7 ms·

> The biggest problem with the VCO design is that the control voltage that determines the frequency is generated by a complex circuit that is very sensitive to

> The biggest problem with the VCO design is that the control voltage that determines the frequency is generated by a complex circuit that is very sensitive to temperature drift and manufacturing tolerances. This means that the generated control voltage might not match up to exactly to what it should be for the desired note and it'll end up sounding out of tune. What's worse is that even if you adjust for this you'll need to re-adjust as the instrument gets warmer! Instability ironically prized and cherished by synth enthusiasts who will claim it makes old synthesizers sound "better" than modern ones...

cageface 6y ago
Synth nerds are among the most ardent gear fetishizers there are. Personally I'm very happy to have my gear finally reduced to a laptop and a set of headphones.
- tomcam 6y ago
  Cannot upvote this enough. The portability is one thing. Another is reliability. I love Roland and Korg, but I purchased the last two Korg flagships and they both stopped functioning right after the warranty period. They are essentially custom computer hardware with none of the service options or reliability available in the PC/Mac world. Also Korg somehow gets their distinct sounds near flawlessly in software, even though their iPhone apps are a tiny fraction of the price of the hardware in real life.
  - colanderman 6y ago
    > reliability Pre-COVID I had a semi-regular synth jam session with a dude 100% invested in software synths. First 30 minutes (no exaggeration) of every session was him fighting with Ableton or whatever, and rebooting his Mac, trying to get something trivial to work, like MIDI clock or input monitoring. Meanwhile I just plugged my Minilogue into the power strip and mixer and did my own thing. There's something to be said for a musical instrument not to be joined at the hip to a general-purpose networked computing device.
    - tomcam 6y ago
      Can’t argue. I love playing a Minilogue or an Electribe or a Roland JD-Xi. They are all superb instruments for jamming. And you are so right, host environments can be frustratingly buggy. On the other hand, the Korg Gadgets on iOS are pretty damn reliable. My only argument is that with software versions you’re much more likely to get upgrades when bugs occur. And I personally will simply no longer buy a Korg flagship because of my troubles.
- jim-jim-jim 6y ago
  I think it could be worse. On the whole, synth wankers tend to be cool with modding and reissues. In constrast, it seems that guitar people ascribe magic qualities to very specific models from certain years and are paranoid about keeping these instruments as authentic as possible. With synths you have people looking at MS-20 serials to make sure it has their favored filter inside, but that's usually where the madness ends.
  - oriolid 6y ago
    With guitars there's also a whole subculture of DIY modification and ecosystem of aftermarket parts to support it. It helps that Fender guitars were designed to be modular to begin with (AFAIK for easier manufacturing and repairs, the hackability was unintended), and for most components there are only a few common form factors so you don't need any woodworking skills to get started. Attempts to reproduce the exact '59 'burst sound are certainly part of the fun, but there's much more to it.
brunoc 6y ago
Developers model and reproduce this drift in software synthesizers because it's pleasing to the ear of many...
mrspeaker 6y ago
I used to dabble with making tunes with a friend - we had access to a Juno 106, and a couple of Juno VST plugins. We'd do a bunch of takes with both, and then later we'd choose "blind" which versions to use. The real thing won every time... we tried to analyze why, but never really figured it out - though it's probably just because the music we were making was a bit wonky anyway ;)
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  I think a lot of "blind" preferences like this are likely due to appreciating the accidental noise introduced in the signal path of the hardware instrument. The Juno chorus in particular is/was notoriously noisy. Add to that some crappy audio cables to get the sound out of the machine and into your recording device, ground loop hum, nearby AM radio... No software emulation is going to include all that "unwanted" sound unless it's deliberating modeling it as well. Personally I'm from the camp that likes super-clean audio, so I was overjoyed when software synths fixed all the problems that we used to have with hardware, but there's definitely a camp that really likes the "warmth" or unpredictability of the original machine's output. Sometimes I think people spend more time adding plugins to dirty up their sound than they did making the original patch in the first place.
  - mrspeaker 6y ago
    We ran the VST synths through the same signal path as the Juno (as a test - with good DACs)... but yeah, I've long-since given up on hardware synths: they're fun, but just take up too much space. I miss combining the sounds though - most of our tracks would be 90% VSTs, 10% analogue. I think you're right though: my mission now is to try and "recreate" that 10% with plugins.
    - alisonatwork 6y ago
      My biggest problem with software has been that it perhaps limits creativity by providing such an unlimited palette. My first synthesizer was a Juno 60, and I owned a bunch of other vintage and modern ones over the years. With hardware, it was a whole ritual to turn everything on, each instrument had its own smell, it put me into a mood of "let's play with this machine and see what happens". When I moved to software, I finally had all the sounds I always wanted but could never afford, I finally no longer had to futz around trying to reprogram a patch I liked, I finally could send any instrument to any effects box... but there were less happy accidents. It felt a bit more like my day job, which also just involves sitting in front of a computer. I think it can be like that for a lot of people, where the tactility and limitations of the gear can inspire a different approach to music-making. I imagine that aspect also plays in to the emotion that some people have that hardware instruments "sound" better. All that said, I would never go back to hardware. As you say, it's hard to beat the convenience of a laptop.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ssalazar 6y ago
Scientifically perfect output has rarely been a primary desideratum of musical instrumentation and in fact is somewhat limiting in terms of the number of timbres you can create. Ergo why historic analog synths included multiple oscillators per-voice with independent tuning. The early Junos famously included a chorus to thicken up its single DCO per-voice. Later digital Roland synths introduced the "super saw" which is many superimposed detuned oscillators. Going back further, a full orchestra or choir ensemble is certainly not exactly in tune across every performer. And as someone who makes digital synths for a living even 100% accurate fully digital oscillators are difficult to fully realize in practice. Aliasing concerns abound at every stage of a softsynth- there are well-known formulas for calculating alias-free waveforms at a fixed frequency, but these start to get expensive when you also are considering PWM and frequency modulation which are essential tools for achieving a variety of different sounds. And aliasing sounds a lot worse than analog imperfections.
- cageface 6y ago
  A lot of the best commercial softsynths now support all kinds of audio-rate modulations everywhere in the signal chain. I guess they must just be throwing CPU power at it and oversampling the crap out of everything.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Basically - yes. There's now enough CPU to do this. But there's more to that analog sound. The opamps and the rest of the circuitry, including supposedly passive elements like resistors and capacitors, all add tiny amounts of distortion and other parasitic interaction with the rest of the synth which varies with frequency content, level, and dynamics. Human ears are incredibly sensitive to these variations, and the circuits in 70s and 80s synths had a lot of components, all adding their own colour. Which is why if you A/B the hardware with the software, the software rarely wins. In DSP terms there are differences between functional/abstract models, component-level models, and component-level models that include these complications and imperfections. There hasn't been a lot of work done on the latter, and if they were modelled accurately they would likely need an order of magnitude more DSP cycles than current VSTs.
FpUser 6y ago
I was making analog synthesizers as a hobby back in the 80s while studying in the University. For this kind of circuitry I would reduce temperature drift by enclosing it into a heated thermostat kept well above room temperature. This way after initial warm up period there is very little drift.

