AnalogSuicide.com

Interesting article. I guess I see a bit of a false dichotomy here. I don't own any vintage synths but I have a Moog Voyager (which yes, costs a lot of money) and a Korg M3 (which also costs a lot fo money but is digital) and a bunch of Moogerfoogers. I also have VST synths, lots of them.

I guess in the end I reject the whole anlogue/digital argument entirely. I am a composer and I use what gets me the sound I want. However, I try to use the right tool for the job.

What I don't see as the analogue/digital non debate as being the same as the vinyl/CD non argument. To me it's an issue of flexiblity not how accurate an emulation can be. I keep a few different lengths of patch cable by my Voyager to connect my CP-251 control processor, extension for the Voyager and the Voyager. I had one patch I recently put together using a carrier signal from a freq box to basically create an FM effect modulating the pitch of the Voyager and then using the XY pad on the Voyager to set the rate of the fooger phaser and the feedback of the delay and the resonance of the phaser using the mod wheel. I also was using a lag processor.

Now could I do that with my M3? I doubt it.

There is also a non linear dynamic to analogue electronics. They are no bound by what a computer is programmed to do. In a sense, they play by their own rules especially when you are in that twilight realm between sub audio and audio or if you are talking self resoance and feedback. Digital, self resonance and feeback just don't play that well together.

So I pick my tools for the job and my digital M3 and Voyager get along great together. I can even feed both into one another. Analogue with digital effects or digital with analogue filters and effects. Cables carrying analogue and CV blending together and perhaps, that may just be the future of synthesis.

Having use both VSTs, hardware digital synths and an analogue I would have to say that analogues are different, no better, but diffferent and that virtuals are just running a program. That's simply a fact.

Secondly, the Voyager is not a Minimoog in the classic retro sense. It has MIDI, pot mapping and a whole lot of modulation capabilties that the Minimoog never had.

So I am a little bit digital and a bit analogue but the good good knows how to mix them together. By the way, the Voyager has some great lead sounds for cutting through M3 pads.

Some of this touches on points that have already been made, but hopefully I'm coming at it from a different perspective.

Why does the MiniMoog remain so popular decades after its release? Part of this is probably retrotechnowowiezowiefetishism, certainly, but I suspect a larger part is how limited the MiniMoog is. This seems counterintuitive at first, considering most companies releasing a new synthesizer champion how unlimited it is, how you can make any sound you can imagine (which usually isn't true, but anyway), while on paper the MiniMoog really wasn't all that advanced by 1971 standards (the date when the most common Model-D was released -- a monophonic synth with three oscillators (one of which doubles as an LFO) and a simple but amazing filter. It was also cheap at the time (at least compared to the modular systems), in many ways comparable to the first home computers. These limitations mean it's easy to use and easy to incorporate into a larger band setting. It's been refined to do what it does very well without trying to do everything, and for a number of musicians that's what defines a useful instrument. Most of the people I know in other trades seem to view tools in a similar way -- I know a couple carpenters, and instead of constantly rushing out to buy the newest do-everything tool they generally stick with the tools they've learned with since they started, many of them handed down from earlier carpenters.

That said, I've always been a big fan of cheap used instruments, my personal favorites being early to mid 80s hybrid (digital oscillators with analog filters and amps) synths like the Akai AX80, modified Kawai K1 (no filter at all!) and K4 synths and the Korg DSS1 (the Roland Juno line fits in this category as well). They're cheap (I've never paid much over a hundred bucks for one, and I bought the K1 for thirty bucks on ebay), they have useful limitations (the Akai, for instance, doesn't have any onboard effects, so some people think it lacks the character of the Juno, but as I have a whole mess of equally cheap rack, stompbox and homemade effects this doesn't bother me at all) and I feel very comfortable using them as these are the synths I grew up with. My favorite sampler, for instance, is my Ensoniq EPS, which comes with 480k of sample memory (fully expanded it's only about two megs, little more than a floppy) -- not only does it have a great filter and is amazing for low resolution/buffer error noises but having to think about the best way to make use of such limited memory has helped me understand sampling much deeper than my basically unlimited software sampler ever could -- for me, one doesn't replace the other, but helps me to use both more effectively. I'd love a Buchla 200 series and I'd love a Roland VSynth, but even with those synths I doubt I'd outgrow my current collection. I've never really bought into the idea of progress -- as more synths come out (analog, digital, virtual and otherwise) it increases the options for different performers rather than making earlier models obsolete. VA synths might lack some of the tactile control of a MiniMoog, but there's plenty of controllers out there, and I'm always pleased by the number of people who confuse a sound on one of my songs for a analog synth which was a VA synth run through a couple pedals and an amp head or recorded to cassette tape and rerecorded into the computer. I think it's telling that a number of VA companies have started producing cheap limited virtual analog synths in addition to the do-everything multiple synthesis programs. Then again, I'm also in the drone-noise ghetto, where people are regularly arguing that cassette tape is superior to cd and the cutting edge is often defined by techniques developed at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, the Buffalo Department of Media Studies and the Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, among many others. I'm not too worried about being excluded from any club, as I think there's room for purist bands exclusively using analog subtractive synthesis (or wavetable synthesis, or additive synthesis, or whatever) as well as more mongrel bands using whatever they can get their hands on.

