Everybody who has a Roland Aira System-1 knows about the Plug-Out series. Now to all owners of the hardware I have a question: How is the sound-quality of the plugin compared to the sound-quality of the same sound in the hardware System-1. Surely a decent soundcard for the computer is needed with the same quality as in the Hardware to compare this properly. But if we take this for granted, how do both compare? Any experiences and opinions?

 

You can analyze the waveforms generated by each and see how faithfully they reproduce the sound at various settings.

 

Yeah, if somebody could do that... great! I don't have a System-1 unfortunately. :/ But the plug-outs thanks to HEXWARS. :D

 

its difficult , even two sh-101 can sound different

well, they are close, i bet in a complete mix you cant hear differences between original and emulated instrument


i dont understand this "must-sound-100%-like-original".. whey you dont take them as what they are: good sounding (or not, you decide) synthesizers you can use, when you find use for them

 

GanjaRa_ You got me a bit wrong. I'm not talking about a comparison between the plug-out SH-101 and the original SH-101, as well as the SH-2 or Promars. I'm talking about the plug-out sound in the box compared to the sound of the same preset on the hardware Aira System-1. Ok?

 

Both will sound the same since they both run the same DSP code, if you record the "hardware" audio digitally into the DAW, but it should be a bit lower quality and sounding different if you record the audio from "hardware's" analogue outs. In some cases it might be even desirable to record the lower quality audio, I suppose.

 

It can only sound the same because its is the same. The System-1 hardware exactly runs the same software as the plugin does. The only difference is that the System-1 has hardware controllers. But these controllers are used to control the same piece of software like you do with your mouse or any other external controller. Because the System-1 has no hardware onboard to generate the sound but only analog hardware controllers that is converted to digital parameters to control the software it only can sound absolutely the same (if you have a soundboard with comparable quality)

Hope you understand. Would be the same to compare the sound of a plugin used in Cubase with the same one used in Ableton at a different Computer.

 

Ok, SineWave and lukehh, thank you for making this clear to me! I thought there would still be a little difference in sound quality, but if they are absolutely identical, it's a great opportunity to use the plugins! Great! )

 

Thank you for the link to this great video!

 

I think my post wasn't 100% clear on what I meant. ;) System-1 has analog outputs and you can use USB as digital output. Analog output is of lower quality that is sometimes desirable as the audio passes through DA converters, whilst no converters are needed for digital output over USB and *that audio* sounds exactly the same as the plugin. *yes*