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hardware obsolete?
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iPassenger



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

you bought a G2X cos u wanted a new controller??

Shocked

hehe...

Cool, good buy.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

For some strange reason, this thread came to mind today. There was a comment a while back (I don't remember whose it was) about general-purpose computers being optimized for branching, but DSP hardware optimized for looping and data throughput. Then I thought about the fact that the current version of SuperCollider segregates flow of control and audio processing not just into separate threads, but into separate executables. In particular, the synth server doesn't really expose any kind of branching logic to the user. It's just a lean, fast machine to run UGens.

I could be reaching here, but it seems to me this could be part of the secret of SuperCollider's speed and stability. Maybe?

Just musing... sc makes me happy, so what else matters?

James

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Separating things into separate threads does not in itself cut down on branching. In most cases it causes more branches as part of the context switches, and synchronization becomes an issue that can create overhead. The context switches themselves also takes quite a bit of time and serves to thrash the cache. I would think that any extraordinary qualities in SuperCollider is simply down to good coding and good algorithms in general.

I'm not sure what you mean by "exposing branching logic to users". One would certainly hope that the user never sees any of that, unless writing assembly modules, and to a lesser extent, C/C++, modules.

Modern general purpose CPUs performs branch prediction, and speculative execution etc. to minimize the effects of branches. So in a way they can be said to be optimized for branching, but they are also optimized for all other sorts of other things. E.g. the Pentiums spends a large portion of it's transistors to overcome a not-so-good instruction set, a register starved architecture, long pipelines and, to some degree, bad coding. The result is that most code actually runs quite fast, not least owing to the fact that they run at several GHz and employ enormous multilevel caches.

DSPs like the old Motorola 56k series are quite inefficient for all other things than loops with series of multiply and accumulate instructions. In this case they do loads and stores in parallel with the MAC's and don't suffer other delays. Branches are real killers here. The 56k is also severely register starved and there are result delays, making most 'general purpose' code inefficient (i.e. all that is not MAC loops).

Modern DSP's like the SHARC has delayed branches AND returns, meaning that it can do other work while branching and returning. When programmed in assembly (the way to go for a synth) it can do useful work on every cycle. Newer DSPs also often has SIMD or VLIW instructions to speed up things in certain situations.

Of course, a direct comparison of general purpose CPUs and DSPs may not mean much in itself. In the end it's horses for courses.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DrJustice wrote:
I would think that any extraordinary qualities in SuperCollider is simply down to good coding and good algorithms in general.


Thanks for the extra detail.

In the end I would have to agree with this. Anyone who's looked at the source can see that James McCartney is a gifted coder.

James

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Dr J, excellent explaination.

At one time Apple was seriously considering putting 32 bit floating point DSP on the mother board. They were working with a group at Bell Labs that I was a member of. They built eval boards and an OS that could take advantage of the fast MAC cycles on the DSP. It would have made the Apple the clear winner for audio, but in the end they dropped the idea, unfortunately for our group and the rest of the audio community.

It turns out that when it comes to computer speed for general purpose computers, the most important thing is program load time and context switching. Every cycle of disk IO you can improve is worth 100 multiply accumulates. The GP chips today have lots of cache and fast front-side busses.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

While we are talking about chips, there's one thing I've been thinking of mentioning. A little talked about subject that is probably seen as boring and irrelevant by most: power consumption. In our time when environmental and economic issues prompts people to e.g. switch off the lights as thy leave a room, it is little known or considered that (general purpose) computers can consume a fair bit of power.

A single PC/Mac CPU as found in a modern high performance desktop PC typically uses close to 100W, some desktop processors goes as far as 130W and above. This is equivalent to a couple of lightbulbs. Add a motherboard and some RAM and you're looking at close to 200W. Then add a few disks, some fans, some expansion cards and a monitor or two, maybe a UPS, and we're looking at a few hundred watts. Some homes and studios have several such setups running, with bits of additional related equipment (AD, DA, networking/modems, printers etc.).

In contrast most DSP chips use only a few watts at most, e.g. less than 2W for the latest SHARCs at 400MHz. Microcontrollers use even less. A typical complete synthesizer, such as a Waldorf Q or a Kawai K5000, use in the region of 15-30W. Analogue synths have a greater variety, as in both less and more. Studio effects typically use less than synths. A project studio mixer uses a little bit more.

