Computer simulation of analog synthesis in general

[Gene & Debby Stopp]

I saw something a while back along these lines...

When I was at the NAMM show I visited the "Reality" booth, where they had a
new virtual synthesis product happening. The main guy in the booth was our
good buddy Dave Smith (founder of Sequential Circuits) and he was gloating
that he "would never have to pick up a soldering iron again". I'm not sure
of the details, but I remember that their system exploited many different
types of synthesis, and that analog emulation was one of those types, and
that these guys felt that the degree of emulation was "all the way".

I remember that the minimum system was a Pentium 133, and that they told me
that the number of voices was limited by the amount of RAM you had (some
other trade-offs are in there I'm sure, like synthesis complexity
etc.etc.). Ayway the ad is running in either Keyboard or EM, I just saw it
a couple days ago. I think the price is $495 or something like that.

Anybody have an update on this? I've not kept up, but I did have the urge
to check it out at some point (some day I'm gonna build up some
mega-horsepower dual P-II ultra-wide fast SCSI MMX fill-in-the-blank
machine...)

Philosophically my feeling is that everything has its place - virtual stuff
can co-exist just fine with the organic stuff, and any feeling that one
must "crush" the other out of existence is misguided. The word "obsolete"
can be used in business, but has no place in art. I think that there are
vast areas of unexplored strange and wonderful sounds out there in virtual
synthesis land, but I will never give up my analog systems. I want both.

- Gene

----------
> From: kjarger at jkjelec.com
> To: analogue at hyperreal.org; synth-diy at horus.sara.nl
> Subject: Computer simulation of analog synthesis in general
> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 1997 12:58 PM
> 
> All this talk of the Nord Modular got me thinking:
> 
> Simulation of analog has great promise, IMHO.   Eventually, or even 
> now(?), real time emulation of analog circuitry down to the level of 

<snip>

> So am I computerphobic with respect to computer cost/functionality?
> or am I on the right track?
> 
> And an analog synth simulation can't _possibly_ be as fun as tweaking a 
> knob...Gee I've been rambling on.
> 
> Please respond privately, if the subject is off topic.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> 
> Kyle Jarger
> JKJ Electronics
> Visit our MIDI/CV website http://www.jkjelec.com