You really need to read what people are posting better, or are you havin trouble understanding the lingo? Me reference to having all the parameters on the front panel, is for the pure fact that it makes it much easier to learn synthesis when everthing is at hand, and not burried behind menus. As for knobbing around as you call it, that's what is called experimentation, and that is where you'll find that interesting shit that isn't in the presets. Subtractive, additive, FM, vector, and any other kind of synthesis is easier and more fun if you have every parameter at your fingertips, whether it's digital, analog or hybrid.

Problem is that learning synthesis involves er "knobbing".

There's always "knobbing". Even if you're using a preset there's "knobbing". Oh! and read my original reply to the OP, and find the part in which I mentioned analog, vintage or digital. I talked about control over the synth.

That's subjective to the sound you wish to create, don't you think?

Now you are talking fluffy toys.

I never mentioned my music. I like my music. Other people may not, but it doesn't bother me too much. There is always room for improvement though.

Which is one of the reasons I have 2 digital FX proccessors in my set up.

Actually I can blame the lyrics, as I'm the one who writes them, and the one who sings them.

I think you need to show proof of that one, but I'd say it's unlikely IMHO.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

That was a joke. Take it down a notch. Fundamentalism in any form is never good and you're clearly slipping into ITB fundamentalism.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

as you said, it's all a matter of workflow.
our goal should always be the final product : a finished mixed and mastered song !

you can do it in analog or digital or both but working 100% in the box will save you a lot of time and hassles, and time is money.
and you will also save space : no need for a huge bulky mixer with a shitload of cables, no heavy analog synths, no need to clean and maintain all those machines, and for simple things you can make everything with a good laptop, you can't beat that.

 

They are great synths, i have bought Omni a long time ago, but they lack at least two main things, one objective and one subjective. -Acoustically/technically they lack harmonics. Even if you add them artificially it will not benefit their sound. So you put layer upon layer of samey patches you created, with slightly different tweaks to make it sound, here is the word you hate, close to an analog synth lol.
-Subjectively they lack character especially Omnisphere. It is a fully tweakable behemoth with no particular sonic signature. And Diva tries so hard to be a Moog that it's embarrassing lol.
And to sum it, i 've yet to hear a masterpiece that shook the "cosmos" done exclusively with plugs . On any kind of music. You know why? Because the masters play with premium real instruments and a whole fkn bunch of them, and usually rare and old. Especially in electronic music. Because the real circuits are alive man. Code is either predictable or random and nothing in between. There is only one way to prove your theory mate. Name a huge hit song done exclusively with plugs and i will shut the fk up. Really.

 

I could ditch all my vst synths and use just the Retrologue 2 synth that comes with cubase and win like never before.

Let me tell you people, with the cubase stock stuff we are going to win so much you`re going to say, please Mr. T, no more, too much winning.
Yes we can!

 

To get down to it, every time in a post where you would express a thought or wish to impart an idea it would certainly serve you greater to use "I" instead of "you". My experiences as well as just about everyone else who has replied to you in this thread seems different to your's. Case in point, using analogue gear for me will get me there faster than clicking around and trying to look at a screen then looking down again at my controller, ad nauseum, back and forth. I prefer to listen and not watch, something that working totally in the box sets up on me. It is also lots more fun for me to twiddle. I also like the tactile feel of cables and the satisfying click as the male end fits into its female counterpart. The smell of the tubes glowing in my Vox amp is also pleasurable. I hope to buy me some of those supersweet Sebatron mic preamps (with VU meters) for eventual overhead preamps (just absolutely love what they do to transients and how they tend to aid in creating depth) to continue my valve fetish, as well as a Warm Audio WA 2A to sit over the WA 76 that I love and use now, the 2A to follow in line of my vocal chain to complete (for now) the sound that I hear in my head, or at least get me that much closer until I have my new microphone created for my voice by an amazing builder that I know. Without hardware life for me would not taste so sweet.YMMV.

 

This is one of the reasons that song writing 20,30, 40,50 years ago was at a higher level, because musicians had less (instruments ergo less distractions) and worked more with their ears.Now we have tons of synths, plugins, analyzers, etc yet the substance of the modern material is weak.
Imagine this was mixed today.It would have been polished with no balls and lack dynamic range.

 

If you haven't spent any money on hardware and have been happy with software then I'd do yourself a favour and stick to what you know. As soon as you go hardware there is no end to it, you end up wanting to add more and more as well as outboard. I don't think any of the modern digital synths are going to add anything to your sound. Analogue can add some good low end that I haven't heard in software but nothing a cheap emu/Roland sampler couldnt do. If anything I think your best friend is to spend some time getting some decent sample libraries, not the usual crap that they knock out nowadays but a comprehensive library of some early classics as it can sound very close to the real thing and give a bit more depth of sound to just using softsynths.

