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Are Analog Synths Overrated?


koolkeyZ865

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I feel like at the core of this duality, for me, is a pressure, some kind of push/pull effect I desire. Like, with digital, out of the gate it is a bit harsher, more aloof, but there's some latent "intelligence" there that I can tease out of it fairly easily, some kind of sarcasm or introspection or melancholy or overanalysis. With analog it's mostly big and dumb but way more agreeable, it's the chick or dude at the party that gets along with everyone. Sometimes I want the asshole to come out of its shell and be friendlier, sometimes I want to convince the social butterfly to go run off on some secret adventure with me.  It's rare that I just want to let them be who they are, lol, I guess that just bores me. And I've always found it more fun IRL to try to make cool kids weirder than the other way around, so maybe that would go some way to explaining my current preference for analog. 

 

 

This is really similar to what I like about the kinds of electronic music that work best for me, the tension between the uncertainty of a thinking human and the certainty of an unthinking machine, if that makes sense.  The digital/analog divide really does kind of work as an almost perfect analogy for that if you nerd out about the impossibility of generating true randomness in the digital domain.

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from syrobonkers:

 

 

 

[important note to reader from prichard]
have to say to anyone reading this at this point you dont need any hardware to make electronic music apart from a computer, thats it, you have to be slightly mad to want to use hardware these days, its just what ive always loved for many reasons, so i keep doin it, its what buzzes me up.
the more equipment u have the harder it gets, its that simple, i think no equipment is actually the best situation because then you have to sort something else out and its totally open, as soon as u add ONE piece of equipment it adds constraints to wot ur about to do ..so bear tht in mind.
I battle this by either putting things out of sight & mind or going to a different place without anything from time to time.

 

i only tinker with techno so i dont know anything but i thought it was cool that richard said this

 

i get that, with analog, you can play out of the box without that hazard of digital rectangles, and you get that nice texture and organic quality, but i think i get richard's point. if you know what to avoid with digital and the disadvantage you start at, you can carve out a system that can work. and storing / paying for synths compared to storing / paying for a laptop is a stark contrast. 

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from syrobonkers:

 

[important note to reader from prichard]

have to say to anyone reading this at this point you dont need any hardware to make electronic music apart from a computer, thats it, you have to be slightly mad to want to use hardware these days, its just what ive always loved for many reasons, so i keep doin it, its what buzzes me up.

the more equipment u have the harder it gets, its that simple, i think no equipment is actually the best situation because then you have to sort something else out and its totally open, as soon as u add ONE piece of equipment it adds constraints to wot ur about to do ..so bear tht in mind.

I battle this by either putting things out of sight & mind or going to a different place without anything from time to time.

i only tinker with techno so i dont know anything but i thought it was cool that richard said this

 

i get that, with analog, you can play out of the box without that hazard of digital rectangles, and you get that nice texture and organic quality, but i think i get richard's point. if you know what to avoid with digital and the disadvantage you start at, you can carve out a system that can work. and storing / paying for synths compared to storing / paying for a laptop is a stark contrast.

Nice quote. What I got out of it is basically the same thing Autechre said when they used to use hardware - best is 2 or 3 bits of kit at a time. Less than that can be fun in small doses, but more than that feels like work.
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Short answer.

No.

Analogue sounds like analogue.And Analogue is awesome.

Digital is never the same.

When you need analogue sound there is no other way.

The timbre is just different.

 

BUT

 

That does not mean digital in itself is inferior,it just sounds different.

But analogue is better in making some particular things and sounds.

 

And Digital is usually better when not trying so much to do analogue (yeah im looking at you VA)

but doing different things and sounding different than analogue.

 

Also it is in NO WAY ABSOLUTELY NEEDED to make nice tunes(as RDJ said,and he is completely right)

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I played and had recording session with Memorymoog,OB-X and Prophet 5 and i will tell you this:

 

I still shiver just thinking about those.

There is just this RAW POWER factor about these High End Analogues.The timbre and sound is just luscious and lush.

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I played and had recording session with Memorymoog,OB-X and Prophet 5 and i will tell you this:

 

I still shiver just thinking about those.

There is just this RAW POWER factor about these High End Analogues.The timbre and sound is just luscious and lush.

 

 

oberheim SEM is one of the most beautiful sounding synths.  it never can sound bad. is just amazingly good. 

 

if anyone wants a good walk through in musical analogs of the vintage kind get Benge - '20 Systems'.  nice record. pleasure listening to that. 

 

there's plenty of shit sounding analogs that no one would want. .some people want then just because they're analogue someone one time made  a track they like and name dropped that shitty analog synth.. korg poly 800 comes to mind.. go on.. poly800 fans sing its praises but i think it's shit. 

 

there's some gems out there and something to be said for vibey analog synth but it's not going to make your track for you.  but some analogs are dead simple to use and hard to make sound shitty.. easy to dial in bass sounds and synthy stuff that .. let's face it.. we all like.. korg monologue sounds cuking great to my ears.. some of the arturia stuff does too. you don't need to spend a shit ton of cash on a vintage something to get that analog mojo. 

