Here's a little point of interest.  Ik holds Jampoints in the rear.
If you earned Jampoints for something, then use them...and then
sell what you bought with them, they take the Jampoints back.  Even
if you bought it years ago...doesn't matter.  They keep a negative running
total.  I earned 12 Jampoints with my purchase, but got nothing because I 
sold one of my Two copies of SampleTron...which I bough years ago...

Another feather in the cap of IK....thanks boys!

cclarry
...you can't model air molecules moving through the air and
hitting the spluttered diaphragm of a Microphone.

 
Engineers do this every day with Computational Fluid Dynamics. You could add adjustments for humidity and temperature. Mic placement, humidity, temperature, diaphragm materials could all be modeled.  Just need $$ and computational power. The latency of a an amp sim using CFD would be excessive today. Tomorrow, who knows. 
 

tmossman

cclarry
...you can't model air molecules moving through the air and
hitting the spluttered diaphragm of a Microphone.

 
Engineers do this every day with Computational Fluid Dynamics. You could add adjustments for humidity and temperature. Mic placement, humidity, temperature, diaphragm materials could all be modeled.  Just need $$ and computational power. The latency of a an amp sim using CFD would be excessive today. Tomorrow, who knows. 
 

Again, it is an approximation, based on variables.  I'm not saying that it won't be a good approximation.
That is exactly what modelling is and does.  But to say that a $100 Plugin "Model" will sound like
an actual, real, piece of $10,000 hardware.  Nope.  Chaos theory is ALWAYS there.  Math does not and CANNOT
account for "every variable", as variables are often "unknown".  You also have to account for data
loss in the modelling process, etc...

I have YET to hear a single plugin that sounds "identical" to the Hardware.  Why?  Because hardware
is "alive".  It's driven by heat, conductivity, by connections, but other hardware.  THIS is the problem.
Because, in "modelling" you have to use HARDWARE, to model the HARDWARE, which will influence
the sound.  The idea of "completely neutral" is absurd.  All things influence other things in the chain.

BTW, I spent most of my life as a Mechanical Engineer for Ford Motor Company, as well as writing
many of the Database programs that are still used by the company. I'm not a layman taking a 
"guess".

When I first heard about modelling - I think it was a Line 6 device - I too thought "NO WAY, it will never happen". That was the tone snob in me, I think. :)
 
But the developer in me (I've written over a dozen books on software dev, so no layman here either) totally sees it. I agree with you 100% - we are not there today and we may not be there soon. But think how you used to need a UAD card because the PC couldn't keep up with native plugins. Now, a good machine can run a huge number of powerful native plugins, and with each iteration they get better and better and better.
 
The technology will get there - even the randomness of chaos can be modeled with enough time, ingenuity, and horsepower. We may not have even invented the tools that will do it yet, but it will happen. I actually think perfect modelling of analog gear is no that far off. My guess is five to ten years at the rate we're going. And then that changes things for hardware guys. Who would invest the time and energy to build an expensive hardware unit that could be cloned with a few months work and resold for a few hundreds bucks? We could see a day where there are no more outboard hardware builders, or just a very few boutique guys. Again, not tomorrow, but 20 years?
 
When someone truly nails analog circuit modelling, why not have them license the technology so anyone can build a schematic visually, choose the virtual brand and material for each component, and instantly have a working software model? Sort of like how many game developers use the same underlying game engine they license from a 3rd party. Now picture your future cell phone being able to run it all and just "future bluetooth" to a set of real stomp switches on the floor or a touch panel monitor.
 
This is all WAY more easy to believe than going back 200 years and envisioning taking moving color pictures and transmitting them with sound across the entire globe in real-time, or even just capturing video on your cell phone. :)
 

I agree to an extent James...But not completely.

I don't think that there is a method to "capture" what happens inside
a piece of hardware.  You can model all the circuits, the components, everything,
but it will never sound exactly like the hardware.  You can't "model" the excitement
created by "driving" analogue components.  You may model the characteristics, but
not the "excitement" that is created.  That sound is a byproduct of the heat,
the material, the various components, all working together.  THIS is the magic of 
analogue.  THIS is why we spend so much money trying to get back to what we
spent YEARS trying to get away from.  Because that "sound" still eludes us.

