with it all the time. I do own an SH101, and I use it all the time.

Yes, with 3 oscillators, the Moog is "fatter" than the SH101, but how many people really use all 3 oscs when recording their bass and lead lines? Sure, you can get the Moog to sound great on its own, but then it simply swamps the mix, and you have to pare it down.

The thing with the 101 is that you are stuck with the single oscillator, so there is little danger of swamping the mix. Therefore, you are forced to tweak the envelop and the filter to get the character in your sound, rather than merely be impressed with the raw brute power of the Moog.

As I say, on its day, the 101 really is as good as the Moog. I didn't say that it was the same.

Quote themajorblip:

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Quote SecretSam:

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Give me a vintage monosynth and I'll swap it for a modern Nord or Virus, and buy beer and sweets with the change.

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Cool-swap it with me-Ill swap you a Virus for a Minimoog/Pro One/Oscar/MonoPoly/SH2/CS40m any day of the week.

And give you some a beer and some sweets (nice combo....)

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This is an interesting dilemma, I've owned a lot of Moogs in the past, but would I want one now ? I don't think so, and if I did it would only be for nostalgic reasons. The Mini- Moog would sit in the corner reminding me of the days when I had to multi-track everything on noisy analogue tape to achieve what I wanted to do. OK, we all know it's got a great sound, but the current crop of high end VA's are good enough for me in my old age. The Nord, or Virus, unlike the Moog, would get used all of the time, old synth's are very nice things to own and look at, but they just don't make any sense to me now as a viable alternative to modern technology. OK, I could use a nice Moog Model 55, or a Buchla 200e, but that's another story.

Take care,

Tony.

Having tried the Voyager and Little Phatty at the show on Sunday, I'd happily own one now. I'd just multitrack it through nice digital equipment rather than noisy tape!!

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

It is nice listening back to my old reels of Moog experiments, done in our valve studio, but they were half formed ideas, I was struggling for a direction. It would be interesting to see what I would do now with the same technology.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote leslawrenson:

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As I say, on its day, the 101 really is as good as the Moog. I didn't say that it was the same.

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Quite agree. The 101 has its very own sound and is damned good at what it does. I never owned one, but I used one a heck of a lot and have respect for it's controlled basses and chunky mid-range. A much better alternative to TB-303s and the like.

I use my Mini 75% as a lead synth, but for bass it is actually too 'rounded' much of the time - I prefer my Pro-One for that role.

As you suggest, every good synth has its strengths and weaknesses - that's part of what makes them great. Synths that try to cover all bases more often end up being simply 'average' across the board.

Nope, I don't have old synths just to look at. If they didn't earn their keep I would sell them without a moment's hesitation. I have yet to work with a band that didn't fall in love with at least one of my old machines - and that keeps those bands coming through the door! It's funny - no-one books me for my Nords, Viruses, or collection of VSTis, but mention Oberheim, ARP, Sequential or Moog and they're sold.

There honestly *is* magic in those old devices and when people hear them used properly they understand. I use loads of VSTis and virtual analogues - damned good they are too. But honestly, they just do not have that *same* magic - different magic, yes, but not the same...

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Yes the SH101 is pretty scary for a 1 osc synth IMHO. I'm a big fan of 1 osc bass sounds and this machine thumps like the big-boys.
It makes our VA's and plugs sound very pedestrian in this particular application, most of the other analogues too.

Any thoughts on Sequentials Multi-Trak...? I got one on the weekend, so far it seems nice. I have a few Korg VA's and it is well deeper than all of them, even the Z1 (which always sounded thin and samey imo).

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http://www.myspace.com/dubreakdublin

Anything by Dave Smith. Prophets through to Wavestations (VST version is excellent), Evolvers and the rebirth of the Prophet. I use a Nord G2 for just about anything else. To answer the question, I don't use much that isn't modern and don't feel I'm missing out on anything.

Quote arpangel:

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It is nice listening back to my old reels of Moog experiments, done in our valve studio, but they were half formed ideas, I was struggling for a direction. It would be interesting to see what I would do now with the same technology.

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Tony, why don't you give it another go?

It's never too late to revisit old ground, especially with a fresh approach. Perhaps you were in the wrong place (creatively-speaking) when you did those takes; and perhaps the different perspective that you now have on life, and the fresh impetus you will bring to that stuff, will be the driving force you need to finish unfinished business?

Quote The Elf:

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There honestly *is* magic in those old devices and when people hear them used properly they understand. I use loads of VSTis and virtual analogues - damned good they are too. But honestly, they just do not have that *same* magic - different magic, yes, but not the same...

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Agreed, 100%.

In the days before I could afford to buy my first Prophet 5 (yes, I now have two!), I bought the Pro-52 emulation, and I raved about it to everyone. "Sounds just like the real thing!" I enthused(thinking back, through a haze of time, to the days when my friend Neal Gilmore and I used to record with his Rev3.2).

Oh, how wrong I was! The memory sure can play tricks on one's perception of what "used" to be.

The very first thing that struck me when I got my P5 Rev3.2 was how absolutely unlike the Pro52 it sounded! There is a warmth and a depth of sonic quality in the real thing that is lacking from the software. Until one actually listens to the two side by side, one really cannot appreciate the gulf of difference in these sonic qualities.

Incidentally, that same friend of mine later acquired a Mini Moog, and he played lead synth with it on practically everything we did from that point on. I got quite p_ssed off with it at the time, but listening back to that old stuff, it not only sounds superb, but it really captures the spirit of that time (circa 1991).

Quote leslawrenson:

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Quote arpangel:

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It is nice listening back to my old reels of Moog experiments, done in our valve studio, but they were half formed ideas, I was struggling for a direction. It would be interesting to see what I would do now with the same technology.

---

Tony, why don't you give it another go?

