Modern analog heaven?

[urbanscallywag]

Not to steal the mailing list's name, or is that analogue anyway?

 

With the release of the S2, I was thinking about it, and there are so many amazing analog synthesizers on the market today.

 

You've got your polysynths: Alesis Andromeda; Studio Electronics Omega 8; Jomox Sunsynth; Dave Smith's Polyvolver+keys, all incredibly versatile compared to their 20 year old counter parts.

 

You've got various modular companies to choose from, even the choice to mix and match within a family.

 

You've got more monosynths than I could name off. The Moog Voyager and RME; Cwejman S1 and S2; Studio Electronics ATC and SE-1; MacBeth's M3 and M5; SEMblance, RedSquare, VOSTOK, Black Coffee all from Analogue Solutions; MFBerlin's SynthII; Dave Smith's Evolver; Spectral's NeptuneII; Vermona Perfourmer and Mars; Future Retro Revolution...the list goes on, I'm sure.

 

Spectralis deserves a mention somewhere.

 

:eek:

 

So many choices, so little time (and money). Seems silly to think about analog emulations when there is so much real analog on the market. Of course, there are the welcome digital editions featured on synths like the Virus TI, MS-2000, and Q.

 

So what are the choice synths out of that list, anyway?

 

Also, what has not been reproduced in some form or another that you'd like to see?

[SynthBaron]

I'd go for a Macbeth M5, but those "mixer" knobs must go. Definetly PEK for a polysynth (how could you not?).

[cybermooks]

A lot of those are not to be found anywhere, and many are discontinued.

 

M5- who has one?

 

Of the stuff listed I have an M3X, ATC-1, SE1X, Moog Voyager, Polyevolver, and Andromeda. Even here the first two are out of production. The first three are mono. The Andromeda remains the analog king of today, and the Polyevolver the best hybrid.

 

The only one I don't have that I'd like is the Jomox Sunsynth, apart from an M5 when it actually ships.

[clusterchord]

i think the polysynth market is still pretty thin.

 

unless someone else, besides Alesis and Curtis (DSI), start making chips there will be no change in this arena.

 

if Curtis could be persuaded to make more chips, either old 33xx series, or some new exciting vc chips, or if somebody else like Anadigm would make theirs - yielding a new gen of reasonably affordable analog polsynths by some of the big boys (with new posibilities, mod routings etc..) They should have at least 8+ poly for under 2K retail. anything over that kinda defats the purpose of 'chips' - it s justifiable only with discrete components - and we have that covered already by SE.

 

altough i would like to see a new Omega with discrete hardware envelopes finally. with real punch, routable filters (so you can use more than one at a time) and stable OS. for 4k+ i don't want to deal with their sloppy software adsrs..

 

Andromeda rack or some other kind of offspring is long overdue as well.. but that'll never happen.

 

SunSyn is pretty much dead, among other things, because of large number of bugs and poor service support..

[urbanscallywag]

That's it, I'm going to buy an Anadigm development and save the world with my affordable polysynth!

[urbanscallywag]

So is Andromeda Anadigm based?

[clusterchord]

Originally posted by urbanscallywag So is Andromeda Anadigm based?

No, the chips in A6 were custom developed and designed by Alesis. i know they are manufactured now by a third party but exclusively for Alesis.

 

anadigm was a company that dissapeared, but 2yrs ago they had announced new analog chips that had fantastic properties and could be modulated and used in much wider range of apps than for example old CEM range..

 

if you do the search for anadigm, some article about it is bound to come up..

 

 

we all had high hopes but nothing came out of it..

[Guest Anonymous]

to my ears, the sunsyn sounds better than any polyphonic analogue in production today. too bad it's buggy, appears to lack rigourous quality control and costs as much to ship and repair as some analogue synths cost to buy new.

[urbanscallywag]

But there's a picture of Andromeda on the Anadigm page.

 

I've read about Anadigm, and was serious about getting a development kit.

[Teoman]

Aside from the Andromeda, the second big poly analog will be PolyEvolver IMO. I heard some polls about a 4-VCO based totally analog Evolver synth. If Dave Smith decides to give it a try, we will have another chip based polyphonic real analog

[Phineas]

One of the sad self-evident truths is that we're at a cross-roads in synth design, and nobody's taking Yogi Berra's advice: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

 

The analogue exemplars have that subtle, warm, 3-dimensional organic sound that can just fill the universe with a single patch without even effects. It's like a wave of cosmic beauty that just overwhelms you and carries you to new heights on its wings. Trouble is, while they're emotionally fulfilling, the simplicity of the sounds is unsatisfying. And the sounds are 20+ years past cutting edge. A little old and common.

 

The reverse is true for digital gear. Dry, sterile, or at best pristine sound, but lacking the warmth of tubes and analogue VCOs and VCFs.

