As a preface, I will state that I know next to nothing about engineering in general, so bear with any of misconceptions I may include here.
My question is - will modern synths change their tone in 10 or more years? I imagine vintage machines get some of the “warmth” and “mojo” due to the stuff happening to capacitors etc. VCOs being wobbly in tuning and so on.
Will any of that stuff happen to synths that are being produced nowadays? My intuition is that it’s impossible for DCOs to have tuning problems over time, as it’s a matter of some kind of programming rather than a hardware component. But what about other elements of, say, Prophet Rev2 and the like? Would really appreciate someone with technical knowledge chiming in. Have a great end of the year everyone!
If with modern you mean digital, I’d say don’t expect the quality of sound to change with time. Effectively the sound is generated by binary instructions, not by voltage/current, so even if parts would age, the source of sound (the code/mathematics) would be wholly unaffected by that.
UNLESS someone actually programs such “aging effects” into their software/code…which is an interesting thought in a way.
As for FX, again if they are digital, don’t expect anything to change.
I should add that I am neither an engineer nor a coder, just inferring from my basic understanding of how these things work - I may also be completely wrong, but from where I stand now, this seems correct to me.
PS: I’d be interested to know what prompted you to ask yourself this question? If you feel like sharing
I had “modern analog” in mind rather than digital - the fact that the lines of code won’t change the way they behave over time seems pretty straight forward
The thing that prompted me to asking was me looking at my Rev2 and wondering whether people in a few decades will talk of it’s “aging qualities” the way they do about Minimoogs or old Prophets.
I see, so the Rev2 has analog elements (Filter, VCA etc).
Any analog elements will age with time, capacitors within the Rev2 included - and this may affect sound down the line (not necessarily for the better though).
The way electronic components age to my understanding is also dependent on environmental factors, so not all aging is equal. In general, I would say that the effect of aging capacitors on sound would be cumulative at best. ie, a single capacitor that drifts out of tolerance may not have an effect at all. But I’m mostly clueless on this, so big fat grain of salt added here.
I also read somewhere that what affects sound in vintage synths more than anything are changes in the biasing of their transistor circuits over time (ie changes in resistance, leakage etc).
So my take would be, your Rev2 is a lovely synth that is massively enjoyable and desirable today already, if people were to go nuts for its sound in 20 years time due to the way age affected it, I’d say that would be more due to psychoacoustics & nostalgia than to actual variances in aged components
As far as I understand this stuff, psychoacoustics and nostalgia is probably the strongest factor in most of those discussions. Was just curious if there’s any real substance to it all
I expect there will be a difference in longevity between 40yr old components and modern SM counterparts. It’s all down to the quality of components used but I’d guess newer ones may stay within tolerance longer than old ones. I’m primarily thinking of electro’s etc.
Totally.
Have moved near the Atlantic in South Andalucía
Though one would think the weather is great (it is actually), humidity is an aggravating factor: you should be expecting 45% of humidity in a room to be liveable for humans (with no consequences on health).
Here I have a dehumidifier and a little heater plugged in constantly in my studio on winter (winter lasts about 2 months here). Keeps the humidity at 45/55.
I would expect less of that effect for modern stuff; surface mount, automated assembly, and the higher quality of modern components etc. adding up to longer life.
For true modern analog synth, they will certainly change their tone in subtle way. But how to catch the difference ?
I have no engeneering knowledge but I see analog synths as lot of electric components which grow old not in same time, so the sound should be little different.
About digital synth, I have knowledge in computer coding and no way the sound will change. At best you will have no sound at all due to electronics died.