It's never too late to revisit old ground, especially with a fresh approach. Perhaps you were in the wrong place (creatively-speaking) when you did those takes; and perhaps the different perspective that you now have on life, and the fresh impetus you will bring to that stuff, will be the driving force you need to finish unfinished business?

---

Hmmm, i see what youre saying there, and i tend to agree-ish. I think that revisiting old ideas can be useful if you don't are doing songs for instance - an old idea can be dragged up to date and make a passable tune. But the never have the same feeling to me, never quite capture the right vibe.

I'm only guessing here, but i get the feeling that Angel is very much into creating pieces of 'art' as opposed to, well, you know what i mean. Working straight to CD in stereo is a bit of a give away there.

I love listening and watching old stuff. In fact my partner in music is the holder of a large archive of all our old work, and ive been listening and watching quite a bit lately. We plan to get cassettes to digital before they wither, and the same for videos. It's a lot of stuff but we have been making some preparations. He's doing the vids and i'm doing the tapes.

I look at those old things, particularly the less than perfect stuff, those 'half formed ideas' as a window back in time that helps me see and learn from the person i was, half formed... It's a journey that helps me understand myelf now.

Of course things get recycled and lines, even the odd phrase, a riff or something might get revisited. But then they get revisited anyway, cos they are in you/me.

I tend to vear towards letting it be. To try and revamp an old tune or piece is a bit like polishing an old Leonardo sketch with Mr Sheen...

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Yeah!

Sign of the times Amigo


Too many things around us is trying to turn us into soulless presets.

Quote table for two:

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Rogue Element http://www.rogue-element.uk.com/photos.htm .... noow there's a band that keeps it real.
One of the best 70's TD clone bands.

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Many thanks for the link TFT !!!
What a find.
Cheers !



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www.electric-himalaya.com
VST and hardware synth sound design

Table, that's a veritable vintage analogue buff's wet dream!

I'd like to have a back room behind my studio just like that.

Quote leslawrenson:

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Quote arpangel:

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It is nice listening back to my old reels of Moog experiments, done in our valve studio, but they were half formed ideas, I was struggling for a direction. It would be interesting to see what I would do now with the same technology.

---

Tony, why don't you give it another go?

It's never too late to revisit old ground, especially with a fresh approach. Perhaps you were in the wrong place (creatively-speaking) when you did those takes; and perhaps the different perspective that you now have on life, and the fresh impetus you will bring to that stuff, will be the driving force you need to finish unfinished business?

---

Hi Les, I'm sort of going down that road now, or trying to. Not re-creating old ideas, but using different technology at least. I'm putting together a Doepfer system, and want to record straight to analogue tape again, for what reason I don't really know, except that it may be interesting working that way again, as you said with a new perspective on life. We have to look for new ideas, and approaches, wherever we can, be it from inside (our inspiration) or outside (the technology)
The temptation of course, will be to dump it all in the computer and fiddle around with it, but I mustn't do that, I want to maintain the discipline of getting it right in the moment, without resorting to the computer.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote Snailzer:

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Any thoughts on Sequentials Multi-Trak...? I got one on the weekend, so far it seems nice. .

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Yep, had one, very nice.

You can program some great sounds out of these.
Nice filters, decent arp and I used the sequencer to program my own arps so it made it more flexible.

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote arpangel:

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The temptation of course, will be to dump it all in the computer and fiddle around with it, but I mustn't do that, I want to maintain the discipline of getting it right in the moment, without resorting to the computer.

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Yeah, I'd love to do that again (just like in the old days with my band). The "having to get it right first go" pressure seemed to bring out all sorts of interesting stuff. A lot of the good stuff were actually mistakes that were made whilst recording live. Also, I loved the unpredictability of using the old analogue stuff, and the whole idea that one has taken a moment from time that can never be repeated.

The trouble with working in the digital medium is that it is replicable. And with an unlimited number of "undos" and "redos" that whole dynamic has been removed from the music.

Quote himalaya:

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Quote table for two:

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Rogue Element http://www.rogue-element.uk.com/photos.htm .... noow there's a band that keeps it real.
One of the best 70's TD clone bands.

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Many thanks for the link TFT !!!
What a find.
Cheers !

---

Quote leslawrenson:

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Table, that's a veritable vintage analogue buff's wet dream!

I'd like to have a back room behind my studio just like that.

---

I bought their first CD two years ago and Brendan who is gentle guy sent me a promo cd which I lost
not happy cause it had a fabulous 19minute track

Every time I try out a new synth in the music store (becoming increasingly hard these days due to the Tesco like dominance of Roland and Behringer) the first thing I do is load any preset, then dig down through the menus and turn off all but one oscillator, all the effects, all the ear candy modulation. Then I start from scratch putting back the bits I want to hear.... It's the only way to really get a feel for what the synth sounds like. The culture of the industry today is to release synths where all the presets have every oscillator at 100%, layers of effects, filter sweeps, fireworks and dancing baboons just to impress you in the store while you're trying to hear the synth over the guy playing the electronic drumkit in the corner and the kids playing my chemical romance riffs behind you at volume 11.

Like Paul White's recent leader on the subject, it's exactly these sort of sounds that simply don't fit in the mix, *any* mix, unless you are making 300bpm trance or dutch gabber and you want the sounds of 1000 alien spacecraft engines playing the same riff for 5 minutes.

It was only by starting from scratch I was able to ascertain recently that the Korg Radias isn't too bad a synth for a crappy modern digital beast, in a sea of 'me too' virtual analogs. The Little Phatty is astonishingly good, I almost prefer it to my Voyager though I have no idea why.

Truth is though, there's not a lot of difference between a synth of the early 80s and a modern equivalent like the Prophet 8. What has changed is people's approach to being creative with sound. Where someone might have run a great tune through a Space echo and some overloading analog compression & re-amping to get a unique and striking sound back then, people are more likely to have fifty 24bit DAW tracks of Prophet8 making pointless, busy & characterless music drenched in clean yet boring plugins!