 

there's a 100 million ways to skin a cat these days. 

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i have a pet shop boys record somewhere and on the back it says something like "produced digitally" ... back in the 80s heh

 

ok it says it's a "digital recording" whatever that means

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Guest Chesney

The other side to what RDJ said in that quote would be that gear is easier than software. If you start to play on a piece of gear, which usually does one thing well, you get an idea quicker because you're focussed on it's strengths rather than opening up a new project on a computer with a blank page. I have tried it and the DAW can literally do anything you want, I always got stuck, just like when I was a kid and I wanted to draw something, but had no idea what to draw first. I know you can then pick a plugin and start as you would a piece of hardware but there is something uninspiring about it for me. Until I have an idea from some hardware recorded into the DAW I can't start working ha.

Having more gear can spoil the focus of course, as he says, but, I feel, for me, if you have lots of things that are different and all have their jobs they become important tools you can go to, to get exactly what you want. You start with one piece, get an idea or building block, add another, then the idea usually dictates what you need next so you can go get it easily, or try the opposite and use something random to see what happens. 

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The other side to what RDJ said in that quote would be that gear is easier than software. If you start to play on a piece of gear, which usually does one thing well, you get an idea quicker because you're focussed on it's strengths rather than opening up a new project on a computer with a blank page. I have tried it and the DAW can literally do anything you want, I always got stuck, just like when I was a kid and I wanted to draw something, but had no idea what to draw first. I know you can then pick a plugin and start as you would a piece of hardware but there is something uninspiring about it for me. Until I have an idea from some hardware recorded into the DAW I can't start working ha.

Having more gear can spoil the focus of course, as he says, but, I feel, for me, if you have lots of things that are different and all have their jobs they become important tools you can go to, to get exactly what you want. You start with one piece, get an idea or building block, add another, then the idea usually dictates what you need next so you can go get it easily, or try the opposite and use something random to see what happens. 

 

Heh, precisely the reason I prefer the opposite. A daw is a blank piece of paper and a pencil to me. Hardware is more like a spirograph or something.

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Guest Chesney

yeah, it's all very personal, nothing to do with the tools, just thought i'd add the contrary to RDJ's quote as we all know people take his words as gospel and replace their own thoughts with his ;)

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I think there's a big distinction between digital hardware and digital software; digital hardware synths are just as much fun and have just as much character as analogue, IMO, but personally I've never been able to vibe with VST synths. Tweaking knobs on a laptop screen  isn't the same and I can't get lost in the same way.

 

With hardware synths, digital or analogue, it feels much more like play than work, because each one has its own weird limited architecture and is basically a really 'crap', limited computer in a plastic box, with little secret corners that you can discover, little easter eggs almost. Playing with hardware gives me the same feeling I used to get getting obsessively into PS1 games as a kid, or something, whereas with VST synths I feel nothing. Just a personal preference, obviously.

 

Also it's a lot easier to score obscure unloved digital bargains on eBay these days; the magic words 'analogue' instantly put a premium on stuff even if it's not necessarily that great.

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I feel, for me, if you have lots of things that are different and all have their jobs they become important tools you can go to, to get exactly what you want. You start with one piece, get an idea or building block, add another, then the idea usually dictates what you need next so you can go get it easily, or try the opposite and use something random to see what happens. 

Yeah, I love this. I would say the "job" is more about character or workflow than the objective capabilities of the gear. But the point that you can start a track on one piece of gear, then pull in something to pair with it, is what's great about having a little synth armory. It's kind of like cooking or something, I guess: "Hmm, you know what would be nice with that? THIS! ... Oh, fuck yeah!" 

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if anyone wants a good walk through in musical analogs of the vintage kind get Benge - '20 Systems'.  nice record. pleasure listening to that. 

 

there's plenty of shit sounding analogs that no one would want. .some people want then just because they're analogue someone one time made  a track they like and name dropped that shitty analog synth.. korg poly 800 comes to mind.. go on.. poly800 fans sing its praises but i think it's shit. 

 

there's some gems out there and something to be said for vibey analog synth but it's not going to make your track for you.  but some analogs are dead simple to use and hard to make sound shitty.. easy to dial in bass sounds and synthy stuff that .. let's face it.. we all like.. korg monologue sounds cuking great to my ears.. some of the arturia stuff does too. you don't need to spend a shit ton of cash on a vintage something to get that analog mojo. 

Thanks for the album recommendation.

 

The Poly 800 had DCOs if I remember right, but it was my first "analog". Yeah, it was pretty shit - it was paraphonic, and the bizarre drawbar-like harmonics programming was probably the worst part. But it really did have its own weird charm, I get why people like them. And the paraphonic is actually kind of nice for things like dub chords, it colors the sound differently and avoids that "2 cups of butter" effect of 4-6 analog filters rolling around in unison you get with a real analog poly.

 

The monologue is tasty, it's definitely got that mojo. It's great that Korg figured out how to make such a well-spec'd monosynth with some nice, hard-to-find features, for so cheap. Easy to recommend as a first synth and it has plenty to offer for folks who already have a decent collection going. People who aren't sure what's so great about analog should definitely give one a try - for the price of a few video games it won't hurt your wallet too bad, and unlike software it's easy to resell.