Some general advantages of low power electronics, usually embedded systems, are environmental friendliness, less dissipated heat and greater reliability/lifetime. None of these can be attributed to GP computers to anywhere the same degree.

Some simple maths tells us that you can run, say 10 synths, 15 studio boxes a mixer and a a monitoring system on the same power budget as a single GP computer fit for audio usage, and you may still have enough left over for a lamp or two... Or alternatively you could sit and doodle on one synth for a few weeks, while spending only the power of one or two days of running a PC.

As I said to begin with, this is probably boring and irrelevant to most (irritating even) - but there you have it. If you really want to think green, it does have meaning. This is not really a soft vs hard argument, nor telling you that computers are bad, just food for thought.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DrJustice wrote:
it is little known or considered that (general purpose) computers can consume a fair bit of power.


A lot of energy could be conserved if more attention would be paid to power consumed by devices that seem to be off. There is no technical need to make people pay that attention, with just a bit of of a design effort some devices could reduce their power consumption ten or even hundred fold. I'm part of a small engineering company and on occasions we've proposed to implement such energy conservations to our customers, but they've never been interested at all. Even when the extra effort would pay for itself in just a few years time. I guess we should have laws and regulations for this. Eventually we will, but no one seems to be interested currently.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DrJustice wrote:
While we are talking about chips, there's one thing I've been thinking of mentioning. A little talked about subject that is probably seen as boring and irrelevant by most: power consumption. In our time when environmental and economic issues prompts people to e.g. switch off the lights as thy leave a room, it is little known or considered that (general purpose) computers can consume a fair bit of power.

A single PC/Mac CPU as found in a modern high performance desktop PC typically uses close to 100W, some desktop processors goes as far as 130W and above. This is equivalent to a couple of lightbulbs. Add a motherboard and some RAM and you're looking at close to 200W. Then add a few disks, some fans, some expansion cards and a monitor or two, maybe a UPS, and we're looking at a few hundred watts. Some homes and studios have several such setups running, with bits of additional related equipment (AD, DA, networking/modems, printers etc.).

In contrast most DSP chips use only a few watts at most, e.g. less than 2W for the latest SHARCs at 400MHz. Microcontrollers use even less. A typical complete synthesizer, such as a Waldorf Q or a Kawai K5000, use in the region of 15-30W. Analogue synths have a greater variety, as in both less and more. Studio effects typically use less than synths. A project studio mixer uses a little bit more.

Some general advantages of low power electronics, usually embedded systems, are environmental friendliness, less dissipated heat and greater reliability/lifetime. None of these can be attributed to GP computers to anywhere the same degree.

Some simple maths tells us that you can run, say 10 synths, 15 studio boxes a mixer and a a monitoring system on the same power budget as a single GP computer fit for audio usage, and you may still have enough left over for a lamp or two... Or alternatively you could sit and doodle on one synth for a few weeks, while spending only the power of one or two days of running a PC.

As I said to begin with, this is probably boring and irrelevant to most (irritating even) - but there you have it. If you really want to think green, it does have meaning. This is not really a soft vs hard argument, nor telling you that computers are bad, just food for thought.

DJ
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Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

robles wrote:

Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?

what about a solar powered computer system Question Cool

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

robles wrote:
Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?

As I said, that was not the point of that post... But now that you ask, even though I suspect your question is a rethorical one:

I could use sheet music and a wax roll. But of course I wouldn't Very Happy In reality I use a DAT player and an Atari. That is, and I'm lazy and quote myself: "...not really a soft vs hard argument, nor telling you that computers are bad".

@ seraph : Indeed, why not sunny. Think about them handy hand cranked Negroponte computers - plenty of power for MIDI and audio right there Idea

@ Blue Hell : Previous attempts to promote power conservation, e.g. by suggesting that the workstations in the last big'ish place I worked be turned off at night during their 16 hours of non-use, were generally met with blank stares or outright anger... BTW: I now enjoy developing battery powered systems where both design and coding is aggressively geared towards low power.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DrJustice wrote:
BTW: I now enjoy developing battery powered systems where both design and coding is aggressively geared towards low power.