 

@Von_Steyr
Linking a video of Led Zeppelin while talking of dynamics and analog vs digital, is a very low kick Von!
Who could argue against that

 

I 've an idea. Why hassle with all these computer keyboards on these laptops, too many keystrokes sets you back and time is money, make everything on a cell phone. Now that should be even faster. Plus, you put all those pro iOS synth apps bought for 15$ to good use, by making thousands with the hits you will produce.
Better yet, why bother putting your hands, mind and soul to work for simple sht as music+lyrics, buy a ready made "beat" from one of those "ghetto blaster" websites with the myriad Grammys they 've amassed over the years, put some vocal that you bought from another website on it, mix it in your cell and presto. Instant hit worldwide.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2017

about a Year ago, there was a thread here on AS about a software for cellphones that would "compose" a song for You, and You had to do absolutely nothing except turning it on...
Pity I don`t remember the name of the program

EDIT:
Here it is: https://audiosex.pro/threads/f-king-apple-does-it-again.23034/#post-165726

 

I'm getting too old for this shit......

 

But i have to admit, this Forum is becoming better and better every day... finally some genuine fun around here, and as I can see, even the hostilities somehow vanished from here.
It is nice to log in with a smile on Your face.

Thanks to everyone for participating in those "small talk" threads!
Lets hope it will last some time

 

until 1995 my setup was totally analog apart for the Atari with Cubase.
would i go back ? hell NO ! never ever.
not because it sounds bad, but because of all the limitations of analog in general.

i cant understand you guys and your fixation with the early classics, there's no need to overglorify the 80s, those sounds are great but not so great as you think, with Digital they're dime a dozen actually, to me they sound so much better in Omnisphere for all i could care, Omni is just my starting point, it's my mix that seals the deal and sculpts the final sound, the starting sound is barely a rough idea.

so, could i ever "sculpt" a starting sound with only analog gear ? for simple things YES, but in the end probably not, it's too much limiting and you would need a lot of space and money, just imagine running thru a chain of 10 analog multiband EQs and Comps .. on digital i can do it in 5 minutes and it costs me zero .. and good luck reloading that song a month later and reprogramming by hand (knobs and sliders !) 10 EQs and Comps !

 

certainly they were a lot more focused in the past, and they had to as their only option was being a mamber of a band, there were not many bedroom producers like today as the technology just wasn't there yet, at best a lone composer could sketch up some rough demos with piano and analog sequencers.

and yes, because they had less they were forced to squeeze everything from their machines, just as it happened with the early home computers, people started making amazing things with just a few KB or ram, things that were not even considered possible, i remember crazy stuff like demos for Amiga doing a "audio interlacing" with 8 voices on a 4 voices chip.

should we do the same in 2017 ? i dont think so, at this point anyone with Reaktor can really get access to a sound design platform that allows you total unlimited freedom.

no analog synth could ever come close to Reaktor.
analogs are not even in the game at all.

 

@Avenel It all comes down to what do You prefer ...
100 Yugo or 1 Bentley

Both will take You to Your destination
(ok, maybe You will need a few more Yugos to get to destination, but i hope You got the point )

 

gimme a break, even Moroder is only using a piano and Ableton.
Vangelis on analogs ? maybe until 1989 ... now he's stuck with his Kurzweil workstations, pro tools, etc
Depeche Mode ? probably still on analogs but just because of all the drugs on Ibiza.

listen, people used analogs only because there was nothing else.
if they had Digital nobody would have given two shits and that's exactly what happened after the mid 80s, the DX7 started the digital revolution and there's no turning back.

this is the hard truth and if they had Reaktor .. ohh my ... analog synths are just a toy in comparison.

sure there are no rules and if you want you could even make music with just acoustic instruments, i also play flute for instance, nothing wrong with that.

but since we're discussing the technicalities of digital vs analog ... go on, buy a 64 channels analog mixer, 20-30 rack FX, 400 cables, and then come back and tell me it's better and easier.

 

Learning synthesis belongs to theory and electronics.
i've an electronic background so for me it was pretty straitforward, but i dont know about you guys.
there's nothing exotic or mystic about waveforms and oscilloscopes, it's electronic, if you like it .. good .. if you dont you're in trouble and you better stick with presets rather than wasting time.

whats a VCO for instance ? do you really understand how it works ? well taht's the core of every analog synth .. no VCO, no sound at all !
you can knob all you want but still you probably havent understood whats a fucking VCO and how waveforms work ... because you lack electronic background, simple as that, but you can study and learn, up to you.

once you studied you will realize it's not so hard, but still your sounds are barely a copucat of the classic synth sounds .. of course .. what else did you expect from a vintage analog ? NEW sounds ? no way ... only Reaktor can produce new sounds.

as for Knobbing, no to learn synthesis you need to actually STUDY, knobbing comes later once you fully understood how the machine works.
so back to square one and let me know.

 

i admit i'm a bit radical but this is a feature, not a bug.