Quote Zukan:

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Quote Snailzer:

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Any thoughts on Sequentials Multi-Trak...? I got one on the weekend, so far it seems nice. .

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Yep, had one, very nice.

You can program some great sounds out of these.
Nice filters, decent arp and I used the sequencer to program my own arps so it made it more flexible.

---

I loaded up Reason4's new Thor synthesiser yesterday with a nice bass preset, then found a nice Sequential MT bassline. Then compared the two. I quickly turned Reason4 off and continued making the track. No comparison, even with Thor through a Scream4distortion, Mastering compressor and extreme EQ tweaking it was nowhere near the same. I had to re-check the hardware mixer to make sure the levels were the same, and no EQ knobs had been moved. It sounded like the low EQ had been turned up, but... it hadn't been. It was just the vanilla sound from the Sequential. Thor is very flexible, the osc selection is amazing, but for basic analogue fuzz and depth, forgettaboutit.

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http://www.myspace.com/dubreakdublin

i think the original question o/t thread is almost impossible to answer w/ yes or no. i've been collecting synths since 1985 and have much of what i bought still, starting w/ 2 chroma polaris's, the last great analog synths to come out of the arp design studio (bought by fender in bankruptcy in 83/84). i've had and sold memormoog+, sci prophet vs and t8, oberheim obsx, and a few others of lesser fame. the last new synth i bought was a radikal spectralis (analog synth/groove box) which i bought in february and which is FANTASTIC.

i'd say the way to evaluate a synth is mainly the quality of its sounds and what it lets your magic fingers coax out of it but also the quality of construction and parts. anyone who's owned a vintage piece of gear knows that the most valuable accessory is the phone number of a trusted tech, because the odds are good you're going to need him. my memorymoog blew a power supply ($300 repair back in 1990), my prophet vs had a short in its lcd display, no spares could be found (pre-web days) and i had to have its backlight disconnected to keep the machine from rebooting; my prophet t8's magnificent weighted keyboard developed a mid-life crisis that ... well, you get the idea. likewise, anyone who buys a beautiful old moog or roland modular for $5-10K better plan on spennding that to get the beast working reliably again. and even then it's only monophonic...

otoh, some of the products o/t last 15 years have been fantastic. the european gear (clavia, access, waldorf, and my late much lamented quasimidi) has been extremely innovative, high quality stuff. not cheap but well made and hugely powerful. just look at the rigs klaus schulze (arguably the god of analog synths) klaus has used over the last 15 years (his website has details on his rigs for the obsessive fans like yours truly). a mix of old and new - mini-moog, jd800, quasimidi raven, polymorphs, and 309s.

i think part of the complaint is a) quality of build and b) sameness of sound. as for a), i recall the first time i saw a roland v-synth in a store and picking it up found that i could twist the plastic case by the end pieces. it was beyond flimsy. same thing w/t roland mc909 and mc808, neither of which holds a candle to the mc505 for ruggedness. when the rolands of the world cost-reduce their products to match behringer's cost of manufacture, that's what you get.

the sameness issue is a different kettle of fish. to me, like a lot of earlier posters have noted, it's a matter of subtraction (the new subtractive synthesis? ;-) i bought a korg karma when it was new, and my enamourment with its fancy pyrotechnics lasted about three weeks. then i started shutting down the karma tricks and modifying what i kept until i arrived at something that could sit in a mix (a la paul white's excellent leader). the same thing applies to the sound patches. strip the reverb, get to basics and build from there.

ultimately i don't think there was any 'golden' age of wonderful synths. back in the 70s synths were expensive, unreliable, and relatively scarce. in the 80s synths were still expensive (memorymoog = $5600 in 1984, emulator I = $6K+ when new, etc) but getting more reliable and smarter w/t addition of microprocessors and memory to store patch info; however, we also got the era of knob-free synths - korg m1 notably. in the 90s we got the return of knobs and virtual analog as processors got fast enough to run the algorithms. now we have vsts, etc, but also things like the return of dave smith and DSI (yeah!). the bottom line is that today we have less excuse than ever for not making the music we want to, no matter what type of synth strikes your fancy.

oh yeah, and wrt to the question 'are modern synths rubbish?'. my answer is no more rubbish than they've ever been, just rubbish in different ways ;-)

cheers,

d

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"Patsy had the drug tolerance of Keith Richards and the moral rectitude of Brian Jones." - Dr. Walter Bishop, "Fringe"

Quote Snailzer:

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Thor is very flexible, the osc selection is amazing, but for basic analogue fuzz and depth, forgettaboutit.

---

Yes, thats why we have the choice to choose whats best for the job, no one synth is going to do everything we want, and we are in an era where people are prepared to pay hundreds to get just one good sound, and I don't see anything wrong with that personally, if you have the money. But I don't do dance music where you need a great bass machine, or a searing lead line, so the classic synth sounds aren't really any use to me ! But...if that's what you want, great.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote dubbmann:

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oh yeah, and wrt to the question 'are modern synths rubbish?'. my answer is no more rubbish than they've ever been, just rubbish in different ways ;-)

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I kinda agree with you on this one, dubby.

I love my Prophet 5. So much so, in fact, that I've just bought another one (which I aim to collect very shortly).

But, ultimately, the P5 is a very simple beast. Sure, it was great in its day, especially with the magical introduction of memory slots, so that one could call up both presets and one's own programs at the simple push of a button. But that's nothing by today's standards.

It's got 2 oscillators, but only one lfo. Yes, you can use osc 2 as a 2nd lfo, but then you are left with only one oscillator. And the modulation matrix, as great as it was back in 1978, is too simple by modern standards.

So what is so great about the P5, then?

It's the sound the thing makes, AND (crucially for me) how easy it is to get those sounds from it.