We have a customer who prefers buying large battery packs over spending money on making the system more energy efficient, so even there ... but it's fun indeed to make low power stuff.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:
robles wrote:

Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?

what about a solar powered computer system Question Cool


Not much good in the UK, I havn't seen the sun for about 6 weeks. How about flood powered?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

BobTheDog wrote:
seraph wrote:
robles wrote:

Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?

what about a solar powered computer system Question Cool


Not much good in the UK, I havn't seen the sun for about 6 weeks. How about flood powered?

maybe someone could figure out how to build a "water mill powered computer system"

Idea Wink Idea

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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:
BobTheDog wrote:
seraph wrote:
robles wrote:

Yes, but what are you going to record into? And what are you going to use for a sequencer?

what about a solar powered computer system Question Cool


Not much good in the UK, I havn't seen the sun for about 6 weeks. How about flood powered?

maybe someone could figure out how to build a "water mill powered computer system"

Idea Wink Idea


Actually that is kind of interesting... couldn't it be possible to harvest the kinetic energy from raindrops?

Re: hard vs soft - it seems nowadays you have to spend a fair amount of cash on a soundcard if you don't want to suffer painful latency issues. That makes the initial money threshold a bit higher (I hate latency). Of course, when you've bought the soundcard you can use it for all softsynths.

/Stefan

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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Antimon wrote:
Re: hard vs soft - it seems nowadays you have to spend a fair amount of cash on a soundcard if you don't want to suffer painful latency issues. That makes the initial money threshold a bit higher (I hate latency). Of course, when you've bought the soundcard you can use it for all softsynths.

/Stefan


How much of that is the hardware, and how much is the software?

SuperCollider has insanely low latency... so what is James McCartney doing right that others are doing wrong? Control blocks are 64 samples by default (roughly 1.5 ms at 44.1KHz) which helps; hardware buffer size is user-configurable but left up to the device driver by default.

James

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

egw wrote:
Actually, it's software that's guaranteed to be obsolete in a few years, when the platform it runs on is no longer available and the developer has discontinued support. Personal computers are general purpose machines, they are not optimized for music. For any given task, it will always be possible to do it better, faster, cheaper in a machine designed for that purpose.
However, it's not really even a question of HW vs SW. To make music, you need an appropriate expressive device, and that is the real instrument, whether it's a keyboard, knob box, wind controller etc. Does it really matter if the chips that produce the sound are located in your pc or in the controller?
Does anyone believe that qwerty and a mouse are an optimal way to play music?
By the way, I have lots of hardware that is still worth as much or more than what I paid for it years ago. How much do you think the software I bought ten years ago is worth now?


I realize I'm jumping in here a couple of years after the fact, but, having done my first CD project entirely on my computer, using a freeware software sequencer and VSTi's with no trouble at all, I have to flatly disagree. It took no longer - in fact, was actually quicker than using my Ensoniq ASR-10 workstation keyboard, which I had been using prior to that.

Currently, as of about two years ago, I'm using Acoustica Mixcraft 4.0 as my sequencer and it is all I will ever need. It can not only record MIDI tracks, but audio, as well. I use it, not only for my music, but to record a weekly podcast I do, also. It is, by far, the quickest, easiest software sequencer I've used, and I had tried several beforehand, including Cakewalk Home Studio. None can even touch Mixcraft for speed, ease of use and flexibility and the best feature is that it only cost me $64.95.

As for VST technology, I have many VST "instruments" (VSTi) that I use in my music production and they supply me with every type of sound I could ever hope to find in any hardware synth - and at no cost at all. Most of what I have is freeware and replaces tens of thousands of dollars in equivalent hardware. I've used both hardware synths and software synths and I can tell you there is no difference in sound quality or in the range of sounds and effects one can get from software synths.

I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. While I certainly understand your love of the older technology (I'm 56, myself, so I very well recall the first synths), I have to say you're being narrow-minded about software synthesizers. It's fine to have your preference, but don't mistake it for superiority. I have to wonder if those of you who talk this way have even tried any soft synths.

Let me clarify: I did use my ASR-10 as a MIDI controller on that CD project and still use it as such. So, the CD wasn't done entirely on my computer. I do agree you need to have an appropriate expressive instrument as your interface. However, that can be as simple as a dedicated MIDI controller type of keyboard that has no on-board sounds, etc.

Gary

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for sharing your experience.

GaryRea wrote:
I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. While I certainly understand your love of the older technology (I'm 56, myself, so I very well recall the first synths), I have to say you're being narrow-minded about software synthesizers. It's fine to have your preference, but don't mistake it for superiority. I have to wonder if those of you who talk this way have even tried any soft synths.


No thanks for this - no trolling.

Please refrain from calling people prejudiced and narrow-minded.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
Thanks for sharing your experience.

