hardware only producers?

[robert lowell]

yes & no, i forgot to touch on that. with todays computers being faster and improvements to soft synths. with the right tweeks you can make a soft synth sound as good as analog synth. i'd love to buy analog synths but #1 its way too much money for vintage gear that might not work in the first place #2 i don't have the room for all that stuff.

drums are a whole other story. i can't find anything that will reproduce the sound quality of analog drum machines. period. the sequencers are funky and produce all kinds of cool beats that would take forever to program. you can't beat it.

[steevio]

in the end the hardware/software, analogue/digital arguments come down to one thing, your subjective experience. we all use equipment in different ways, we all have different ears and hear different amounts of detail.
each piece of equipment or software is different to.
not all analogue kit sounds better than digital, theres been some nasty sounding analogue synths over the years. we are just generalising all the time.
ive got several virtual analogue synths, and i know for sure that they all sound 1000 times better when i put them through a Moog filter. till i do that they sound dull and lifeless to ME. it doesnt matter what anyone tells me about their experience. i know what i hear.
i used to use a TB303 quite extensively, and it always amazed me that i could sit and listen for ages to a really simple pattern without getting bored, and yet if i did the same with two different clones that i borrowed from friends, i had to stop them after a minute or so. dont ask me why. i have no explaination, it just what i experienced.
its the same thing that guitarists experience when they swear by certain tube amplifiers, some even swear by cerain tubes produced in particular countries, and wont use anything else.
the vaguries and instabilites of analogue components and circuitry seem to add a randomness or 'realness' which some people can detect easily, and others absorb subliminally.
if you look at the waveforms on an oscilloscope, they are constantly morphing around in a subtle way. this never happens with a digital signal.
this is why alot of digital gear these days is trying to be analogue by the inclusion of tubes etc. alot of it may be cosmetic, but the designers are doing it for a good reason.
i think ive probably said enough on this subject, sorry for the long rants !!

[kevin h]

yes & no, i forgot to touch on that. with todays computers being faster and improvements to soft synths. with the right tweeks you can make a soft synth sound as good as analog synth.

true, you can make a plugin sound extremely close to analog if you're talking about a static sound, or simple patch. its when you starting doing real-time pitch-dives, and self-oscillation thats where the virtuals still have a ways to go, imo. and, although you can map plugins to external controllers, they are quite a bit less sensitive than real pots.

dont get me wrong i love and use softsynths all day, they are after all way more practical, and get the job 90% done, 90% faster. i just love the sound and feel of analog more.

[theclockstrucktwelve]

i just bought an sh-101 and it was the best purchase i've ever made...gear wise. $408 USD.

This is one of my main points...

YOu spent $408 USD on ONE SOUND!??

You can only do so much with an SH-101... it's a nice one, don't get me wrong.. but... well, $408 could have got you more bang for your buck elsewhere.

And all that latency stuff and onscreen knobs... um... it doesn't have to be.. buy good sh!t and proper gear and it's not like that.

[steevio]

i just bought an sh-101 and it was the best purchase i've ever made...gear wise. $408 USD.

This is one of my main points...

YOu spent $408 USD on ONE SOUND!??

You can only do so much with an SH-101... it's a nice one, don't get me wrong.. but... well, $408 could have got you more bang for your buck elsewhere.

And all that latency stuff and onscreen knobs... um... it doesn't have to be.. buy good sht and proper gear and it's not like that.

youre right, thats alot of money for a monosynth with no velocity sensitivity.
i bought two SH101's for £30 and £50 respectively. i bought Loot everyweek as soon as the newsagents opened, and within a year they both came up. the sellers were old people who had no idea what they were, they were clearing out their sons old stuff. i jumped in my car and was banging on their doors within an hour of buying the paper.
the phone never stopped ringing while i was handing over the cash.
you have to be quick and dedicated if you want the secondhand bargains.

[Measax]

what I've been told and it seems to work, is to buy some external gear to route through inorder to fatten up the sound..like a hardware sampler, pre-amp, or compressor....I have just start producing, but so far that seems to help out with my computer based audio...I also like layering hardware samples over the ones created by my softsynths.

On the subject of what sounds better, this year at defm panytec played and for some reason their stuff was just louder and clearer and even seemed warmer than anything else I heard on the main stage...the bass they were laying down travelled all over that place...of course they were using a lot of hardware both live and for production...I know that dandy jack sounded real fat too and he was laying some sh!t down off a mpc...of course I don't know if that had any real bearing on the sound there but they sure sounded the way I would want to on a stage like that. Just something small I noticed...

[steevio]

what I've been told and it seems to work, is to buy some external gear to route through inorder to fatten up the sound..like a hardware sampler, pre-amp, or compressor....I have just start producing, but so far that seems to help out with my computer based audio...I also like layering hardware samples over the ones created by my softsynths.

ive tried lots of different methods of warming and fattening, and none works as well as a Moogerfooger filter. when you look at it, it looks like very little for your money, but i've spent alot more on things that just dont work very well. the moog is class.
alot of the project studio compressors, for example TLA ivory series, or focusrite compounder, actually seem to degrade the sound, i hardly ever use them anymore. and if you go cheaper than those, you'll ruin your sound !! you better off staying with software.
before i buy anything, i always read the reviews in Sound on Sound, and they have a tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to the manufacturers and give glowing reviews to kit that is not that clever, so now i dont believe anything i read, and listen to other peoples experiences instead.
talk to as many hardware producers as you can before you buy anything.

[alexis bowles]

Really nice thread, has IM going also Hardware for the last year or so Ive been having a lot of fun and dancing in my studio since I have those machines. And you know what I really like the fact that my Sh-101 is doing one thing only one thing, but a bad ass one!, same for my 909, 777, etc.. they all have there personality and that's what I call a simple life. The hardest thing is to find the one that fit you and youre style. But ounce youre in front of the one that is making the sound that youve been looking for.. wow, Yes it is Romance, it's music, feeling. I hope that the software peeps have the same feeling, because that's why IM producing.

p.s. It's really nice to read you steevio, I can imagine youre patch, must be crazy after 10 years of playing around. I think that is one of my fav thing, finding the right patch for the right sound. patch boxes are my friends !

a.