My problem with a lot of the modern synths is that they are just too darn complicated. The learning curve to learn how to program them just ain't worth the effort in terms of lost music-making hours. Okay, synths like the JP9000, Access Virus, and Novation Supernova attempted to address that problem by making them "programable" in the old analogue sense, but still there is a lot going on under the interface that directly affects how the synth sounds.

I don't think modern synths are rubbish. I just think that they appear so accessible when, in reality, they are not. With the vintage synths, like the P5 and Mini Moog, what you see is what you get. There is an immediacy about those synths which hasn't really been replicated in modern gear.

I was just getting a bit tetchy, I tend to throw my toys out of the pram when anyone even remotely tries to have a poke at Reason, especially the Thor, you all know I think it's the best thing since double helpings of cauliflower cheese and a fat bird

Take care !

Tony.

I never buy ANYTHING that doesn't come with dancing baboons.

Quote arpangel:

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Thor

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Aye ... I was always a big fan

The Mighty Thor's magical hammer Mjolnir

In my 2nd year of Uni I had an assignment to create a Reaktor ensemble of synth and effect unit. My write-up began with me basically slating Reaktor's patches for being 128 versions of spaceship noises, and that I wanted to do something useful to a keyboard player. I was very inspired at the time by Raymond Scott's homebuilt synthesizers made from a gutted telephone exchange. So I made a 'vintage' synth that could sound like an organ or theremin or telharmonium! It even had a battleship green design and a Magic Eye VU meter.

I got a first for it too

And if you want Thor to growl then chuck it through some old tape machine. It does take a bit of effort outside the box you know

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

You can have great fun passing Thor through the Sherman Filterbank 2.


Mind you, and as i have stated before, you can have a lot of fun passing a Stylophone through the Sherman Filterbank 2.

Quote Sonic The Hedgehog:

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Raymond Scott's homebuilt synthesizers made from a gutted telephone exchange.

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Man's a genius. Apparently twas his 99th birthday in September!









Now... them's a synthesiser!!!!!

More here

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

As 'moist' as it gets Hollow.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Zukan:

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As 'moist' as it gets Hollow.

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The gusset is sodden!

And that other thread on the Radiophonic's not helping either!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

That last pic went it the write-up as well. The best 'Figure 1.' ever

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

Quote hollowsun:

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And that other thread on the Radiophonic's not helping either!

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I hear you.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Wow!

A synth the size of a small aircraft hanger!

I note the date is 1946.

Do I take it that that beast is a monosynth?

Quote Sonic The Hedgehog:

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And if you want Thor to growl then chuck it through some old tape machine. It does take a bit of effort outside the box you know

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I spent years chucking things through old tape machines, life is simpler now, in a way, and the computer makes things easier for me to do. I know it's fun to experiment with old kit, but for me now it's easier and less bother to use a mouse ! I read an article by Tod Dockstader in The Wire magazine, he said the same, and he's in his 80's, as long as you can get where you want to go does it really matter how you got there ?

Take care,

Tony.

I accept there's sometimes an easier way, especially if you've done it the long way once, but if we relied on that for the first go every time, we'd never learn anything!

Working outside the box leads to many strange discoveries as I'm sure you know!

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http://www.myspace.com/fourtrackfrontier

Quote Sonic The Hedgehog:

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Working outside the box leads to many strange discoveries as I'm sure you know!

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Yes, and I'm glad there are people like you out there that realise that.

Take care,

Tony.

I do think there is a concrete point here that goes well beyond the idea that this is subjective nostalgia mentioned above. A lot of people do find that there is a blandness issue and a lack of depth in the sound of many vas and softsynths, and again and again I've found with people I've met that the longer they spend experimenting and developing their synth music, the more they gravitate both to real analogues and earlier digital synths.

Edited by silver finish (09/11/07 09:17 AM)

I think it' a mistake to assume that analogue is better. There are plenty of analogue synths that are just not very good- Korg POly 800, Polymoog, Akai AX60, Teisco 100F, Jen SX1000 etc etc. It's the designer that makes the difference- the Virus, Kyma, Kurzweil k2000 series, Nord Lead, Alesis Fusion are all great modern designs. Just play any of them, it's a joy. Dave Smith is a great example. Analogue or digital, or a mixture of both- he makes great instruments. That's where the soul if the machine comes from, the love and care that the designer puts in.

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madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

This is "one of those threads" that could run for ever, I think the bottom line has to be that it's horses for courses, every synth, be it analogue, digital, or "digilogue" ! has it's own sound, and will find a use somewhere, to say that any one type is "better" is a mistake. It depends what type of music your involved in, and what type of player you are, and how you compose your music, there are just far too many variables to warrant using the word "better" in this context.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote Dave B:

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Having tried the Voyager and Little Phatty at the show on Sunday, I'd happily own one now. I'd just multitrack it through nice digital equipment rather than noisy tape!!

---

I've got a Little Phatty, and it's the first analogue synth I've owned.

It's amazing.

I also have a Nord Stage, and its synth section (whilst not comprehensive by any means) is also very good, versatile, and sounds great. There are certain things that merit using the Moog, and vice versa.

Modern synths are by no means rubbish - the Phatty proves that - and nowadays we get the best of both worlds as we're seeing great modern analogue synths that are easy to maintain and programme, and we're also getting great modern digital synths that have some serious clout under the bonnet.

We should all be laughing!

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www.mikeandersonmusic.co.uk

It is a hard question to answer,
but i would say that hardware synth design has changed,
and not for the better in my experience.

I can use new synth's and do like the sound of v-synth etc,
but most new synths i hear, dont have much character and
tend not to have any real presence in the sound, at a generated level.

There has allways been good and bad stuff about, but i dont see any great sounding instruments around, what i am moaning about is the general trend, as with all the main manufacturer's to stuff more and more features in, without concentrating on the Sound generation part of the instument, it could also be the kind of technology now in use that cause this too.