cageface 6y ago

Synth nerds are among the most ardent gear fetishizers there are. Personally I'm very happy to have my gear finally reduced to a laptop and a set of headphones.

tomcam 6y ago
Cannot upvote this enough. The portability is one thing. Another is reliability. I love Roland and Korg, but I purchased the last two Korg flagships and they both stopped functioning right after the warranty period. They are essentially custom computer hardware with none of the service options or reliability available in the PC/Mac world. Also Korg somehow gets their distinct sounds near flawlessly in software, even though their iPhone apps are a tiny fraction of the price of the hardware in real life.
- colanderman 6y ago
  > reliability Pre-COVID I had a semi-regular synth jam session with a dude 100% invested in software synths. First 30 minutes (no exaggeration) of every session was him fighting with Ableton or whatever, and rebooting his Mac, trying to get something trivial to work, like MIDI clock or input monitoring. Meanwhile I just plugged my Minilogue into the power strip and mixer and did my own thing. There's something to be said for a musical instrument not to be joined at the hip to a general-purpose networked computing device.
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Can’t argue. I love playing a Minilogue or an Electribe or a Roland JD-Xi. They are all superb instruments for jamming. And you are so right, host environments can be frustratingly buggy. On the other hand, the Korg Gadgets on iOS are pretty damn reliable. My only argument is that with software versions you’re much more likely to get upgrades when bugs occur. And I personally will simply no longer buy a Korg flagship because of my troubles.
jim-jim-jim 6y ago
I think it could be worse. On the whole, synth wankers tend to be cool with modding and reissues. In constrast, it seems that guitar people ascribe magic qualities to very specific models from certain years and are paranoid about keeping these instruments as authentic as possible. With synths you have people looking at MS-20 serials to make sure it has their favored filter inside, but that's usually where the madness ends.
- oriolid 6y ago
  With guitars there's also a whole subculture of DIY modification and ecosystem of aftermarket parts to support it. It helps that Fender guitars were designed to be modular to begin with (AFAIK for easier manufacturing and repairs, the hackability was unintended), and for most components there are only a few common form factors so you don't need any woodworking skills to get started. Attempts to reproduce the exact '59 'burst sound are certainly part of the fun, but there's much more to it.