I'm sure that technology will develop to the point of being very very close.  But it just
can't recreate what is going on inside the hardware - because, as I stated,
it's INHERENT in the medium.

But it sure is nice to get something close to a $10,000 EQ for $37.50! 

Ok...ear test....2 files...one WITH the 432c on the "Fresh Air" setting, and one without...tell me which is which...

https://soundcloud.com/cclarry/vital-instruments-1
 
https://soundcloud.com/cclarry/vital-instruments-2
 
 

I've been following the discussion here and thought I would throw out my own .02
 
First of all, the whole secret to "capturing" the characteristics of a hardware unit for software creation should have nothing to do with individual components. The important thing is output, not the individual elements used to create the output. Sound goes in(Input A) and then sound comes out(Output A). If you do a precision analysis of the difference between Input A and Output A you have the "characteristic" of the hardware unit. Now the hard part is to engineer the software that will result in the same difference. You also have to handle the various permutations of button and switch positions to completely model the hardware unit. This process has a lot in common with capturing Impulse Responses for reverb units.
 
I don't know about you but I'd rather have a software copy that creates the same sound manipulations than one that has modeled transistors and diodes
 
Bill

Bill is basically describing what Nebula tries to do -- capture the sound of a piece of hardware by sampling the output given various inputs.  As has been mentioned, this can work very well.  At least, it can get closer than most circuit modeling techniques have achieved, from what I've heard -- but this applies mainly to steady-state characteristics as heard from EQs, preamps, tape machines, and the like.  Nebula excels at these, but I've yet to hear a convincing dynamic saturation sound or compression action from Nebula.  Maybe soon that'll change ...
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

One note, the price difference between software and hardware doesn't really mean much.  Hardware has direct material costs that keep the costs from dropping to low.  Software doesn't have those problems.  This allows you to drop the price and sell a LOT more units.  It's very easy to imagine scenario's where the $100 plugin would still be 10x more profitable for the company selling it than the $10,000 hardware unit.

Cookie Jarvis
I've been following the discussion here and thought I would throw out my own .02
 
First of all, the whole secret to "capturing" the characteristics of a hardware unit for software creation should have nothing to do with individual components. The important thing is output, not the individual elements used to create the output. Sound goes in(Input A) and then sound comes out(Output A). If you do a precision analysis of the difference between Input A and Output A you have the "characteristic" of the hardware unit. Now the hard part is to engineer the software that will result in the same difference. You also have to handle the various permutations of button and switch positions to completely model the hardware unit. This process has a lot in common with capturing Impulse Responses for reverb units.
 
I don't know about you but I'd rather have a software copy that creates the same sound manipulations than one that has modeled transistors and diodes
 
Bill

 
Yes and no in fact , since it's a dynamic thing , it varies with time and level most of time , this non lineraty is what we miss and love (our ears ) and it's the biggest thing to emulate , and to do so , we have to knows witch componenent impact the sound and how ...
 
what you're descibing here is the use of convolution mainly ....witch is great by the way ..but not a deep recreation of analog ..
 
Let me just had another cent to my opinion : few weeks ago i helped a friend to do a "for theatre" music ...and i was all Rock and seltic music ...all recorded live ..
 
As you might know (or not) i'm doing mainly electro based music (hip hop , electro ect) and when i do acoustic(like abbey road kinda stuff) , it's plugin based ....
 
On this project , i didn't had to used one emulation plugins FX for the mojo it add ...not one (or maybe a tape for one or 2 bus) , bus that imperfection , that analog feel was there on takes (via Neve consoles , preamps , pedals ect ...)
 
So the end of the story , is that since we can have great gear for low prices nowdays (500 formats is one options) , if you guyz doing live based music , all those debate are WAY less important that All ITB guyz like me ....** since that mojo can be there from start ....