 

One can speculate why this should be so, but mostly the great synth battle today is between hardware manufacturers and softsynth companies, exactly as Dave Smith predicted in 1996. Some of it is also market driven. Less and less musicians come into electronica from an acoustic background. So the playability of a sound or the timbre of an instrument are not really recognised or valued. Lastly, there is a tremedous pressure to price down instruments to the point where the great synths of yesterday cannot be realistically made.

 

What will eventually emerge from all these three different pressures is absolutely clear in my mind. We already see the first opening salvo: the keyboard as pure computer. The NeKo and OASYS KB are pure computers.They have no ASICs. Meaning they are entirely software driven. Of course, where they fail most significantly is that they have no tube for warmth, nor the analogue ASICs for even more organic timbres.

 

Just think. If someone were to make a powerful workstation, along the lines of Kurzweil's K2600, which can do pretty much the most, AND then added the tubes and analogue ASICS, you'd have the mother of all synthesis workhorses all in one. The last remaining flaw in this design would be homogeneity of timbre. It would still have its own sound, and that would be fixed. But, even that could be unfixed. Add in expansion slots for cards, maybe even pci, and sell additional ASIC chipsets where the user can route patches thru selectable VCOs and VCFs.

 

Now you'd have a monster that could have Kyma's flexibility and pristine sound, supercomputer calculating capacity, every synthesis architecture and method available, and even FX to boot. Pricewise, say the cost of a K2600 (yes, I know they were dead and are now resurrecting) and add the cost of a tube or 2 and say 32 analogue voices (more with expansion). Since the ASICs are essentially ICs, perhaps they could be incorporated into fewer VLSI chips for cost, space, heat etc.

 

It would do all the digital stuff, all the softsynths, samples, and it's own variations, combinations and permutations of analogue. So even if it cost $6,000, it's the only piece of gear you'd ever really need or want. GASheads exempted.

 

Gearhead heaven. So, who'll be first to build it?

[urbanscallywag]

I'm off to bed, but the first thing I noticed was your jump from tubes to ASICs. You missed discrete transistors somewhere in there.

[Phineas]

Originally posted by urbanscallywag I'm off to bed, but the first thing I noticed was your jump from tubes to ASICs. You missed discrete transistors somewhere in there.

 

Yet another one of my indiscretions exposed.

[Array]

 

Originally posted by clusterchord Andromeda rack or some other kind of offspring is long overdue as well.. but that'll never happen.

 

 

I'm not so sure. I think they still have something up their sleeves. There has to be SOME reason why the A6 IC's are the only Alesis developed chip to never be liscenced out. They could make a lot of $$$ by selling those chips to other manufacturers. Doesnt make sense, in my mind, that they would just sit on them and not make any cash.

[nectarios]

 

Originally posted by SynthBaron Definetly PEK for a polysynth (how could you not?).

 

You could easily not get one if you wanted more than an (average... at best...) resonant low pass and non resonant digital hi pass, when paying so much cash. A nice, analog, multimode filter is not much to ask for that price.

Having an Evolver my self I would also say that the Evolver's sound is hardly what "proper" analog sounds like. Although I am not a fun, I'm not saying it's a bad sounding synth, the digital side of it offer a much wider sonic range than analog monosynths in that price range... but it just doesn't cut it when it comes down to basic subtractive analog patches...imho always.

[Teoman]

Modern analog heaven isn't complete yet without a remodelled JP-8 filter. Studio Electronics offers TB-303 filter, so why not to offer a JP-8 filter? Many companies have produced Moog and Oberheim clones, DSI offers some kind of CEM chips, so Roland filters are missing IMO.

[Tusker]

I would be cool to have more analog and digital inputs into the oscillators and filters. I'm not an electrical engineer, but looking at any schematic, I'd assume they could feature more gates/switches and input sources. Things that could change filter topology, allow real time waveshaping within the oscillator, etc.

 

Maybe this a false assumption, but if it were true...

 

This would allow for more timbral range. Since D/A convertors are cheap, I could imagine that any analog synth could add a set of VA modulators/control features for less than $100. Personally I think digital envelopes, lfos and mod sources (oscillators, samples, sequencers, etc.) are fantastic. You would have to include (a limited number of) routable analog VCA's in the package.

 

If we could make the analog components more granular and provide more digital control, it could add some terrific spectral range.

 

Jerry

[urbanscallywag]

Someone tell me why Andy is shown on Anadigm's site if it doesn't use their FPAAs!

[clusterchord]

 

Originally posted by teoman Modern analog heaven isn't complete yet without a remodelled JP-8 filter. Studio Electronics offers TB-303 filter, so why not to offer a JP-8 filter? Many companies have produced Moog and Oberheim clones, DSI offers some kind of CEM chips, so Roland filters are missing IMO.

 

but there's much more to getting the sound of a certain synth than having an exact re-modelled analog copy of the filter. It is almost as important how oscillators sound, followed by gain staging between vco/vcf and vcf/vca and shape/speed of envelopes.

