Hardware synths anyone?

richspeller_music said
I just like having the hardware…. Luckily, I have some new found space so my Roland Juno and MS2000 sit nicely alongside! When I lack some ideas I will often patch one in. I like collecting all things musical and if I had the money I’d still be buying synths… Still have my old modules too, and although I’ll generally be using Logic’s soft synths, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to sell any of my old gear.

Richspeller, which Juno model do you own?

What I like about hardware synths: you really get to know them! With my D70 , I once went that far that I initalized the whole memory and started to program every sound on my own, resulting in a total unique sound library of my own sounds.
I guess it would take me at least a year of diligent daily ‘soundscanning’ to get to know the presets of the softsynths I own. And that’s only the presets! How many here own for example an awesome Reaktor Synth and can actually say they can/did program a sound from scratch with it? I cant! I wish I could. And another sad thing is: when working on a song or a track I dont want to spend hours looking for the right sound, so I often end up using the same sounds over and over again. And then the next offer comes along and I end up with another 8GB of sounds I hardly ever use. (like I just did with the Sonik Synth 2, haha).
And btw, thx for mentioning Alchemy, I totally forgot about it!!!! I mean, it’s only the Alchemy player but I love it, it sounds awesome!
And I think you’re right about those converters of the hardware samplers. I always think, in the end, it’s the converters of my soundcard that have a huge influence on everything. The software can’t leave that ‘frame’. A hardware synth can!
Edit: well, if you record that hardware synth again with that exact same soundcard….one could argue that you’re still in that ‘frame’, so I guess the next step would be: recording old analog synths onto old 24 analog tape and see if that makes a difference, lol. But let’s not go there, this usually leads to heated and passionate analog vs digital discussions, haha.

Basspartout said
thx for mentioning Alchemy,

+1 for Alchemy. I HIGHLY recommend checking out Simon Stockhausen’s AMAZING custom sounds for Alchemy and many other synths at http://www.patchpool.de/

I have old Yamaha TG-33, it has beautifully sounding strings (among other mellow sounds). I think not every VSTi can compare in “strings” section with this module, despite the fact that TG-33 has 12 bit samples

Basspartout said
I guess it would take me at least a year of diligent daily ‘soundscanning’ to get to know the presets of the softsynths I own. And that’s only the presets! How many here own for example an awesome Reaktor Synth and can actually say they can/did program a sound from scratch with it? I cant! I wish I could. And another sad thing is: when working on a song or a track I dont want to spend hours looking for the right sound, so I often end up using the same sounds over and over again. And then the next offer comes along and I end up with another 8GB of sounds I hardly ever use. (like I just did with the Sonik Synth 2, haha).

Yes, this is inevitable to some degree…. But, when I do make the effort to hunt and twist for a new sound it’s always the right sound.

Sonic_System said

richspeller_music said
I just like having the hardware…. Luckily, I have some new found space so my Roland Juno and MS2000 sit nicely alongside! When I lack some ideas I will often patch one in. I like collecting all things musical and if I had the money I’d still be buying synths… Still have my old modules too, and although I’ll generally be using Logic’s soft synths, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to sell any of my old gear.

Richspeller, which Juno model do you own?

I have the Alpha 2… Nice bass… Not truly analog, half and half, but very much sounds analog, don’t think they’d quite mastered the art of the DCO at the time.

It was probably mentioned but for me I am a romantic…. And hard synths are and always will be the creators or soft synths! I want a Moog. I will have a Moog.

if someone accidentally donated a CS80 my way, i have to say on this instance i would buckle lol

