"Real" analog - not so impressive anymore?

ORIGINAL: Nick P
having to dial through presets

That was the problem there.

Did you try the other dozens of knobs in the P08?

ORIGINAL: Nick P

If we had had the Korg Radias and Cakewalk Rapture at the same time as the classic analog poly-synths of the early 1980s, would we be so falling all over ourselves about how "warm" and "fat" the "real" analog synths were? Maybe not.

I've wondered the same thing.

Analog, digital, harware, software...whatever.

I think you are right though, if people had the power of some of the VA or digital or whatever they are called in the 60's-70's, they'd think differently about "warmth" or whatever...

Anyway, that sort of did happen though. D-50's, Wavestations, DX-7's and the like took over the 80's and many people did think that they were the sliced bread similar to what you are referring to...

For me, I could care less...I like what I use, and I miss nothing from not having my old hardware, and I never cared much for real analog sound anyway to pay what they ask for it...not when emulations and VA synths (hard or soft) are close enough for me.

However, my opinion is very skewed because as much as I know synthesis basics...and the very basics at that...and love to muck about tweaking presets, I like composing tracks, so designing patches from the ground up is not really my thing anyway. With the exception of Rapture, though... I got into the whole making single cycle wavetables from samples to learn Rapture and create my own sounds, and with Rapture being a "new way" to do old hat for some people, it is new enough with some of the features to make me not feel as behind the curve as much...even with basic subtractive synthesis...

Digital is great, but so is analog. Rapture and other soft-synths provide a wealth of programablity beyone even modular analog, just as SONAR/P5 and fill in the blank run circles around editing in analog. There is really no comparision.

However (you knew that was coming) analog has its own charm. Knobs (or sliders) on analog synths put everything under your fingertips in a very sensual, tactile manner. Instead of programming a sound, you actually played it, and analog instability actually helped this. A performance was a one time event - you could never get the same one twice, no matter how well you wrote down the settings. Also, you were limited in your controls, and if you made the right choices it was magic. If not, you had to start from scratch and a usually blurry memory.

The lack of recall and limited outboard also made choices during tracking/mixing. With digital, you have comps/eqs and effects on each channel. Big studios could give you that, but certainly not my home studio. I had a single compressor, tho two effects. You printed stuff to 8 tracks. I never would have thought to run one sound twice through a roland tape machine except I stumbled upon adding a second reverb on mixdown. Not a serendipitous mistake so much as setting up an fx track. Talk about big - I had to drop adding reverb to everything to mix down that single sound and the dry tracks vs. the double 'verbed bass sound worked well.

I'm surprised how well my home studio stuff done on analog holds up - including the hissy yet full sound. Just thought I'd play the devil's advocate here - Sometime limitations are a trick unto themselves.

@

Hey! I like some of that cold pop music from the late 80's...

ORIGINAL: Trusty

Hey! I like some of that cold pop music from the late 80's...

LOL. Cool. To each his own. I was living in L.A. when the DX mania started. It was like you'd think these people had seen God or something. You couldn't give a Prophet V away. I stupidly followed the crowd and sold mine to someone in town from overseas for like $1,600 or something - a good price at the time. Of course I sorely regret it. It was a rev 3.3. w/ MIDI and in great shape. I wound up with a Super Jupiter MKS-80 but it was never the same as the P5.

if it can be analyzed...it can be emulated.

analog is a dying art-form. it just really is on the way out. too expensive - too specialized. Everyone and their brothers are also computer engineers now instead of electrical engineers, so it only makes sense.

my virus kc sounds better then any of the soft synths I have ever heard.

hardware synths sound better plain and simple

ORIGINAL: joshhunsaker

if it can be analyzed...it can be emulated.

But not duplicated. That goes for "real" analog, as well as traditional orchestral instruments. If they could be, movie scores would be using sampled orchestras. But they don't. If soft-synths and V.A.s sounded as good as "real" analog, then why would Moog be selling so many Minimoogs? Why would Dave Smith be selling so many Evolvers and Prophet 08s? It sounds like I'm contradicting my earlier post but I'm not. I think "real" analog sounds better than V.A. hardware or software, and real orchestral instruments played by real players sounds better than a sampled mock-up, no matter how painstaking and expensive the latter may be.

In my original post, I made the point that possibly if we had had V.A. hardware and software at the same time the great analog poly-synths came out, we might prefer the V.A.s simply because they sound so much better right out of the box. Imagine a Korg Radias next to a mono Prophet V with no effects. Most people I think would take the Radias. Now take that same Prophet, bring it into a big studio, pump it through a vintage British board with EQ and dynamics (i.e. Trident board), then spread it with a harmonizer and put some nice high-end Lexicon or AMS reverb on it, and you start to hear how much more movement and psychic goodness there is in the "real" analog. Thus, for most lacking the resources to create such an environment, the V.A. hardware and software seems the more practical solution.

BTW I just saw on Clavia's web page that as of January '08 they started work on a Vista USB driver for the G2. Good news!

I played a Prophet 08 on the weekend and it was really nice. That said I think I would prefer the Poly Evolver.

Currently I'm using an evovler keyboard and love it. I just wish the knobs transmitted midi.

re VST distortion : check out Ohmicide. You won't be disappointed!

I would love to get intimate with my Rapture, but it doesn't want to install even after attempting to patch the registry. I'm not sure why such a highly touted product would achieve awards when it won't install correctly. I'm virtually dumbfounded by it. So in current state of mind after spending countless hours uninstalling, reinstalling, rebooting and cussing at Roland for making me move away from buying Arturia and Korg, I'm thinking hardware is much better than software. I'd take a MOOG Voyager, or even a Prophet V over Rapture. At least they would both work unlike Rapture which does not. Very frustrating.

Yeah it trips me out too when people pipe up and don't understand the frustration level with Roland's "out of whack" registration processes then dirty uninstalls on top of failed installation processes. Matter of fact it downright ticks me off when I see the old "reboot your computer" comment that the company knows damn well does not work all the time. Very amateur! Might as well say, "We really don't know what the hell we're doing". I am still awaiting a response from support. Yes, the software is licensed and I paid a lot of money for it. Otherwise I wouldn't be so pissed off! Jesus, cheap software at $50 to $60 installs better than Cakewalk products. Just not a good way to earn a loyal customer in my opinion. Yes, there will be problems but at this price and at this version there should be no install problems and there is. Not even the patch fixes it and that is another issue.

So the post is well deserved because Roland/Cakewalk failed to make their software a stable product under an OS that has been around for a while. I shouldn't have make a phone call to support for simple installs and patches that don't work. That is ridiculous!

So the post is well deserved because Roland/Cakewalk failed to make their software a stable product under an OS that has been around for a while.

Which OS?

Since Rapture's release, I've installed it on Apple Tiger (10.4), Windows XP Pro (SP2), Windows XP Home (SP2), Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit, and Windows Vista Home Premium... with no issues.
They had to patch for Apple Leopard, but it worked the first time for me.

I'm assuming since you mentioned the registry, you're not using a Mac.

What made you go to the registry?
That's rarely where I'd personally go for an install problem... though I might end up there if I've exhausted everything else, including calling/emailing Cakewalk, which if you really want a solution to a rare problem is pretty much required, and you have a rare problem, not representative of the norm, or we'd have heard about it for a while now from others (and we haven't).

I'll totally help walk you through it...

Good luck,
- zevo