A novel idea A "Moog Soundcard"

[thealien666]

Although I, like so many others, enjoy the sound of analog synthesizers, there is currently no technical reasons why digital could not be as enjoyable and as faithful to analog circuitry behaviors.
It's only a matter of software, dedicated team of engineers, and time.

I compare it to the time and efforts it took to build a machine that could finally beat chess grandmasters. It only took a really dedicated company, and team, to develop hardware and software capable of doing so.

A good example of one of the machines that comes close is the Alesis Ion. It was the same team of dedicated engineers that had designed the Andromeda that created it. Unfortunately, time and money were limiting factors and resulted in too many compromises made. If it weren't for the limited bandwidth frequency response (8 KHz only) due to anti-aliasing schemes (for lack of high enough DAC conversion rates), and different software bugs that were never corrected (the audible looping white noise generation, and strange glide behavior, just to name a few), this could have been a huge success.

The idea was there: creating a machine that could convincingly reproduce true analog sounds and behaviors using powerful DSP technology. Unfortunately, Alesis went bankrupt and had to be bought out by another company that has no interest in music synthesizers. So the Andromeda and Ion remain unfinished products, both with buggy hardware and software.

But, all that being said, since I own a few analog classics like a Minimoog D and Korg Mono/Poly, and a few others, I know that the task of capturing the essence and reproducing such diversity of sounds and behaviors faithfully using digital technology is no small task. But so was going to the Moon back in the sixties using the crude technology of the day.

Improbable, but not impossible once mankind puts its mind to it.

As for iPads not being here for long, this post was written using mine, that I have had for 2 years now and has replaced my laptop completely since.
(I do have a Mac for all the other things the iPad can't do...yet)

But enough babbling...

[Alien8]

Considering devices for use with protools utilize DSP chips that can then be used for instruments and effects and so forth, what about a "Moog Soudcard". It would include 3 VCO's, a VCF, and a VCA, then an analog out. Essentially the computer would allow you to apply digital sources as modifiers, waves, etc. and would be fully modular as it would be software that connected all of these components. For instance you could apply a VCO as VCA modification, or you could modulate the VCF with a digital source, or have 3 VCO's, a digital waveform source (for instance you might run three digital oscillators), a digital mod source, and run that through your VCF and VCA making a huge analog/digital hybrid lead. You could also patch in digital effects prior to the analog out, or anywhere in line. You could run a minimoog emulation through a real moog VCF and VCA. Basically the sky would be the limit as to what could happen with routings and digital signals, and you'd still have real analog VCO's, VCF, and VCA.

I thought that's why MIDI was implemented into the Moog product offering - ie digital control and repeatability of analog components generating sounds? They are essentially sound modules already... I don't see your point, unless you are talking about replacing CV cables with software, but then again, any DAW in combination with MIDI currently does this.

If I shift my perspective, I see what you are trying to get at, but I don't see the benefit, because it certainly would not be cost. Portability maybe?

My personal perspective is that the current product offerings by Moog and other synths is playability. Remember that part in the Moog movie where Bob says something like: "...it's about this, the musician connecting with the instrument" while he made the circular motion over his head towards the instrument? That's why the knobs are there. You can feel the instrument, you can make it change organically. Sure you can do this through digital instruments too, but it's just not the same. It's like making pottery with plasticine, and not real clay.

As thealien666 & others say, maybe one day digital will get there, but I doubt it.

As a side note, I think the digital / analog issue can be summed up as: analog is a flow of electrons, regardless of hearing ability, digital is an organized movement of electrons that tricks our ears into believing there is flow - fully playable, but missing the between the lines magic, because between the lines are 0's.

[thealien666]

... analog is a flow of electrons, regardless of hearing ability, digital is an organized movement of electrons that tricks our ears into believing there is flow ...

Well actually, there is a flow of electrons in both systems. Because it all ends-up as an analog signal to be amplified to make the air vibrate accordingly so we can hear the result. There is absolutely no difference in perceived sound between a Minimoog D being played live, and a digitally recorded performance of the same synth being played back on a 44.1Khz 16bits digital recorder. None whatsoever. And people who think they can tell the difference are deluding themselves. I have proved it many times, with lots of friends of mine, in blind tests. As for emulating the sounds and behavior, in all the minute details, of such a complex machine with mathematical algorithms, however, that's another ball game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT a proponent of digital technology for subtractive synthesis emulation, unless much more care and dedication is put into it. The efforts made by engineers and companies so far aren't terribly convincing. And until digital algorithms can emulate chaos to a certain extent, there will always be a "static" quality/disadvantage to this technology. And we all know how hard it is for digital to be imprecise (in a good way)!