A prime example is nord G2, why does it sound worse than my nord modular ?, why does the triton sound worse than my trinity?, a bit back i bought another mpc2000xl to replace an old one, even this had a thinner sound (they must have changed the sound amplifier chip they use,i have a good sound system and good ears,so i notice these things!).

You would expect that newer synths would be an improvement , but they seem to be going backwards.

Im sure its is something to do with the technology used for generating sound, obviously this will not be true for everything but generally for most new synths. It may be controversial but I have one word for it - rubbish!

Edited by Dameo (09/11/07 01:32 PM)

A lot of people here seem to be confused as to what constitutes a 'good' synth.

If we are talking about features, accurate sonic representation, editability, expandability, reliability, flexibility etc then it's a no brainer, the modern synths will win.

Now, if you are talking about the 'sound' then that is a different issue entirely.

Let's take an old analogue synth: the random fluctuations caused by rated op-amps, harmonic distortion, voltage controller modules, hard wired circuits etc all accounted for the sound that was output.
When my Memory Moog would actually warm up enough to work, and stayed in tune on a good day, it sounded amazing.

The distinct sounds of certain synths were attributed to both the above and the chips being used.
A Curtis chip had it's own 'colour' and the Prophet 5 is a good example of that colour.

I could go on all day about design, circuitry etc.

Today's synths are rock solid in terms of sonic representation, better chipsets, better converters, better everything.
But is this what I like?
Nope, I like the randomness of vintage gear, I like the harmonic distortion, I like all the oddities that made those synths what they were.

Sure, I would have loved reliability, USB, S/PDIF, more memory, stable tuning blah blah. But it's a compromise I have always endured as the sound of certain synths simply cannot be replicated with algorithms.

We have exceptions today, of course.

It's always a balance and ultimately comes down to taste and workflow.

I know what I prefer.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Dameo:

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You would expect that newer synths would be an improvement , but they seem to be going backwards.

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Yes and no.

The Phatty and Voyager are an improvement - true but more reliable analogue, stable tuning, MIDI, velocity, programmable and better specs than the original MiniMoog - possibly better made too. Likewise with the Evolvers and the new Prophet08. But Moog and Dave Smith cater for a niche market and can sell at a premium price for a market that knows it wants those particular instruments. Those instruments as well stay pretty much unchanged for a long period of time - an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' kinda thing.

'ROMplers', however, are for a constantly evolving mass market where the manufacturers need to sell large amounts of units to recoup development costs and vying for market share in a highly competitive market. As such, they tend to go for the 'bang for the buck', stuffing the instruments with gobloads of features and cramming them with more and more sounds to attract a mass market. And in order to stuff a quart into a pint pot (and to hit a certain price point), something has to give in the compromises required.

So, for example, the Korg M1 came out with (what?) 256 sounds in 2MB of ROM. To get that many sounds in ROM, the samples have to be short and tightly looped - compromised in other words - with deficiencies made up for with layering and effects. And it worked.

Then memory became cheaper so you could buy 8MB for the same cost as the old 2MB of ROM. As a sound designer, my immediate reaction would be to have better, more detailed samples to service those 256 sounds. But no - the bean counters and marketing step in and say "Four times as much memory? Let's have four times as many sounds"! But the sound designers naintain "But I can give you BETTER sounds... the same 256 but higher quality" to which the marketing bods retort "But Roland's new XYZ has 800 sounds - we can beat them". So now you have 1,000 compromised sounds.

In the meantime, Roland see this competing product come out and the marketing bods there say "We need more sounds". So Roland develop a data compression system to effectively get twice as many sounds into ROM. Their next product comes out with 2,000 compromised and data compressed sounds. And so on. But they sound great in the store with oodles of effects piled on and layered to hell and back and combined with really impressive onboard demos, for a lot of people, that's fine ... so they buy one and will, in general, be perfectly happy with it.

Unfortunately, compromises are the order of the day to get products out with certain features at certain price points. Moog and Smith don't have to apply such compromises - their monophonic synths sell for the same price as Korg, Roland and Yamaha's 128-voice workstations with sequencers, arpeggiators, multi-FX, etc..

So Korg up the ante with the Oasys where compromise is less evident thereby giving those who want a quality sounding product something to achieve that. And almost everyone goes "£6,000?! F'ck off - I'm not paying that! They're having a giraffe!!!"

Can't have it both ways!

But to call all modern synths 'rubbish' is a bit silly IMO. Anything is only as good as the person using using it and I have heard crap made on a Moog modular and some truly great stuff made on a modern workstation.

Personally, I favour the old stuff for its sound and also its hands-on user interface but I also appreciate the new stuff for the facilities it offers even if means that sound quality and the user interface are compromised.

To compare modern synths with, say, cars, cars are a thousand times better than they ever used to be in almost every respect - features, reliability, cost-effectiveness, safety, etc.. But they are arguably a bit bland, 'me-too' and soul-less compared with, say, a Jag MkII and maybe not as much fun to drive. Doesn't make them 'rubbish' however - far from it.

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote hollowsun:

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Then memory became cheaper so you could buy 8MB for the same cost as the old 2MB of ROM. As a sound designer, my immediate reaction would be to have better, more detailed samples to service those 256 sounds. But no - the bean counters and marketing step in and say "Four times as much memory? Let's have four times as many sounds"! But the sound designers naintain "But I can give you BETTER sounds... the same 256 but higher quality" to which the marketing bods retort "But Roland's new XYZ has 800 sounds - we can beat them". So now you have 1,000 compromised sounds.

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This brings back so many memories my friend.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Zukan:

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This brings back so many memories my friend.

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Oh yes!!!



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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

BTW...

Not having a pop at Korg, Roland, Yamaha, whoever, here - just using those names at random to make the point. The same scenario exists in almost every company vying for market share.

Personally, I find it quite astonishing that these guys can cram so much into so little space and have it STILL sound pretty good.

