Spiraling Down the Synth Rabbit Hole

[Mudfuzz]

95% of all posts on this forum are a attempt at trolling that 50% of the time end as being helpful despite the poster's intentions...

[Chankgeez]

Don't know what you're talking about.

None of my posts are remotely helpful.

[01010111]

Straight bullshitting from me. WTF, that post is beyond ridiculous.

I have been wrong before! Having worked in a music store I have heard some ridiculous shit.

I had to read that post three times before I picked up the joke. Too good to get drowned out by "genuine" digital v analog debates

[Mark of the Beast]

Suggestion for OP: I would suggest finding the interface that works best for you. It sounds like you've got a lot of gear to get started. And you've owned a Microbrute and the Volcas. If you are overwhelmed by them, I'm not really sure what I can suggest to you.

Synths can cover a wide range of sound. Unless you've got super specific sound in mind, you'll come close. The best suggestion I can make is find one piece of gear that inspires you and learn it inside and out. After that you'll be able to apply that ability to another synth.

[actual]

Not to toot my own horn (or is it) but I'm watching this interview with the guy behind Jomox, and he happens to talk about digital vs. analog, complete with food analogy. Here's a transcript from the interview:
"The advantages of analog versus virtual analog still exist. Granted, the digital stuff sometimes sounds pretty damn well, like virtual analog synthesizers, for example. But still, there are these 5 or 10 percent of sound substance, of sound substrate, which are simply different. You can play something to me that's been made with Reaktor or patched with MaxMSP, and I will hear straightaway whether that's digital or coming from an analog synthesizer. I can create very similar sounds with a Sunsyn or with a Resonator Neuronium, but you can definitely hear a different sound substance. It's different. Okay, it might not be that obvious to everyone, but, I mean, many people don't taste the difference between an organic banana and a conventional one or between an organic apple and a normal apple. But there is a difference.
With sampling-based sound generators, you will always have the same problem: you're stuck with the aliasing frequency. You can't do anything about that. That's why filters - that's not magic, it's just mathematics. It's an infinite amount of figures, and even more so, a finite amount of frequencies. That's why you will always face a certain problem when modelling analog filters, or filters in general: certain parameters will interact. With virtual synthesizers, you can calculate that way with a lot of effort. But you can't get rid of it 100%. And there is a difference whether you're creating sounds virtually in a sampling-based system, or whether you just play sounds, as in record and play back sounds. There's not as much mess if you're recording compared to creating sounds, in a sampling-based system. You have to work with interpolation a lot with aliasing limits, finding them and calculating it all away, and that's why they all sound like soap. They just sound like soap, they still do.
It's just like that. In a sampled system, even at 44.1, you've taken samples. Sampling is just taking samples from the actual course of sound and there's nothing inbetween. That means, something is being scanned every 22 microseconds. This nothing is basically replaced with interpolation, with playbacks and filtering in our ear, which actually can't perceive this high frequency level. But there's something happening inbetween. And what happens inbetween can be perceived by us. And that's why it's just lacking information. That's it. Basta.
It's like in photography, in pixel images, I mean the higher the resolution, the better it gets and the closer it gets to the original. But at some point, it becomes absurd, the effort you take, and you still have the effect of nothing between the ribs."


The part above starts at 7:17
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVUW1VqkGMw[/youtube]

But it's cool, I'm the idiot right.

[D.o.S.]

To continue the food analogy, that's particularly busy word salad.

[actual]

It is, but I reckon that's the translater's fauly and not the interviewee's. It makes sense if you watch the video.

[D.o.S.]

Potentially. I feel like it's the same argument that people use for hundred dollar guitar cables, though. "You can't actually hear it but you can feel a difference" sort of thing.

[Chankgeez]

Potentially. I feel like it's the same argument that people use for hundred dollar guitar cables, though. "You can't actually hear it but you can feel a difference" sort of thing.

If they hear it, might be true…














to them.

[spacelordmother]

If Animal Collective plays a free show in the woods and I'm not there to hear it are they still so so so fucking awful? I would say yes.

This is relevant. Not my fault if you can't hear it.

[Jwar]

If he would have said organic broccoli vs conventional, then I would have bought it. Or even strawberries or raspberries. I used to work at Whole Foods and can tell you there's no difference in taste when comparing a ton of produce, but some there is a big difference. The difference being you can taste pesticide. Both carry the same nutrient density though.

[mr. sound boy king]

If he would have said organic broccoli vs conventional, then I would have bought it. Or even strawberries or raspberries. I used to work at Whole Foods and can tell you there's no difference in taste when comparing a ton of produce, but some there is a big difference. The difference being you can taste pesticide. Both carry the same nutrient density though.

He wasn't arguing about conventional apples, he was arguing about normal apples.

Organic apples are not normal, they are special, like analog, whereas normal apples, like digital, taste sterile and lack warmth.

When you bite into an organic apple, though, you can taste the oscillator drift as nature intended. If you bite into an organic apple right away you can taste the oscillator warm up.

If you spray pesticide on a digital synth, you can definitely notice because the residue sticks to human fingers quite easily. Analog synths are manufactured exclusively without pesticide*.

We can agree on this point: both analog and digital apples carry the same nutrient density.

*Analog apples are actually manufactured with pesticide but it is USDA approved organic pesticide and therefore doesn't count, cause autism, cancer, etc.

[Mudfuzz]

And in the end it really doesn't matter... You will find sounds you like and that you find useful the rest is circlejerking

[Jwar]

If he would have said organic broccoli vs conventional, then I would have bought it. Or even strawberries or raspberries. I used to work at Whole Foods and can tell you there's no difference in taste when comparing a ton of produce, but some there is a big difference. The difference being you can taste pesticide. Both carry the same nutrient density though.

He wasn't arguing about conventional apples, he was arguing about normal apples.

Organic apples are not normal, they are special, like analog, whereas normal apples, like digital, taste sterile and lack warmth.

When you bite into an organic apple, though, you can taste the oscillator drift as nature intended. If you bite into an organic apple right away you can taste the oscillator warm up.

If you spray pesticide on a digital synth, you can definitely notice because the residue sticks to human fingers quite easily. Analog synths are manufactured exclusively without pesticide*.

We can agree on this point: both analog and digital apples carry the same nutrient density.

*Analog apples are actually manufactured with pesticide but it is USDA approved organic pesticide and therefore doesn't count, cause autism, cancer, etc.

hahahahahaha

[Eivind August]

And in the end it really doesn't matter... You will find sounds you like and that you find useful - the rest is circlejerking

^