 

so, imo whatever filter does SE put inside, the result will always have of sound of their own VCOs embedded. they do sound fantastic, and if we judge by "closeness" to the original, they combine with some filters better than with others. i think SEM filter sounds the best, followed by the moog. probably because they went after 900 series VCO sound in their design.

 

it would be interesting to hear it with true JP8 filter circuitry, even if not exact, it may in fact yield better results than what they did with CS80 filters - since VCOs in Yamaha have completely different sound (being linear among other things), i wasn't impressed with CS80 filter in Omega demos at all. Nothing whatsoever to do with CS80. same goes for 303 filter - nice sound in itself, but vco is too different from transistors used in real 303.

 

 

if one can dream - an 8voice Omega with discrete version of SSM2040 (the MOTM440) but with analog discrete envelopes. and they should allow for multimode operation of this filter - original SSM2040 was indeed capable of multimode, even tho it wasn't implemented on the Prophet Rev2 (only polysynth that used them). SSM2044 is LP only, for example.

[Teoman]

Originally posted by clusterchord but there's much more to getting the sound of a certain synth than having an exact re-modelled analog copy of the filter. It is almost as important how oscillators sound, followed by gain staging between vco/vcf and vcf/vca and shape/speed of envelopes. so, imo whatever filter does SE put inside, the result will always have of sound of their own VCOs embedded. they do sound fantastic, and if we judge by "closeness" to the original, they combine with some filters better than with others. i think SEM filter sounds the best, followed by the moog. probably because they went after 900 series VCO sound in their design. it would be interesting to hear it with true JP8 filter circuitry, even if not exact, it may in fact yield better results than what they did with CS80 filters - since VCOs in Yamaha have completely different sound (being linear among other things), i wasn't impressed with CS80 filter in Omega demos at all. Nothing whatsoever to do with CS80. same goes for 303 filter - nice sound in itself, but vco is too different from transistors used in real 303. if one can dream - an 8voice Omega with discrete version of SSM2040 (the MOTM440) but with analog discrete envelopes. and they should allow for multimode operation of this filter - original SSM2040 was indeed capable of multimode, even tho it wasn't implemented on the Prophet Rev2 (only polysynth that used them). SSM2044 is LP only, for example.

 

I am sure it will never sound exactly the same as the JP-8, but who wants exactly a Jupiter sound from a synth with three times the price of an average conditioned JP-8 ? I don't... Well I am really satisfied with Moog and Oberheim filters on the A6 so much that I will never ever want a MemoryMoog or an Ob-X. The same goes for the SE stuff, if they can closely model a Jupiter and drop the price considerably (which I have no hope for) why not to try? Another thing that I want to hear really is that SSM sound !!! If MOTM can do that, SE can also do (either chip or discrete)...

 

Edit: Here is a message to Mr Dave Smith: I heard there is a campaign for a 4-VCO based Evolver. So, please also consider a SSM based Evolver in cooperation with MOTM. I will be the first to order one !!!

[renegadebliss]

 

Originally posted by cybermooks apart from an M5 when it actually ships.

 

 

 

 

The M5 IS shipping. Check the Analogue Heaven mailinglist. People are stating that theirs has arrived. Can't wait to get some user soundbites...

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[renegadebliss]

 

Originally posted by teoman Modern analog heaven isn't complete yet without a remodelled JP-8 filter. Studio Electronics offers TB-303 filter, so why not to offer a JP-8 filter? Many companies have produced Moog and Oberheim clones, DSI offers some kind of CEM chips, so Roland filters are missing IMO.

 

 

 

Studio Electronics Omega series can take ANY filter that the MOTM modular offeres. So you can get CS-80, GX-1 , among others... so maybe not a JP-8, but you do get a choice...

[Array]

Originally posted by renegadebliss Studio Electronics Omega series can take ANY filter that the MOTM modular offeres.

 

Hmmmmm? Please elaborate!

[Analog Kid]

It's a great field, for sure.

For instance i was looking at the price drop on the Analogue Solutions Semblance box. sweet.

 

 

BUT!

 

It cant REALLY be Analog Heaven until either Yamaha or Roland makes an analog synth.

*sigh*

 

my god, just imagine what they could do, if they really tried.

 

 

btw- why do old analog racks use sysex? Why not CC's? I never got that...

[Meatball Fulton]

I was looking at the M5, cool synth but $4500 for a rethink of the ARP 2600??? Geez, that's what I paid for my last (used) car!

 

I'm really surprised the Evolver hasn't made more of a splash. I think Dave Smith has some very cool ideas on how to mix analog with digital to do something different than just resurrect the MiniMoog.

 

The concept of a "patch" including a full step sequence, the MIDI clocking/triggering mode plus external audio processing in addition to the usual VCO-VCF-VCA settings is a work of true beauty.

 

In a short while of playing around with one I realized it could do almost everything my analog modular could do (and a lot more my modular could only do if I invested way more $$ into it) PLUS store it off in patch memory for instant recall while still giving me 100% real-time knob control.

 

In fact I just sold my modular and will soon have an Evolver taking it's place.