And I should point out as well that many times, WE are to blame for wanting/expecting ever more sounds and ever more features for less and less £££ and it could be argued that manufacturers are simply responding to market demands.

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote hollowsun:

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BTW...

Not having a pop at Korg, Roland, Yamaha, whoever, here - just using those names at random to make the point. The same scenario exists in almost every company vying for market share.

Personally, I find it quite astonishing that these guys can cram so much into so little space and have it STILL sound pretty good.

And I should point out as well that many times, WE are to blame for wanting/expecting ever more sounds and ever more features for less and less £££ and it could be argued that manufacturers are simply responding to market demands.

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Absolutely. As you said before the bean counters see BlahBlah company has produced their latest synth with 5000 sounds, step sequencer, etc etc and demand at least equal if not more from their product - for little money.

I'd love to be able to do some work on an Arp2600, Elka Synthex, Yamha CS80.

But my compositional & playing ability would not do them justice.

So I am sticking to my humble pc & sample banks ... many thanx to Hollowsun for Zero G Nostalgia


Here's someone

I once had a couple of people here form a record company, they listened to my music and really liked it, and were very enthusiastic. They then asked if I used any analogue equipment in my music (for what reason I don't know) I said of course, I was a big analogue fan, "we thought so" they said. Those particular tracks that I played were all done on my MK1 DX7, and a Yamaha TX802........I just say what people want to hear these days.

Take care,

Tony.

wow - what a performance.
The sound improves on here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fND-Q8w_AcE
[quote/]

Here's someone

OK, I'm expecting a solid flogging for my views here, but what the hey? My boss has been giving it to me all week too.

firstly, I have to be honest , that piece of Vangelis and mates bit, simply bored the tits off me. I'm assuming I'm just not arty enough to get it.

The triton seems to cop a fair bagging but God knows how many bands over the years I've seen using it to some decent effect.

The SH101, jeez, it was my first synth, I couldn't believe the money I got for it, 20 years later. When I listen to my old tapes it clearly shows that the instrument does not make the man. I was well able to make it sound like starving mozzies floating around a turd.

does it really matter if modern synths need to use a lot of effects to get the sound you want. After all, as long as you get the sound in the end. And lets face it, a crap song will sound no better on a bank of vintage collectables worth a motza.

And is anyone really trying to say that the minimonsta sounds thin?????? C'mon, it can sound fat as all get phuked.

I aplogise if I sound too amateurish or uneducated in the intricacies of all this but maybe I represent the punters we hope to flog our music too. I'm sure they just like a good tune....

Peace Folks

Jock The Simp

Quote jacqueslacouth:

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does it really matter if modern synths need to use a lot of effects to get the sound you want. After all, as long as you get the sound in the end. And lets face it, a crap song will sound no better on a bank of vintage collectables worth a motza.

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Thank you,

Tony.

Quote jacqueslacouth:

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lets face it, a crap song will sound no better on a bank of vintage collectables worth a motza.....

Peace Folks

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Aye ....

Wot oi sed

Quote table for two:

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I'd love to be able to do some work on an Arp2600, Elka Synthex, Yamha CS80.

But my compositional & playing ability would not do them justice.

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` And lets face it, a crap song will sound no better on a bank of vintage collectables worth a motza. `

LoL - now i know why, its my songs that are sh*te not the synths!

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A gentleman is a man who can play "jump" on keyboards, but chooses not to

Quote jacqueslacouth:

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does it really matter if modern synths need to use a lot of effects to get the sound you want. After all, as long as you get the sound in the end. And lets face it, a crap song will sound no better on a bank of vintage collectables worth a motza.

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True-but thats not the point thats being argued here. The point that is being argued here is that the same song was played with old vs new instruments-would it be nicer/sound better?

Granted - good music IS the most important aspect at the end of the day. And better instruments dont neccessarily make better music-but all things being equal-better instruments WILL make better music...


My 2 cents:

Modern synths are rubbish? Quite extreme. However I would only consider Dave Smith/Moog/other boutique analogues new these days. I tried VA and dont like it. The build quality of many new synths these days often is very plasticy and dont feel like a real instrument should.

I wonder if there is a fair amount of 'rose tinted' nostalgia looking back to the older analogues....however if I think of any old analogue synth-I cant think of any that are really crappy. even the cheaper Rolands IE JX3P were nicely built and sounded like they had character. You can pick one of those up for £100 these days!

I guess when synths first started being made the impetus was to make them good.

Now the impetus is to make them sell.

Turnkey is like Tescos-its about bargains-not quality.

The problem is I guess only a niche amount of consumers are knowledgeable enough to tell and demand the better quality-so manufacturers can get away with it. And you get the niche manufacturers catering for the disillusioned higher end.

Either way-Ill keep on supporting the niche manufacturers who do things well and hope their business grows. Perhaps that will turn things round.

Analogue is still beyond most of us price-wise, and that's the bottom line. VA's do a great job for the money. I'm now firmly in computer land, with Reason etc, and the mighty Audiomulch. I guess that makes me even more of a tart, can I possibly stand the embarrassment ? Plus, I don't even own one analogue synth, I guess that makes my music, me, and my keyboards worthless, I may as well just crawl into my bed and not come out, ever.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote arpangel:

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Analogue is still beyond most of us price-wise, and that's the bottom line. VA's do a great job for the money. I'm now firmly in computer land, with Reason etc, and the mighty Audiomulch. I guess that makes me even more of a tart, can I possibly stand the embarrassment ? Plus, I don't even own one analogue synth, I guess that makes my music, me, and my keyboards worthless, I may as well just crawl into my bed and not come out, ever.

Take care,

Tony.

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Funny people always think when you mention analogue you are refering to Minimoogs and Arps. There are a whole lot of affordable analogue synths out there-your Waldorf Pulse/Bass Stations/Roland Sh. True-when you want polyphony-it does get a bit more pricey...but hell-you can get a second hand Andromeda for the same price as a second hand Virus TI.

