[sdiy] Taking a Step towards - - --((FUTURE-PREDICTIONS))-- - -

[Paul Maddox]

Magnus,

>I am not going to debate weither analog or digital is THE best. IMHO they
have
>different strengths and weaknesses and often it also boils down to the
>engineering details of either world, many times it is even "best current
>practice" which doesn't really is the best, just the "current practice" and
>nothing else.

agreed, but a lot of people seem stuck on 'analogue is best and everything
else is just rubbish'

> Hopefully we can help improve the state by sharing ideas

indeed, me too, The MonowaveII Code goes up on my website tonight for those
into DSP programming.

>and Ithink I've seen many very interesting advances on the analog side from
(other)
>members of Synth-DIY (Jürgen, Ian, René and all those which my poor mind
just
>forgot the names - please forgive me, but you've all contributed one way or
>another).

I'm not disputing this, but 99% of this list geared towards analogue and
seems to have a passionate dislike to digital, without looking at the whole
picture..

> Wavetables is to some degree the poor-mans sampler,

I would disagree.

>but then again is a wavetable-sweep a quite a different approach to that of
>sampling, sample-stretching etc.

yes, VERY different.

> Jürgens interpolator is a step in the direction on the analog side, the
Prophet-VS is another direction on the
>digital side - that of interesting timbre-modulations.

Yes, the prophet VS and Jurgens interpolator are both close to wavetable
synthesis in the results you can achive..

>In the end we end up with the question of how do we make our oscillators
>controlable in an interesting fashion?

Agreed..

>It is certainly subjective and people also listens to different
characteristics
>and have different preferences. Some like a big fat Moog-ish sound at all
times
>and others want thin sounds, cracking sounds or whatever and your
preference
>will certainly become a big judgement on what is "right" and what is not.

bingo, like I said, everything doesn't HAVE to be analogue, its a matter of
choice..

>The thing with analog gear is that not all is as versatile as you could
>possibly make them. A Prophet 5 is a good example, it is not even as
versatile
>as other synthesizers using the same chip-sets.

Agreed.

>IMHO is the whole digital vs. analog discussion old and booring.

I agree, and I tried hard to avoid it.

>If somebodycomes and say "I really like this feature of this system" then
that's more
>worthfull.

for me this is the Chameleon, its standalone (no vst plugin), its powerfull
and flexible, its reprogrammable and whats more I can write stuff for it, no
soldering, no wasted PCBs, no mod wires, no burnt fingers!

>What happends when you combine the analog and digital world in interesting
>ways?

I dunno, closest I've seen is things like the PPG Wave, Monowave, Prophet
VS, evolver and so on..

>For instance, some time back I proposed a new way of building a analog-
>controlled (CV!) digital delay with analog input and output (could just as
>well been digital input and output). In there I used a digital storing
through
>DRAM or whatever but under analog control. I've never seen anything like it
>before (which doesn't mean it hasn't been done). Really just an
>BBD-replacement (which was the point anyway).

its do-able, but again, most modular people seem to balk at the idea of
anything digital in their system.

>So, my point is... try to solve your problems in the best method possible
and
>learn what issues is important and which isn't. There is too much tradition
>and folk-lore going around here and some of it doesn't make sense. Yes,
there
>is an effect which we can attribute "warmth" - I can hear it - but I still
>think there is a little too much mumbo-jumbo going on around it which is
part
>of folk-lore more than a scientific way of looking at it. The real quest
there
>is to know it well enought so we can put a knob on an oscillator (analog or
>digital) and control it from "cold" to "warm" as we like it.

agreed, this would be storming, I've seem attempts using noise and so on,
but there's something other than just pitch/amplitude/dcoffset changes going
on.

>If you want imperfections - just look at these bloody speakers we keep
using!

<ROFLMAO>

>Why not?
>(Said in a VERY retoric fashion and also honestly asking at the same time.)

part of the quoted reason for 'analogue' warmth, at least the ones I get, is
that it isn't 8bit, 16bit or 24 bit, its infinate resoloution.

>Have you tried? All you have to do is get the sawtooth core up to spec.
>I clocked mine up to 160 kHz. You can do more or less ugly frequency
>multiplication tricks as well (see my webpage).

I've tried..
160Khz just inst high enough... that would only give you max pitch of
1.25Khz using PPG wavetables..
if you want the full 8khz, 128*8000 = 1.024Ghz

> Actually, as I recall it, this is really from the point of view that the
PPG
> concept originated from. The PPG Wave 2.3 is just a continuation off a
line of
> developments from the traditional oscillator. The waveshaper went through
> various transformations before the oscillator core was changed into its
digital
> equalent with all the obvious improvements that had. Then the waveshape
> improvements continued.

yep, the 360, for example, has no filter, it sounds great, but musicians
wanted a filter, so palm made the wave 2.0, with a filter. People like what
they are familiar with.

>Actually, I think this argument starts of in the wrong end from both sides.
>I think there is a number of usefull techniques around. Some is dominant in
the
>analog world and some is dominant in the digital world. They acheive
different
>things amd have different pros and cons. It may initially look like they
are
>compound properties of one or the other technology, but I beg to differ. It
is
>not at all as clear-cut as people make it, and you can learn alot by trying
to
>force a technical solution over border. Hell, people are so locked up in
their
>way of thinking that it is really annoying!!!

agreed.. and very well phrased.

> Let's face it, more things is happening in the digital domain right now
because
> that's where the market is and prices of hardware is dropping (for a
certain
> functionality) due to the development in semiconductors and digital stuff
is on
> the forefront of that while much analog stuff is still about where it was
in
> the late 70thies except for a few improved components (like op-amps).

its also cheaper to develop, see above comments about PCBs.

>Actually, they are not only grey, they are different colours of grey!

:-P
Trust you!

Paul