GaryRea wrote:
I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. While I certainly understand your love of the older technology (I'm 56, myself, so I very well recall the first synths), I have to say you're being narrow-minded about software synthesizers. It's fine to have your preference, but don't mistake it for superiority. I have to wonder if those of you who talk this way have even tried any soft synths.


No thanks for this - no trolling.

Please refrain from calling people prejudiced and narrow-minded.


Sorry, Howard. Just stating my honest opinion, not "trolling." I just can't help but notice there does seem to be an inordinate fixation on analog hardware, though, as opposed to the latest technologies. I'd like to see more discussion of software synths, VSTi's etc, myself.

Gary

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I guess you haven´t yet discovered the Clava NM/G2 forums? or the Supercollider or Chuck forums?

Personally I rely mostly on standalone physical instruments as these fit my workflow and playing style best, but frankly I´ve have no problem with software based instruments run from a PC or mac or whatever. I even own a few myself.

As for the
Quote:
no difference in sound quality
, this can be argued as the design of a digital synth will have to consider real issues with the hardware and the technology. You will find factual discussion of this all over this site. Some digital instruments are great. Some are not. In some cases perhaps the user won´t mind much anyway. Well, so what. Some guitars are better than others.


BTW, a majority of modern standalone digital synths are nothing but "soft synths".


It is of course quite understandable that certain classes of analog synths are still popular ( and possibly more popular than ever due to the fact that these ( because of their analog nature ) are not affected by certain issues that still plague popular digital designs. This is hardly problematic, offending or controversial.



As for :

Quote:
While I certainly understand your love of the older technology


Right.. but please accept that analog synth design is still current and valid technology. And do check the DIY sections of this forum for what is going on right now.

As for :

Quote:
I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. ........

I have to say you're being narrow-minded about software synthesizers.


You are entitled to your opinion, but as a conclusive verdict this is not valid as you obviously have not read much of the older threads here yet.


OK, it does seem that you are more than pleased with the software tools you have acquired mostly for free. Great! Very Happy This is a hardly a problem?

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

GaryRea wrote:
egw wrote:
Actually, it's software that's guaranteed to be obsolete in a few years, when the platform it runs on is no longer available and the developer has discontinued support. Personal computers are general purpose machines, they are not optimized for music. For any given task, it will always be possible to do it better, faster, cheaper in a machine designed for that purpose.
However, it's not really even a question of HW vs SW. To make music, you need an appropriate expressive device, and that is the real instrument, whether it's a keyboard, knob box, wind controller etc. Does it really matter if the chips that produce the sound are located in your pc or in the controller?
Does anyone believe that qwerty and a mouse are an optimal way to play music?
By the way, I have lots of hardware that is still worth as much or more than what I paid for it years ago. How much do you think the software I bought ten years ago is worth now?


I realize I'm jumping in here a couple of years after the fact, but, having done my first CD project entirely on my computer, using a freeware software sequencer and VSTi's with no trouble at all, I have to flatly disagree. It took no longer - in fact, was actually quicker than using my Ensoniq ASR-10 workstation keyboard, which I had been using prior to that.


scratch

You are disagreeing with what? Greg´s post is not controversial in any way.

And the fact that you have
Quote:
done my first CD project entirely on my computer, using a freeware software sequencer and VSTi's with no trouble at all
.. well. this is absolutely not controversial at all either.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
I guess you haven´t yet discovered the Clava NM/G2 forums? or the Supercollider or Chuck forums?

Personally I rely mostly on standalone physical instruments as these fit my workflow and playing style best, but frankly I´ve have no problem with software based instruments run from a PC or mac or whatever. I even own a few myself.

As for the
Quote:
no difference in sound quality
, this can be argued as the design of a digital synth will have to consider real issues with the hardware and the technology. You will find factual discussion of this all over this site. Some digital instruments are great. Some are not. In some cases perhaps the user won´t mind much anyway. Well, so what. Some guitars are better than others.


BTW, a majority of modern standalone digital synths are nothing but "soft synths".


It is of course quite understandable that certain classes of analog synths are still popular ( and possibly more popular than ever due to the fact that these ( because of their analog nature ) are not affected by certain issues that still plague popular digital designs. This is hardly problematic, offending or controversial.



As for :

Quote:
While I certainly understand your love of the older technology


Right.. but please accept that analog synth design is still current and valid technology. And do check the DIY sections of this forum for what is going on right now.