brunoc 6y ago

Developers model and reproduce this drift in software synthesizers because it's pleasing to the ear of many...

mrspeaker 6y ago

I used to dabble with making tunes with a friend - we had access to a Juno 106, and a couple of Juno VST plugins. We'd do a bunch of takes with both, and then later we'd choose "blind" which versions to use. The real thing won every time... we tried to analyze why, but never really figured it out - though it's probably just because the music we were making was a bit wonky anyway ;)

alisonatwork 6y ago
I think a lot of "blind" preferences like this are likely due to appreciating the accidental noise introduced in the signal path of the hardware instrument. The Juno chorus in particular is/was notoriously noisy. Add to that some crappy audio cables to get the sound out of the machine and into your recording device, ground loop hum, nearby AM radio... No software emulation is going to include all that "unwanted" sound unless it's deliberating modeling it as well. Personally I'm from the camp that likes super-clean audio, so I was overjoyed when software synths fixed all the problems that we used to have with hardware, but there's definitely a camp that really likes the "warmth" or unpredictability of the original machine's output. Sometimes I think people spend more time adding plugins to dirty up their sound than they did making the original patch in the first place.
- mrspeaker 6y ago
  We ran the VST synths through the same signal path as the Juno (as a test - with good DACs)... but yeah, I've long-since given up on hardware synths: they're fun, but just take up too much space. I miss combining the sounds though - most of our tracks would be 90% VSTs, 10% analogue. I think you're right though: my mission now is to try and "recreate" that 10% with plugins.
  - alisonatwork 6y ago
    My biggest problem with software has been that it perhaps limits creativity by providing such an unlimited palette. My first synthesizer was a Juno 60, and I owned a bunch of other vintage and modern ones over the years. With hardware, it was a whole ritual to turn everything on, each instrument had its own smell, it put me into a mood of "let's play with this machine and see what happens". When I moved to software, I finally had all the sounds I always wanted but could never afford, I finally no longer had to futz around trying to reprogram a patch I liked, I finally could send any instrument to any effects box... but there were less happy accidents. It felt a bit more like my day job, which also just involves sitting in front of a computer. I think it can be like that for a lot of people, where the tactility and limitations of the gear can inspire a different approach to music-making. I imagine that aspect also plays in to the emotion that some people have that hardware instruments "sound" better. All that said, I would never go back to hardware. As you say, it's hard to beat the convenience of a laptop.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ssalazar 6y ago

Scientifically perfect output has rarely been a primary desideratum of musical instrumentation and in fact is somewhat limiting in terms of the number of timbres you can create. Ergo why historic analog synths included multiple oscillators per-voice with independent tuning. The early Junos famously included a chorus to thicken up its single DCO per-voice. Later digital Roland synths introduced the "super saw" which is many superimposed detuned oscillators. Going back further, a full orchestra or choir ensemble is certainly not exactly in tune across every performer. And as someone who makes digital synths for a living even 100% accurate fully digital oscillators are difficult to fully realize in practice. Aliasing concerns abound at every stage of a softsynth- there are well-known formulas for calculating alias-free waveforms at a fixed frequency, but these start to get expensive when you also are considering PWM and frequency modulation which are essential tools for achieving a variety of different sounds. And aliasing sounds a lot worse than analog imperfections.

cageface 6y ago
A lot of the best commercial softsynths now support all kinds of audio-rate modulations everywhere in the signal chain. I guess they must just be throwing CPU power at it and oversampling the crap out of everything.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Basically - yes. There's now enough CPU to do this. But there's more to that analog sound. The opamps and the rest of the circuitry, including supposedly passive elements like resistors and capacitors, all add tiny amounts of distortion and other parasitic interaction with the rest of the synth which varies with frequency content, level, and dynamics. Human ears are incredibly sensitive to these variations, and the circuits in 70s and 80s synths had a lot of components, all adding their own colour. Which is why if you A/B the hardware with the software, the software rarely wins. In DSP terms there are differences between functional/abstract models, component-level models, and component-level models that include these complications and imperfections. There hasn't been a lot of work done on the latter, and if they were modelled accurately they would likely need an order of magnitude more DSP cycles than current VSTs.

FpUser 6y ago

I was making analog synthesizers as a hobby back in the 80s while studying in the University. For this kind of circuitry I would reduce temperature drift by enclosing it into a heated thermostat kept well above room temperature. This way after initial warm up period there is very little drift.