Simulation Vs Real Things

[Karl Helmer Torvmark]

On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Paul Maddox wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> 
>   This could be a fun topic....
> 

<snip>

>   It seems funny that people will spend 1000's on emulating something
> they can make/buy for a lot less, I bet the target price for this
> synth is well into the 4000 UKP price tag, for that you could get a
> couple of good poly synths (JP8, JP8000) and a few analogs, or you
> could buy a good sized roland 100m system, or even a good sized
> digisound or mood modular..

<snip>
 
>   Dont flame me, Ive nothing against progress and mixing software and
> hardware solutions to get a great sounding synth, but why emulate
> something thas already been don?, surely these people should be 
> pushing the boundires with NEW methods, NEW sounds, NEW synthesis
> techinques, not old ones in a different guise... People like waolfgang
> palm managed it 15/20 years ago, so why the hell not now with better
> and more controlable electronics? These people have millions at their
> disposal to make a new style of synthesis and the did well with things
> like the nord lead, marion MSR, EMU-Zplane stuff, but its ditched in
> favour of a box that sounds like an old minimoog/ARP, why?
> 
>   Enough ranting... Id rather have a Modular than a PC, but hey, thats
> just my view...
> 
> Paul Maddox
> 

In my opinion a very sensible post, Paul!

However, it seems that the "mainstream" in the synth-business to a large
extent always have wanted to "emulate" something else.

In the the seventies, "everybody" wanted their instruments to emulate
real, acoustic instruments, but the technology wasn't good enough. Now we
have samplers and synths who do a very good job of emulating real
instruments, but now people want to emulate old synths!

Ironic, isn't it?

Hopefully, some people in the industry are thinking in new ways. The
granular synthesis method featured in last month's Keyboard seemed very
interesting. 

The problem with more advanced digital synthesis is that it takes many
man-years to write the software, so it is not very well
suited to one-man diy. (Although I want to have a go at it sometime).

-----
Karl H.