Basspartout said
What I like about hardware synths: you really get to know them! With my D70 , I once went that far that I initalized the whole memory and started to program every sound on my own, resulting in a total unique sound library of my own sounds.
I guess it would take me at least a year of diligent daily ‘soundscanning’ to get to know the presets of the softsynths I own. And that’s only the presets! How many here own for example an awesome Reaktor Synth and can actually say they can/did program a sound from scratch with it? I cant! I wish I could. And another sad thing is: when working on a song or a track I dont want to spend hours looking for the right sound, so I often end up using the same sounds over and over again. And then the next offer comes along and I end up with another 8GB of sounds I hardly ever use. (like I just did with the Sonik Synth 2, haha).
And btw, thx for mentioning Alchemy, I totally forgot about it!!!! I mean, it’s only the Alchemy player but I love it, it sounds awesome!
And I think you’re right about those converters of the hardware samplers. I always think, in the end, it’s the converters of my soundcard that have a huge influence on everything. The software can’t leave that ‘frame’. A hardware synth can!
Edit: well, if you record that hardware synth again with that exact same soundcard….one could argue that you’re still in that ‘frame’, so I guess the next step would be: recording old analog synths onto old 24 analog tape and see if that makes a difference, lol. But let’s not go there, this usually leads to heated and passionate analog vs digital discussions, haha.

Yes, I’d like to avoid THAT discussion if possible ...let’s just say that you need really good converters to capture the hardware magic. I’m thinking Prism Orpheus, UAD Apollo or something in that range…hardware is the expensive route to follow.
Speaking of analog tape, I’d like to have 2 channel Otari, Tascam or Fostex (no way I could afford Studer or others in that range), just for recording guitars, treating samples and removing that digital harshness from mixes and masters. Tape can do wonders if used with taste.

richspeller_music said

Sonic_System said

richspeller_music said
I just like having the hardware…. Luckily, I have some new found space so my Roland Juno and MS2000 sit nicely alongside! When I lack some ideas I will often patch one in. I like collecting all things musical and if I had the money I’d still be buying synths… Still have my old modules too, and although I’ll generally be using Logic’s soft synths, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to sell any of my old gear.

Richspeller, which Juno model do you own?

I have the Alpha 2… Nice bass… Not truly analog, half and half, but very much sounds analog, don’t think they’d quite mastered the art of the DCO at the time.

It was probably mentioned but for me I am a romantic…. And hard synths are and always will be the creators or soft synths! I want a Moog. I will have a Moog.

Alpha Junos are great machines, although I prefer 6/60/106 myself…have you seen the new Moog Minitaur? Or you prefer bigger Moog machines?

Perhaps it’s up to personal preferences, so it’s hard to discuss what is better. For my own part, I exclusively use hardware modules. Because of space limitations, they are only rack modules, and keyboards wouldn’t make sense anyway.

At the moment, my small collection of modules consists of EMU Vintage Keys, EMU Morpheus, Alesis QSR and Alesis DM5 . I’m looking forward to get more classical EMU modules like for example Orbit V2.

I prefer modules because I absolutely hate operating knobs with mouse, I’ve got enough of computers in my daily job, so it’s a real pleasure to work with real knobs. Also hardware gear makes it easier to work with hardware effects and mixing without mouse, so it’s even more usability for me.

As for the sound, the quality of the sound can’t be measured in megabytes of ROM and sampling frequency, and these are the basic advantages of software synths. Each instrument is unique, and it’s unique sounds are what make its value, even if its raw computing power is low for todays standards. If any classical module is copied to VST , there are still licensing costs for using such library, and buying old EMU module is often as cheap as buying its sounds as a library. And in terms of hardware quality and operating system stability, oldschool hardware modules are much better than intel machines.

But still, it’s completely up to musician. It’s like with electric guitar – some guitarists may use MIDI controllers and modules, while others will work only with high quality tube amps and amplifiers. It’s like with every other kind of art – we’ve got plenty of different tools and neither of them are better

As for the idea of sampling the hardware modules, mentioned earlier in this thread, this is something I find ridiculous. Maybe some simple digital synths in 80s indeed were limited to playing the sample with a simple low pass filter and ADSR envelope, but the best romplers from 90s, like EMU or Alesis, have very complex modulation patches, probably more complex than in classical analog synths, and the initial sampled sound is too much modulated depending on many variable parameters, to be able to be entirely caught by mere sampling. Obviously, digital filters are not better than analog ones, but they are different, and sometimes very complicated. Copying the sounds of the module by sampling would probably be a copyright violation as well.