For real? You sure you didnāt have a bad unit? Guess its horses for courses but even if you arenāt a fan of the OB6 sound/ui itās hard to think that digital is on the same level when looking for that soundā¦ If youāve heard something as thick/lush/vibey in digital then please post link for the vst/hardware Demos Iāve heard of the ob6 sound beautifulā¦
The number of times Iāve been complemented on my warm analogue sound, by people listening to MnM/Mduw tracksā¦ warm & punchy is knowing how to write & mix.
In the end I donāt care about analog or digital - I care about interface, workflow, and the speed at which I can translate an idea into sound
Analog or digital, both are perfectly valid methods, and can sound equally terrible or sublime. Use em together, playing to their strenghts and enjoy the ride!
Even though soundwaves are analog, we have something resembling an AD converter in our brain that makes us hear the sounds around usā¦ Ying and Yang
i detested itā¦ i set it up many waysā¦ i bought it thinking it would be great - i know i sound nuts but i dont like its horrible trance-sugary 1980s vibeā¦ and that oberheim filter āthingā is the worst. people forget, dave smith and tom obi dont make electronic musicā¦ they are nostalgia engine makersā¦ if you hate the sound its a deep hateā¦ not a fan of the āstranger things 80s revival of the 80s bladerunnerā thing at all. to me it sounds like a bankrupting digital try hard
Ah, yeah might have bought the wrong synth
in answer to the last bit ā just get reaktor by NIā¦ use a nice midi keyboard and spend some time patching with a decent amount of headroom and a delay send/verb. if you want to spend that much on a synth then go aheadā¦ personally i sold mine and got a few items such as the tanzbar which is far more fun and its just a drum machine!
Iām always gonna dig the oberheim sound. Canāt justify the Ā£Ā£ to grab one tho. Iād have to sell half my gearā¦
You can still use old colours to paint something new If you looked around enough youād prob find old tracks that sound almost identical to what youāre doing on synths in reaktor? In terms of the synthesis/tones etc. Modular is pretty nostalgic itself a lot of the timeā¦ Just seems a lot more popular/affordable now. I donāt really know what Iām talking about in that area tho tbh. Just know that Iāve heard experimental electtonic records from the 70s/80s that sound pretty similar to a lot of modern modular. Maybe just to my untrained earā¦
I canāt see why now itās no longer spelled āanalogueāā¦
Thatās enough to piss me right off regardless.
EDIT
Letās all start spelling it ādijitulā and be done with itā¦
Pfff!
the issue i have with the ob6 is the ālets pretendā elementā¦ im all for old stuff and old sounds, its the foundationā¦ but the dave smith stuff for me is the exact opposite - but i did have a go and went ahead to get rid of the drooling i found myself doing. euro racking is great ā im not anti nostalgia, im more anti new stuff that tries to sound old and fails
in my experience, Iād take a monomachine or a Waldorf Q over many expensive analog polys and monos - any frigging day of the week. Forgetting price and profit motives, for example - iād take a monomachine over a jp8, moog modular , ob8, eurorack, and many others. Digital MachinedrumUW over a tr808 and 909; any day!
AR over any old sampler sp1200, mpc60, and any $4K expensive analog drum machine.
After using a mountain of top end analog Iāve found it limiting ; and have been buying and selling a lot of 90 VA recently and just trying them out. i.e The micron was a bad buy, the Q a great buy, the nova synth a great buy, acess virus was ok and so I didnt buy it. The new arturia VSTis are now pretty good and decent way to get vintage.
As someone said above - my personal choices now are based on playability not the analog and digital debate.
Anything that annoys me and stops me from going somewhere, within sound design, is not bothered with.
My top fav āplayableā and work-flow synths are right now:
in no order:
EMS synthi/VCS3, that vcs ipad app is very close BTW and a must have.
Monomachine
Buchla Easel,
AR
Moog voyager
jupiter 6
A4
Waldorf Q
system 100 full kit or system 100 plugout (that plugout is very close and has an ems patch martix)
Machinedrum UW
ensoniq asr10/eps16+
That said, a small elektron dig/analog set up of secondhand bought AR/A4/MM/MDUW for $3.5K, will get you as much milage as a 20K studio full of analog and digital dreams.