That said-if you want a more electronic sound-I wholeheatedly support Reason and some other softsynths. The ones that push the envelope are great (Reaktor etc). There would be not much point making electro house with a Minimoog if you wanted it to sound current-although it would still prob sound cool! Softies/VA arent right for my music-but are great for some styles.

I also think that much of this is about fashion. Thinking back to the early 80's when anything shiny new, and digital was a major selling point due to its superiority over old unreliable analogue stuff. Even albums were coming out with big stickers on the sleeve proclaiming digitally mastered.

Its all a bit like Reubens compared to Dolly ideals of femininity.

And before anyone gwets their knickers in a knot, I'm not saying that the boutique manufacturers don't build with love and care unlike the nasty big manufacturers (boo hiss). It's just as Tony says, the price is beyond most of us and the VAs for that matter are still beyond me in cost. But thanks to software I am still happily producing music nd in fact, it sounds far superior to anything I did when I had my SH101, Juno 106 and what was that little Radio Shack jobby made by moog?

I guess though, if enough people do support the boutique companies, they will grow and eventually outsourse their PCB manufacture and componentry to China and before u know it, they will be big and evil too.

Hey, I just realised, I do have an analogue synth. I completely forgot about the Roland GR 700 sitting gathering dust in the corner. I really never got to grips with that thing

I wish someone would dump a few of these modern rubbish my way

The last hw synth I bought was yammy an1x in 2002 ... cute little machine,
quite easy to get near some classic vangelis, jmj sounds.


Sold it a few months later.


I like the workstation concept, to get ideas, whole tracks down fast.
Sounds can then be replaced, parts played live.

This is how Courtney Pine does a fair amount of his stuff.

Quote sqeaking tamborine:

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Digital is death in many ways, although the early digital synths had flaws and character!

Perfection is death . . . perfect production is sterile and lifeless often and perfect code /synths and design is not where people should be looking to go . . . the beautys in the flaws in all things.

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I really agree with what I have quoted of your post and pretty much all of your original post. This is exactly why I will hopefully never part with my beloved Kawai K1r, Yamaha SY55, Yamaha PLG100-DX, PLG150-AN and others. The Kawai is so gritty and noisy compared to modern synths, but it has NEVER failed to rescue my music when my feature rich, super clean modern synths have failed miserably to help my music come alive or blend properly. When I play my older gear people sit up and take notice, but when I use my modern stuff they only remark, "oh yeah....yep, that can do a lot".

I suppose the bottom line is not how good something is, but whether it sounds musical and has character. So long as the quality is reasonable enough, you can do much more with synths that inspire you and become the first thing you reach for above all else.


NCGM

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

Personally I prefer having most of the synths I use for music production as actual physical items positioned around the workspace in my room. Better than a load of manufacturers software boxes and cd's. The sound ITB and out out of the box can be substantial, but the fun for me is in having a real life instrument, surely than can be appreciated... imagine you were a singer/songwriter for guitar but only had Steinberg Virtual Guitarist to use in your compositions. No chance of that happening imo, so why should I have to compromise?

And yes, I feel that the major players in the commercial synthesiser market at the moment have been lackadaisical. Even the most cutting edge Roland V-synth GT is far from a prefect incarnation of fluid unbounded usability, which is what I look for in a modern synth.

My interest in old synths is a certain 'returning to the inception stage' fascination, back when it was more inventive. But inventive in a way that made it more musically accessible and playable. 64 track multi-sequencers with an arpeggiator for each voice, programmable via a combination of raw sysex / nrpn tables / triple held keys / quadrouple d-beams and a facial recognition pitch bender may seem good on paper, but try playing it in the dark.... drunk.

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http://www.myspace.com/dubreakdublin

I think the Trouble with new synths is that they are trying to Mimic far too much the Traditional sounds,for instance a Violin or a Double bass,If you look at the Old analogs,yes they were able to replicate certain sounds of your typical traditional instruments it was merely an Impression of that sound rather than a true emulation but at the same time they were able to replicate unique unheard weird and wonderful sounds,and because they weren't stuffed full of 3000 Variations of the same String PCM data,they allowed you to create something your own.

Nowadays a Rompler contains on average well into 100mb+ of PCM data which on the onset 80% is pretty much never used by the User,add to that 50 Billion presets that lets face it are never gonna be used to full effect,nobody ever takes the time to program anything.or learn the fundementals of sound make up,simply because they no longer have to think for themselves,they easily buy a rompler with a Million sounds and never give it a thought,For me part of the thrill of a synth is in the knowing how to make it work for you rather than letting it do the work.Taking time to know its strengths and Limits learning how to make the most of its abilities and progamming options

More emphasis is placed on trying to get as close to a violin or a Acoustic bass,no matter how realistic the PCM data is and how much of the sample data contains all the impurities and nuances of the Strings being plucked,sucked or whatever, its still never gonna be the real deal.Swamping them with the glitter fx to make them sound Huge only really highlights how far removed it actually is from the replication.

For me a synthesizer should allow you to create something organic,something thats not essentially never been heard but your own doing,Thats why I love the analog stuff,you patch a sound in,and a few movements here and there its something totally alien,you've already drifted it away from the make up of its parameters you can replicate it time and again,and a simple tweak here or there and again its moved to something completely different.
One of my favourite more moderns synths is the Nord Lead,no fx a pretty easy to interpolate with Front panel and a raw and sometimes grungy sound,easy to tweak to your own liking,even the Presets,sadly they seem to have slightly Killed that concept now with the Newer Wave model,kind of trying to keep up with the demands of the typical Synthesizer generation of today.

Quote ThunderBall:

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I think the Trouble with new synths is that they are trying to Mimic far too much the Traditional sounds,for instance a Violin or a Double bass,If you look at the Old analogs,yes they were able to replicate certain sounds of your typical traditional instruments it was merely an Impression of that sound rather than a true emulation but at the same time they were able to replicate unique unheard weird and wonderful sounds,and because they weren't stuffed full of 3000 Variations of the same String PCM data,they allowed you to create something your own.