As for :

Quote:
I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. ........

I have to say you're being narrow-minded about software synthesizers.


You are entitled to your opinion, but as a conclusive verdict this is not valid as you obviously have not read much of the older threads here yet.


OK, it does seem that you are more than pleased with the software tools you have acquired mostly for free. Great! Very Happy This is a hardly a problem?


Agreed that not all software synths are created equal. In fact, I readily admit that most are utter crap. I have many in my VST plugins folder, only a few of which I ever use.

You're quite correct that most later model hardware is software dependent; just software contained in its own stand-alone box, basically. I suppose I could include my ASR-10 in that niche, to a limited degree, since it relies on Ensoniq's operating system, which has to be loaded from a floppy before the ASR-10 can even be used. Then the sounds are loaded from separate floppies. You know, when my brother first saw it, back in 1993, he asked me, "Is this a computer?" I said, "Well, technically, I suppose it is. It has a hard disk built in and uses its own operating system and the controller(s) consists of the sliders and buttons on the top panel, plus the piano-style keyboard."

I'm not familiar with the problems that plague digital synths. Maybe you could elaborate on that? I'm aware of some shortcomings of analog synths, though, such as their tendency to overheat and drift out of tuning. I guess that would be yet another reason for appreciating software synths, which avoid these issues. I would think they avoid the digital problems, as well, though I'll reserve my judgement on that until I know what issues those are.

Agreed that analog technology is still in use, though its combining with digital circuitry, as in late model Moogs, has sort of brought about a hybrid technology. I'm not at all saying that analog is a "dinosaur" or anything like that. It's just not where my personal interests lie, that's all.

How, exactly, am I being narrow minded about software synths? I'm just saying that these forums seem to gravitate toward hardware to the near exclusion of software synths. While I admit I didn't know about ChucK until I saw this forum, I don't really think of it as a software synth, so much as a synthesis programming language. I'm not familiar with Clava or Supercollider, though. Maybe I am a little narrowly focused on VST technology, and that would be my prejudice. Sorry if I've stepped on any toes; really, I'd just like to see more discussion of VST, that's all. I don't favor the exclusion of one technology over another. All are equally valid and have their respective strengths and weaknesses, charms and attractions. Very Happy

Gary

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elektro80
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

GaryRea wrote:

I'm not familiar with the problems that plague digital synths.


Like aliasing issues. This is actually a huge field, and I won´t go there right now as we will have to look into way too much stuff before we get around to slicing the turkey. But much of this is already available in other threads here.

Digital synths are however not consistently problematic. There are many excellent designs out there that perform great and most users won´t actually patch themselves into the messy spots.

BTW, I actually bought one of these sets new way back in the first part of the 80s:

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

It was designed by this guy:

http://www.myspace.com/wolfgangpalm

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

BTW, as far as I know I didn´t state that you were narrow minded ( softsynths etc.) A healthy discussion is however a good thing. And as far as I know this is the track we are on at the moment.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

GaryRea wrote:
I've noticed there is a great deal of prejudice here toward hardware and that most of you are oriented toward analog hardware, in particular. .......

Personally I prefer hardware synths be they analogue, hybrid, digital - whatever the synth I like to use at any given time is. Some are digital ones, i.e. they are soft synths made with dedicated hardware. For me they're simply cool, fun and inspiring instruments. They also have some inherent qualities that I don't find in pure softsynths, but which are very important to me, like immediacy, stability, longevity and roadworthiness. It's just a matter of preference. Sonically they cover everything I want so far, except for some special stuff that has needed to be done on general purpose computers. If/when I feel the need to use a softsynth I will do so without prejudice.

Quote:
Agreed that analog technology is still in use, though its combining with digital circuitry, as in late model Moogs, has sort of brought about a hybrid technology.

Actually that kind of hybrid has been around ever since the late 70's.

DJ
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DrJustice wrote:

Personally I prefer hardware synths analogue, hybrid, digital - whatever the synth I like to use at any given time is. Some are digital ones, i.e. they are soft synths made with dedicated hardware. For me they're simply cool, fun and inspiring instruments, and they have some inherent qualities that don't exist in pure softsynths but are very important to me, like e.g. immediacy, stability, longevity and roadworthiness. It's just a matter of preference. Sonically they cover everything I want. If/when I feel the need to use a softsynth I will do so without prejudice.


I fully agree.

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