I am sick and tired of modern analogue synths trying to emulate boring old synths and sounds of the past. That time has past. I want futuristic sounds that have yet to be discovered and explored.
One of these days one of the big companies will realize this, release a big knobby digital fm, wavetable, phase mod, sampler, sequenced friggin monster and take over the world
And to keep everyone happy wack a multimode analog filter (not just a boring old Moog lowpass) on it if you like
Analog is hot cocoa to me
Digital is coca cola.
In the autumn/winter those analog sounds are a pathway to heaven.
But ALL YEAR LONG I could drink a coca cola.
If I had to chose between MnM and A4, Iād definitely choose the sounds of the MnM(the interface and extra features of the A4 howeverā¦, not to mention the effects w/sends on all channels is nice(however, you can do more with the effects on the MnMā¦) I digress)
Each have their perks, I suppose. Though I donāt need a large collection of synths as Iām not an expert on sound. Just one of everything Elektronās made
I mentioned this in another thread, but Iām really glad Elektronās going back to digital. Digital is, by nature, capable of doing much deeper exploitative things. Elektron+Digital has the capabilities of really āwowā-ing me with their new gear.
I think thatās a very good point. Reminds me of my struggles with the Waldorf Microwave - it was my first synth, and I just wanted to love it (and did love it) for its digital wavetables/analog filter hybrid architecture, but it was so frustrating to programā¦
Coming back to this, I think that āthe speed at which I can translate an idea into soundā should be stricken from that list. Yes, itās a benefit of a good workflow, but thereās also something to be said for accidental occurrences. I wouldnāt say I can quickly get specific sounds out of my head through a modular, but that particular kind of workflow provides room for experimentation and feedback/response from the system itself.
So maybe a more accurate blanket statement would be that I prefer expressive interfacesāones that allow me to āexpressā ideas as well as ones that āexpressā their own ideas back at me. Sometimes they are digital, sometimes they are analog.
Wholeheartedly agree. Except sound waves arenāt analog, theyāre acoustic.
I donāt think there is any logical reason to root for ātrueā analog over virtual analog in 2017, yet my modular is all analog and my only other synth is the A4. I think the reason is my preferences are leaning more and more towards āless is moreā. I want instruments with personality and their own recognisable sound. Digital ones tend to be a bit of everything. Lots of different filter types, synthesis options, fx, etc., which is cool in its own way, but not quite my thing atm.
In the software world I much prefer the philosophy of, say, Madrona Labs Aalto to Native Instruments Massive. Same principle in the hardware world. But I couldnāt care less if the A4 had a DSP chip or analog circuit inside.
I think this is my problem with both the Prophet-6 and OB-6. Too much of a throwback to the past and deliberately crippled with limited modulation. I feel exactly the same way about Rolandās System-8. Itās an unsatisfying nostalgia exercise to me.
I donāt think that Dave Smith is really the problem here. If you look at his other synths (Evolvers, Pā08, P12, Pro 2 etc.) they are all much more forward-looking and more than capable of pushing analogue or hybrid synthesis in interesting modern directions. Iād take a Rev2 over P6 or OB6 every time.
The problem is the continued fetishising of '70s and early-'80s synths. Give me a great UI and a mountain of modulation possibilities and I donāt really care if itās analog or digital if it sounds good.
I got the P12, and it has tons of modulation options, i have choosen it over the Virus TI, because of lot more possibilities to tweak the 4 digital oscilators. Not everything is great on it, if you drive it too hard, it will sound harsh, but with low drive, it sounds very smooth. Ok it is a digital synth anyway - and sometimes you might want harsh sounds, because your track demands it. I wanted a synth for pads, and its just very good at it with 4 envelopes, 4 LFO and x-modulation. Interface is fast and very well thought out.
It can listen to different midi channels, so you can stack or split it, having 2x6 voices, enough for a pad and a melody. Can not compete with Virus TI multimode, and Virus has a built in reverb. But for me the P12 sounded better, so i went with it.