I am a guy in the third world (Brazil) and I can not buy such expensive instruments. The digital world has allowed me an enormous range of

sounds, synths without taking up a single inch of my room. The interesting thing is that you can make music with what you have on

hand and is also the fun part of music and why not creative. I do not worry about trying to make a sound like this or that "synth" I try to make the sound that pleases me. Maybe that's why plug-ins makes people frustrated, they expect to be equal to their real

instruments but instead to exploit this new possibility are driven by fear that the world they knew can change dramatically,

then they prefer be stuck in their "safe place" . Not a bad thing however, this attachment, but we must accept that all this is about to change. In the end what matters is the music itself.

(sorry for my bad english, I speak portuguese =P ).

A comment on soft synths I think is worrth making given the last comment which I agree with. I find the value of soft synths in their power do to things that are simply not available in hardware synths. My favorite would have to be Native Instruments Absynth. I also like Reaktor from the same company. Because of its multisegment envelopes and the ability to implement LFOs and MIDI control sources into them in a way I have never seen in any synth, soft or hard, I find this synth very useful for getting some sounds that I can't get with other synths.

I also don't know any hardware synths that allow you to assign an envelope to almost any synth parameter you want. Absynth looks simple and is easy to use but very very powerful.

Reaktor let's you literally build a synth but both the NI library and the user libraries provide a treasure trove of unique synthesizers and effects that would not be economical to produce with hardware. Synths like "Metaphysical Function" defy easy descriiption.

I mention these two soft synths because both expand my musical pallete. I don't use a lot of vintage remakes. I did but I don't find them as useful as synths like Absynth. For the real thing I have by M3 and Voyager although the Korg M3 is really just a specialiized computer running a specialized program wtih a keyboard and controllers added. The Voyager is, well, the real thing. Analogue ciircuits albiet controlled by MIDI.

Bottom line, the right tool for the right job.

Thanks for the velcome, and your very interesting comments!

db - I like that you like mid 80's hybrid synths, I like them a lot too, actually its the kind I buy most. They have a very interesting sound, and I can see them becoming a lot more popular in the future.

Carlos Saraiva - I totally agree with you!

Tara - It was a pleasure blogging on your excellent blog!

you thoughts are right in line with how i feel about the Virtual instruments and true analog reality. there is just something tastier in the classic synth. perhaps maybe though it is just the room? or the tactile ability of the instrument. whatever the case, i also agree that making music in general is more important.

with that, i do have to say, often i find myself not 'inspired' by any of the virtual analog sounds. they sounds need in context but it is like listening to musicon 128bit mp3 compared to a CD. in terms of depth and reach. often i hear 'fuzzy' emulation and not that tight raw power of classic analogs.

analogs are passing by and the sooner we move on probably the better, but will there really be anything as powerful as those synths of yester year?

To bring case to point. Guitars often are found in this same way. classic sounds are sought out, but often in retro setups. but perhaps not as often as synths.

Great article, Ulf! Even better as it's your first on here.

A lot of your points chime with my own current thinking.
Yes, it would be lovely to have a studio full of vintage analog gear - However, the pragmatist in me says that having had a certain amount of analog equipment in the past and having now sold it for a largely virtual setup - I would now sooner have virtual analogs, modern analogs like the new Moogs or Dave Smith stuff or plugins.
I'm a working composer who needs his equipment to work faultlessly everytime he switches it on, not needing to worry about crackling pots, noisy connectors and the constant worry of where I would get a replacement part if something breaks.

Yes, there is a certain mystique to old analogs - just as there are to some people about vintage cars: but even the vintage car enthusiast would have second thoughts about driving their prized beauty on the motor way every day.
These classics are for people who have the time and the money to lavish attention on them not for someone who needs to use them day in and day out.

I'd also point out that many of the people who turn up ranting about the benefits of vintage analog on the type of forum you mentioned actually heard the majority of analog synths minus reverb, delay, eq etc - they'd be horrified at how thin and puny their sound actually is!