The Logic Off Topic list

--- In logic-ot@y..., Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@k...> wrote:

> And even then: why emulate a 
> particular existing synth?  Why not just make something "along the 
> lines of..."?

A few possibles:

1: it means that you don't have to go through a great big R&D process 
deciding what envelopes to include, what to control, what to miss 
out, etc etc. With software, half the work is the specification, when 
duplicating an existing synth, the spec (and inspiration) is right 
there in front of you. You know that you won't end up with something 
that doesn't really "work" as a satisfying instrument, because people 
already like the original.

2: People know in advance what they are buying, and shops don't have 
to put up with people spending half an hour playing a softsynth to 
see if they get on with it or not. This is a DX7 emulator. You like 
DX7 sounds, you buy it. You don't like DX7 sounds, buy something 
else. Simple. As far as the marketing is concerned you can sum up 
what your product does in one snappy line: "It's a Pro-1 (or 
whatever) in software."

3: With some emulators, you get to use existing legacy libraries. Buy 
an FM7, and get rid of all your old Yammy gear, knowing for certain 
that you aren't losing any important sounds.

4: Pre-testing. Even if you don't know what a pro-1 sounds like, you 
know that some people out there liked the sounds, and you can read 
reviews and descriptions of what sorts of sounds they are. People 
tend not to create painstaking emulations of synths that people 
didn't like. 

5: Designer satisfaction. If you've produced a damned-near-perfect 
emulation of a particular synth or instrument, you can sit back and 
congratulate yourself on a job well done, and its easy for people to 
seer that you've done a good job. People will play your software and 
say, my god that's a great emulation of a Thingy electric piano.
If you choose to create your own version of an synthetic piano sound, 
people might grow to like it as a classic in its own right, but 
you'll have a harder job persuading people that its not just an 
emulation of existing electric piano sounds that doesn't work very 
well.

6: No blame. People can't complain that your softsynth doesn't do X, 
because you can say, well, it's an authentic replica, and the 
original didn't do X, either. You're normally off the hook. <g>
Although I do find the way that that PPG emulator doesn't let you use 
patch names it quite maddening! 

Ultimately, for all you know, there might be loads of people out 
there designing software instruments that are new and novel, but you 
probably won't hear most of them because either they actually aren't 
very usable (or at least don't warrant the "classic" tag), or because 
they aren't being worked up into full commercial products because 
they aren't as saleable as say a JP8 emulator. 
If you want "new" sounds, you might be interested in something like 
NI's "Reaktor", which lets people design and swap instruments. But 
you might find that most of the more "original" ones are a bit too 
esoteric, because one designer's idea of a nice new sound is another 
adiea of a horrible noise. 

Erk