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

[Brandon Daniel]

On Monday, January 12, 2004 1:20 AM, Paul Maddox <P.Maddox at signal.qinetiq.com> wrote:

>> If you could combine the warmth & liveliness of analogue with the
>> diversity of digital, That would be good.
>
>I've never understood this warmth thing.
>ok, its do with oscillator drift some people say.. so why then do people
>spend hours and hours trying to make a perfectly stable oscillator?
>Some say its to do with the filters, but every analogue synth in the
>70's/80's had different, and yet they all had this 'warmth'?
>
>I'm not going down this road, but lets just say its
>subjective..

It *is* subjective, and I an appreciate the assets that a wavetable or PCM playback synth has, but there *is* something about these old analog oscillators that my ears find more appealing for basic waveshapes. It's likely not JUST pitch drift, though that is a component. There's also subtler things going on, variances of waveshape from cycle to cycle and over the pitch range of the osc being two of the more obvious.

I rather like the idea behind the Sunsyn's RCOs (and other modular wavetable modules), use the analog sawtooth wave to address a table, bingo: those instabilities will have an effect (though maybe not the same) on the wavetable.

>I'm working on a VOSIM system, lets see you do that with a
>Prophet5.

Ooooh! Details? I must admit I've been drooling over the VO model in the Elektron MonoMachine. Ever since I added a voice synthesizer cartridge to my C64 at an impressionable age, I've been hooked by lo-fi voice generators.

>> That I agree with. Another reason is that you don't need to make the same
>> kinds of compromises as you would in analogue domain that often result in
>> a charasteristic sound.
>
>agreed, but manufacturers are realising that things need to 'imperfect' take
>the virus with its 'saturation parameter'.

Yes, and I think we're finally getting to the point where we can generate enough basic voices with a reasonable number of DSPs that we're looking at these other important aspects of a synthesizer's overall timbre. I think we've still got a ways to go before snobs (myself included) are satisfied with the result.

>My point is, its a very VERY subjective area.. there is NO "this is better
>than this", because as with everything there is only shades of grey, no
>black or white.

Sure, any reasonable musician will agree with this. But there is such a thing as mutually-agreed upon realities. There's a really large section of synthesists that believe analog synthesizers have a certain something that digital synthesizers are lacking, and I think they're right. Just as there are timbres available from digital synthesizers that analog ones can't touch.

-Brandon