Nowadays a Rompler contains on average well into 100mb+ of PCM data which on the onset 80% is pretty much never used by the User,add to that 50 Billion presets that lets face it are never gonna be used to full effect,nobody ever takes the time to program anything.or learn the fundementals of sound make up,simply because they no longer have to think for themselves,they easily buy a rompler with a Million sounds and never give it a thought,For me part of the thrill of a synth is in the knowing how to make it work for you rather than letting it do the work.Taking time to know its strengths and Limits learning how to make the most of its abilities and progamming options

More emphasis is placed on trying to get as close to a violin or a Acoustic bass,no matter how realistic the PCM data is and how much of the sample data contains all the impurities and nuances of the Strings being plucked,sucked or whatever, its still never gonna be the real deal.Swamping them with the glitter fx to make them sound Huge only really highlights how far removed it actually is from the replication.

For me a synthesizer should allow you to create something organic,something thats not essentially never been heard but your own doing,Thats why I love the analog stuff,you patch a sound in,and a few movements here and there its something totally alien,you've already drifted it away from the make up of its parameters you can replicate it time and again,and a simple tweak here or there and again its moved to something completely different.
One of my favourite more moderns synths is the Nord Lead,no fx a pretty easy to interpolate with Front panel and a raw and sometimes grungy sound,easy to tweak to your own liking,even the Presets,sadly they seem to have slightly Killed that concept now with the Newer Wave model,kind of trying to keep up with the demands of the typical Synthesizer generation of today.

---

I have a couple of requests for VA manufacturers, don't fill it up with any pre-set's at all, leave it blank, but if you must include some, please don't fall into that trap of imitating something, it's totally pointless, who really needs another Moog Bass imitation or DX EP.

Take care,

Tony.

Again thats another reason why I like the Nords,Ok they have there Moog type Bass or lead emulations,that shows its abilities and is always something by which we judge the sound or familiarise ourselves with a newer instrument,for a VA thats perfectly feasible,because its pretty much the same makeup and interface but on a Rompler its not really convincing.We're dealing in sampled data rather than Waveforms.

Part of the problem with most of the newer generation,is that we are visually stimulated into thinking they sound like the real deal,because the LCD says something which gives us a representation of the sort of sound were dealing with,The LCD Name say something "To be or not TB",so we are already thinking that it must be an emulation of the acid bass machine before we've even heard it,whereas the Nord (well MK1/2)only have the LED program number so sometimes a preset may sound like something youve heard before be it a Moog bass,but your not partly duped into thinking it must be a typical emulation.

On the Preset front,I do think far too many of them are crammed full of past references,rather than totally unique programs I would welcome a totally blank synth or at least the Ability to be able to totally initialize the whole program memory globally,There are few synths which allow you to completely overwite all the program locations,However I don't really think a Synth with no presets would really sell too well,or at the least be only bought by your total enthusiast,I would buy such a synth,but I would need to have at least a few sound references on the demo purpose to see what its capable of.When you look back to the days when things like the EMS gear or ARP2600 or even Minimoog had no memories,they weren't swamped by alternatives that had banks and banks of sounds,so they were bought to be experimented with and there was no alternative you had to program them.

Too many people focus on having banks upon banks of sounds,most of which They'll never use,when you look back at the limited memory locations synths had an in some cases,even some of the digital synths of the Mid 80s they actually forced you to be more creative

This is interesting, I can remember when I got my Multi-Moog, I programmed it in a certain way that was "me" we all do. I can remember taking it to a guys house, and he just started to fiddle around with it, he was getting some really amazing sounds, his approach was completely different to mine, and it was the absence of pre-sets, and being presented with a blank canvas that helps you to do that type of programming. I think it's a positive thing, and something that we should maybe go back to now. And it also promotes originality as well, as you have to make a new sound every time you fire up your machine. Your knowledge of programing analogue subtractive synthesis has to be there, even a little bit, but you have to learn any instrument, the synthesiser is no different in that respect, and we mustn't rely on presets to give us a sound in the first place, it's a bit lazy really.

Take care,

Tony.

Quote arpangel:

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I have a couple of requests for VA manufacturers, don't fill it up with any pre-set's at all, leave it blank

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That ain't ever gonna happen with the trend to always have more than you've offered before and/or more than your competitors.

Quote arpangel:

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who really needs another Moog Bass imitation or DX EP.

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People who want/need those sounds but don't know how to make them.

Part of the problem with modern synths (esp. ROMplers) is that they have to sell to people who don't have the first clue how to program. It's easy to dismiss this market when you know how to program but Korg, Roland, Yamaha and others sell a LOT (maybe even the bulk) of their products to musos in cover bands doing the Friday/Saturday night hotel/club/pub gig, whatever, and/or the 'one-man-band' with sequenced backing tracks. Whatever. Great players who can play anything you throw at them but who wouldn't know an oscillator from a poke in the eye. They want/need to sound like Michael Jackson one minute and Elton John the next, Billy Joel the next (whatever, whoever). There's also the 'dabbler' who's just fooling around with toons at home for fun. These people just need gobloads of sounds and in those circumstances, whilst the 'purists' might throw scorn on the sounds, they suit the job perfectly. And they suit many real pro applications as well hence the number of Tritons, Fantoms and Motifs you see on-stage at gigs and in studios.

If you really want to go the creative and experimental route with modern hardware synths, there are real boutique players such as Synthesizers.com if you want a 'real' hardware synth with no presets. You can specify your own configuration exactly as you want it and they even have entry level systems that arten't that expensive to start you off (which you can expand over time).

It just seems strange to moan about modern synths sounding "rubbish" just because they don't suit one's particular standards/requirements - find one that does... there are plenty about.

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog