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From: "yoonchinet" <yoonchinet@...m>
Date: Tue Feb 26, 2002 8:56am
Subject: Re: LAM/GEN: New VST Instruments

Dennis Gunn wrote:
> Message: 2
>     Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 22:39:02 +0100
>     From: Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@k...>
> Subject: Re: LAM/GEN: New VST Instruments
>
> Thoughts from the mind of Len Sasso, 25-02-2002:
> >It is curious - emulating aging synths does seem to be the rule. As
> >you mentioned, I think Absynth is another notable exception
although
> >it is still an analog model.
>
> Actually I think Brian would be a little disappointed to hear that
> comment coming from no less a personage than the august Len
> "Tweekhead" Sasso because he has explicitly stated that he intended
> Absynth *not* to be yet another analog emulator but rather to
explore
> the possibilities of digital FM synthesis.

Huh?!
From the Absynth page: "ABSYNTH´s flexible patching scheme makes it
easy to combine subtractive, FM, AM, ring modulation, and
waveshaping."
and "ABSYNTH´s waveform editor allows you to freely model your own
waveforms which can be used by oscillators, LFO´s and as waveshaping
distortion functions."
I think it's more than an FM synth, more than a virtual analog.
Yoonchi.

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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

From: Tony Thompson <tony@...>
>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.

I know -- like I said, coming from the 70ies myself, I know all about 
drooling over photos of Moog Modular systems, the love for Hammonds, 
Mellotrons and the like.  It's just that there's been so many more 
interesting instruments since then...  And what do we seem to want? 
Mini Moogs and analog step sequencers...

>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).

:-)  There's something about a melltron that no symphony orchestra 
has.  An absolutely wonderful sound.  I'm not sure I would seriously 
use it myself though, nowadays.  That's probably my whole point...

>I don't think subtractive synthesis is such a big deal as other 
>people obviously do.

It's the only synthesis model I truly understand :-).  I grasp the 
idea behind others of course, but I've been exposed to subtractive 
synthesis long enough to have it down to being sort of second nature. 
But hey, that's just my limitation...

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

>From: Tony Thompson <tony@...>
>  >  > 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.
>
>I know -- like I said, coming from the 70ies myself, I know all about
>drooling over photos of Moog Modular systems, the love for Hammonds,
>Mellotrons and the like.  It's just that there's been so many more
>interesting instruments since then...  And what do we seem to want?
>Mini Moogs and analog step sequencers...

Some theories:  Recent hardware synths are easy to come by therefore 
why emulate one when the real thing is probably sitting right there. 
Older stuff on the other hand can cost a fortune and is probably 
broken to boot.  Older stuff had more unique character, if you 
emulate a nice moog type thing its more clear what you are doing than 
if you emulate the latest Roland that sounds like the latest Akai 
that sounds like the latest Yamaha.  As has been pointed out 
emulating a recent synth would probably be far more CPU intensive. 
Older stuff usually had few voices as did the first virtual synths.

The evolution of virtual synths it seems also virtually emulates the 
evolution of the hardware synthesizer. I expect this trend will 
continue and within a couple of years when the next generation of 
3,4,5 ghz Macs and PCs come out there will be parity.  I'll betcha in 
5 years virtual instruments will have so totally surpassed hardware 
ones that, although people will continue to use hardware, it will be 
more out of a sense of retro aesthetic than anything else


>  >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).

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
>:-)  There's something about a melltron that no symphony orchestra
>has.  An absolutely wonderful sound.  I'm not sure I would seriously
>use it myself though, nowadays.  That's probably my whole point...

Mellotrons have a wonderful way of being very present in a rock mix 
without overpowering it where real symphonic instruments might tend 
to either dominate it or at the other extreme sound like "background".

Will Logic ever get the ability to do wav (loop) drag and drop, time
stretching the way ACID or Sonar XL can?

I think this feature is almost mandatory now.


Take Care,

Wendell C.

Click on this to visit..............

http://www.cdbaby.com/carrollbrothers

or

http://www.cdstreet.com/artists/carrollbrothers

Thoughts from the mind of Dennis Gunn, 27-02-2002:

>Some theories:  Recent hardware synths are easy to come by therefore
>why emulate one when the real thing is probably sitting right there.

Ease of use?  Load a song and have all synths & patches sitting right there...

>As has been pointed out emulating a recent synth would probably be 
>far more CPU intensive.

Yes, agreed.

>The evolution of virtual synths it seems also virtually emulates the
>evolution of the hardware synthesizer.

Now there's a good thought...

>I'll betcha in 5 years virtual instruments will have so totally 
>surpassed hardware ones that, although people will continue to use 
>hardware, it will be
>more out of a sense of retro aesthetic than anything else

Yes, you might very well be right here.  OK, so we just have to wait 
a bit more...  Of course I also realise that VSTi's in a sense are 
still in a sort of baby-phase (not wanting to take away from the 
wonderful achievements of some).  It's only since a short time that 
computers have become powerful enough to make native synthesis a 
feasible concept, so indeed we should maybe just wait a couple of 
years to see where the trend goes.

>Mellotrons have a wonderful way of being very present in a rock mix
>without overpowering it where real symphonic instruments might tend
>to either dominate it or at the other extreme sound like "background".

And the bonus question: how come this is true (since indeed it _is_ 
true, and quite a good observation imo)?

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

*Hopefully* there are people developing such beasts secretly right now.
Maybe at that German music convention soon where Emagic will hopefully
announce the 5.0.1-or-whatever features some new 90'ish digital VSTi synth
will be unleashed by someone. 

About selling custom built instruments... IMO it's just like the Swiftkick
stuff Len sells. Many great environment objects and Reaktor ensembles are
available for free yet for very high quality stuff (the whole Swiftkick
collection, or professional-quality synths like some of the ones Dash has
created) cost a bit extra... $100's would be too much for anything short of
*SPECTACULAR* but a small US$10-$25 fee seems reasonable to me for hours and
hours and hours of virtual construction work and ideally good documentation.

Jeremy

> This still doesn't answer my question though.  If it's true that 
> people would be willing to pay a few hundred bucks for a K2-like VSTi 
> synth, why then is no-one jumping in this 'hole in the market', and 
> are most programmers busy writing the next analog box?
> Or: should I buy Reaktor myself, and start developing commercial 
> soft-synths?  Somehow it seems silly to sell synths you made in a 
> synth-building-box environment like Reaktor.  I know Da Dash does it, 
> and maybe he's right, but still... seems a bit strange to me...
> 
> -- 
> Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
> Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

>  >Mellotrons have a wonderful way of being very present in a rock mix
>>without overpowering it where real symphonic instruments might tend
>>to either dominate it or at the other extreme sound like "background".
>
>And the bonus question: how come this is true?

At the risk of sounding like an empirical know it all bastard that 
one's easy.  1. The dynamic range of melotron samples is very limited 
so the level from the instrument is very predictable.  2. The 
frequency range is also pretty limited not much in the way of bas and 
the high mids are kind of punched up.  3.  The melotron samples 
usually seem to have little or no ambience in them and are basically 
pretty "in your face" tape compression type sounds.

--- In logic-ot@y..., "Martin, Jeremy" <MartJe@n...> wrote:
> *Hopefully* there are people developing such beasts secretly right 
now.
> Maybe at that German music convention soon where Emagic will 
hopefully
> announce the 5.0.1-or-whatever features some new 90'ish digital 
VSTi synth
> will be unleashed by someone. 

I hope there is someone out there making a Wavestation in VSTi 
format. It would be cool to have a vector synth out there with not 
only samples but also with FM and additive synth. I would be willing 
to pay for that. If anyone has a Wavestation for sale, mail me. I 
really loved that sound, but never got the opportunity to buy one.

> About selling custom built instruments... IMO it's just like the 
Swiftkick
> stuff Len sells. Many great environment objects and Reaktor 
ensembles are
> available for free yet for very high quality stuff (the whole 
Swiftkick
> collection, or professional-quality synths like some of the ones 
Dash has
> created) cost a bit extra... $100's would be too much for anything 
short of
> *SPECTACULAR* but a small US$10-$25 fee seems reasonable to me for 
hours and
> hours and hours of virtual construction work and ideally good 
documentation.
> 

For the Creamware Scope and Pulsar range there are synths out there 
for less than $100. And some of these are even by John Bowen
(www.zargmusic.com), a co-designer of some well known Korg synths, 
like the Wavestation. These synths are like the real hardware thing, 
all run on DSPs.
What I'm wondering is, that you can not implement a certain technique 
in these VSTi, just like that. Some of the synths methods are still 
patented. FM's patent expired about some years ago, and so NI could 
implement a FM synths, so did Creamware( but not as well, I'm 
afraid, :-(). Additive synth has still patent going, if I'm not 
mistaken, but what about vectorsynthesis? Creamware developed a 
vectorsynth, but maybe they co-developed it with John Bowen, who may 
have licenced the rights to Creamware. I don't know.
What about phase modulation? The technique that Casio used for it's 
early CZ series?
These are incredible times. I couldn't imagine owning such an amount 
of synths for such a low fraction of the price of the hardware 
equivalent.
Yoonchi.

>Will Logic ever get the ability to do wav (loop) drag and drop, time
>stretching the way ACID or Sonar XL can?
>
>I think this feature is almost mandatory now.

Emagic will never tell you until they have already implemented it. 
There is a upside and a down side to that.

The upside is that they don't have to keep answering questions about 
when, when, when and then having to deal with disgruntled users when 
things don't turn out as everyone hopes.

The downside is that they miss out on sales when people give up and 
buy other products that do what they are hoping.

Anyway I have not tried it but have heard that melodyne can now 
operate synched to logic via some kind of bridge plugin.

It may be worth looking into for you.