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I think with modern computer tech you basically can't really tell the difference between analogue or digital by ear in 99% of the cases, if the sampling rate is high enough so no audible artifacts appear. So in my opinion it's all down to the actual physical feel of the knobs and the actual hardware which probably messes around in our subconsciousness and makes us like believe there's some magical analog sound.

I think there should be some proper AB testing where you take some analog module and build a exact replica of the thing, but with digital guts with high-precision digital knobs and have people play with both of them and then judge whether the thing is digital or analog. Or the other way around - you hook up a VST and a physical module through MIDI so you only interact only with your computer and your control surface. My money is that most people could not reliably tell the difference in sound.

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I'm no EE but I feel like there's something going on with the voltages/impedance in some analogs that you don't get with digital VAs, although you do get it with older digitals like, say, old Ensoniqs with digital oscs and analog filters. It might be a design flaw actually. Like they bleed into other stuff they're mixed with in a pleasant way, they're "stickier" than VAs. This is completely unscientific, subjective, and untested. 

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Guest Chesney

Digi can sound exactly like analogue timbrewise, there are many digi synths that can fool you in a blind test, even software.

Analogue is def more the vibe, and more about the flaws. The less stable the more "analogue" it's going to sound. Variants in pitch from key to key, random changes that may never occur the same each time due to things like tempreture or whatever. A digi replication will sound dead on every time you press that key, turn that knob etc. That in a perfect world is what we want right? everything to be perfect and recallable at any time. Seems not, something about inaccurasies makes us feel more, like it's real, alive rather than man made or fake.

Of course digi can incorporate algorithms to replicate inacuracies like DSI Slop etc and this can be enough for alot of people.

And, to be honest, in a mix, not many people can hear these things that we obsess about unless they are made a point of. It's down to what makes the most enjoyable process for the musician, if it's not fun then why are we doing it?

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Analog synthesizers are *very* overrated. I think sweepstakes is correct in his assessment that a lot of the flaws in the engineering design are what make them sound characteristic and rewarding to hear. Older synths contained capacitors and resistors that had metal impurities which dissipated electrical charge unevenly and give a lot of the little random details in the output associated toward a particular make and year. Lots of the newer analog synths have parts that are more pure and well designed that make them sound similar to their digital counterparts.

Digital has become very good and powerful enough to emulate analog circuits and their nuances very well, as well as allowing versatility into other areas of audio design and structure. As well, many analog sounds end up going into pulse code modulated format at some point, either through a digital effect or going into a computer, so to stress about all of the dynamics and frequencies properly is kind of a moot point unless you invest in an all-or-nothing analog setup. Human hearing is also limited in how many frequencies we can hear to begin with and becomes poorer as you age and listen to loud sound in ways that we are not supposed to, so it becomes less objective and more dogmatic in judging how important having unlimited frequencies vs a fixed range with discrete intervals.

Analog has its own set of problems (oscillator drift, physical space taken up, parts breaking, noise, extremely high $$$ to buy) that people have forgotten that have been resurfacing and started the move towards digital in the first place. Also knowledge of electrical repair is a must, otherwise it is a moneysink and a timesink of taking your gear to the repair store.

Digital's limitations mainly arise from CPU demand, PCM interpolation playback, user interface and Nyquist frequency properties. The unlimited frequency thing doesn't bother me as much as it used to now that digital filters and encoding techniques are a lot better now then they were in the past. There are always new developments, tricks and innovations that both the technical minded and the artistic minded come up with to make leaps in those areas, and I'm always at the edge of my seat seeing what will evolve from them.

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Best of both worlds:  One is like playing with live electricity.  The other is like experimenting with aliens.

I've got three pieces of analog hardware: DSI Evolver, Waldorf Pulse 2, and Elektron Rytm. All have analog chips and sources but all also feature varying degrees of digital fuckery. Evolver straight up has two analog oscillators, two digital, literal best of both worlds. The combo of the two mindsets and utilizing the strengths of each in conjunction with one another is absolute magic, imo.

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Guest Chesney

Best of both worlds:  One is like playing with live electricity.  The other is like experimenting with aliens.

Yeah kinda like that.

 

 

I do think that it's hard to judge or have an idea unless you have tried many forms of both sides. Not many modern analogues get all the way there when people talk about that analogue sound. There is something about some old analogue synths, they just breath. But not better, just a different flavour.

Going by the prices that any old analogue seem to command, they are way overated.

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It's physically impossible for a binary system to generate randomness.

 

A fully digital synth can't make true white noise, or truly random oscillator drift, or anything else that isn't deterministic. Random number generation in the digital domain requires analog seed data, whether it's from atmospheric measurements or quantum optics or a bunch of lava lamps and because of this, accurate digital modelling of analog devices is literally impossible without the use of a hybrid analog/digital system.

 

Whether or not that matters is a subjective choice, but it's an immutable fact.

 

 

Anyhow, personally I use more digital gear than analog because I like the sound of it but I've yet to hear a really convincing digital emulation of analog (and so what?).

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