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From: Tony Thompson <tony@...>
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2002 7:05pm
Subject: Re: LAM/GEN: New VST Instruments

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
 >
 > Slightly (un)related... something I've been wondering about a lot.
 > Why is it that 99% of all VST synths seem to be emulations of really
 > old gear?  Hammond B4, mellotron, Rhodes piano, Clavinet, old digital
 > gear like the PPG Wave, an endless array of analog synths, etc -- the
 > list goes on ad infinitum.

I hear what you're saying here, HJ, but many of these sounds have had an
appeal which is more than just nostalgia. It is down to timbral depth and
detail in many cases and can also relate to real-time acessibility of
functions and even more often to quirks of sound due to the hardware
limitations of the time (hence the to me unfathomable interest in
Mellotrons, which I can't really get into at all). I also have to admit that
when I hear the phrase 'virtual analogue synth' I start to yawn
uncontrollably as I don't think subtractive synthesis is such a big deal as
other people obviously do. This may be due to learning synthesis on a DX7
with no filters at all, liking the sounds and wishing there were ways of
tweaking them as one played. It's not that I dislike low-pass filters at
all, (very fond of ES1, especially for basses)  more that there are other
ways of making sounds too.

As far as the plugins I mentioned go:

(a) they are a starting point for further treatment/abuse with all those
other nice plugins we have access to;
(b)when all these programmers have gained the confidence and experience in
modelling real-world instruments, maybe they will start twisting the
technology to do something genuinely new;
(c) these are freebies anyway, which I regard as something close to
miraculous!

In support of (a), perhaps this is the area where we can each carve out a
unique sound if we wish, even without new instruments.

In support of (b) we have had no software equivalent of the Kawai K5000's
additive synthesis and granular synthesis seems to be something one does
'offline' in terms of creating 'instrument' sounds. Room for developments?

As for (c) I would like to express my personal thanks to all those many
plugin developers - Big Tick, mda, Hans Stadtherr of Silverspike and many
many others - who put out so many creative tools for free. I feel I have no
excuse for not getting on with making music, even on my relatively elderly
system, as I have so many tools to choose from.

Tony Thompson