The combination of analog and digital technology, as in the Moog Voyager, is a good one. The ability to memorize settings with great accuracy, thanks to Bob having chosen high resolution digitization of the knobs, with the warmth and unpredictability of analog subtractive synthesis circuits, is a great marriage.

Digital is good, but not everywhere...yet.

[_DemonDan_]

There is absolutely no difference in perceived sound between a Minimoog D
being played live, and a digitally recorded performance of the same synth
being played back on a 44.1Khz 16bits digital recorder. None whatsoever.
And people who think they can tell the difference are deluding themselves.
I have proved it many times, with lots of friends of mine, in blind tests.

One of my favorite shootout tests between two MIDI keyboards is to
surreptitiously connect the MIDI Out of each to the MIDI In of the other,
and then turn off the Local Control on both of them. Now, let your
subject play both keyboards as much as they want. (No knob turns or
patch changes unless the units are similar enough to respond in the
exact same ways.)

Inevitably, they'll point out all sorts of sonic "proof" for whatever point
they wanted to make. It's fun to show them that they just "proved" the
exact opposite of their point (or at least that the difference is negligible.)

This is especially useful for arguments like "All units with Serial #s higher
than XXXXXXX aren't as good as the older units."

[Alien8]

In this instance I was using the word "flow" in a non technical, artsy fartsy manner. I guess that got lost in the 0's...

The point was this:

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT a proponent of digital technology for subtractive synthesis emulation, unless much more care and dedication is put into it. The efforts made by engineers and companies so far aren't terribly convincing. And until digital algorithms can emulate chaos to a certain extent, there will always be a "static" quality/disadvantage to this technology. And we all know how hard it is for digital to be imprecise (in a good way)!

[Voltor07]

Digital will never surpass analog as far as synths go.

[thealien666]

Some attempts at digital emulation are even laughable: Boss/Roland COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) comes to mind. Their idea of a recreation of an analog bucket brigade delay line effect is simply to have the input signal heavily low pass filtered, to limit bandwidth, and having each successive repeats lightly low pass and heavily high pass filtered simultaneously, with no degradation of the signal emulation whatsoever due to bucket loss. Laughable I tell you.

On the other hand, Strymon went to great lengths to try to carefully mimic all the behaviors and peculiarities of such devices, even down to the analog compander circuit artifacts. But at a price. And even then, it's not quite as unpredictable as the real thing, be it a Deluxe Memory Man or even Boss DM-2. But at least it's a valiant effort, not some corporate marketing bullsh*t.

Ok. Enough of the Roland bashing... After all, they did produce great synths, too long ago.

[GovernorSilver]

Considering devices for use with protools utilize DSP chips that can then be used for instruments and effects and so forth, what about a "Moog Soudcard". It would include 3 VCO's, a VCF, and a VCA, then an analog out. Essentially the computer would allow you to apply digital sources as modifiers, waves, etc. and would be fully modular as it would be software that connected all of these components. For instance you could apply a VCO as VCA modification, or you could modulate the VCF with a digital source, or have 3 VCO's, a digital waveform source (for instance you might run three digital oscillators), a digital mod source, and run that through your VCF and VCA making a huge analog/digital hybrid lead. You could also patch in digital effects prior to the analog out, or anywhere in line. You could run a minimoog emulation through a real moog VCF and VCA. Basically the sky would be the limit as to what could happen with routings and digital signals, and you'd still have real analog VCO's, VCF, and VCA.

I think you are looking for one of the synths here - a Shruthi or Ambika:
http://mutable-instruments.net/

[EricK]

Wow... has it been one and a half years already?
I've already forgotten my first reminder

2013:

I don't even think that iPads are going to be around much longer.

2011:

Actually, iPads AREN'T here to stay.
Eric

Once a year, for the next five years, I'm going to publicly remind you of this quote.
_DemonDan_

http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.ph ... 184#p88184

I guess I can always remind you of this

"The MF-103 is truly the 'modular synthesizer' of phase shifters"

[_DemonDan_]

I still stand behind it:

"Phase shifting is a lot like cinnamon: It can certainly be overused and it was cliched-to-death in the 70's. But, to paraphrase Seinfeld, when someone says, 'Oh, this is so good. What's in it?,' the answer invariably comes back, 'cinnamon'. The secret to using phase shifting without sounding tired is avoiding the standard one-setting-fits-all speed, depth, and feedback amounts. With the Moogerfooger MF-103 12-Stage Phaser you have an exceptionally wide range of LFO speeds and depths. And you can manually control all of these parameters with external pedals or analog control signals. The results can range from a subtle sense of motion to liquid trips. The MF-103 is truly the 'modular synthesizer' of phase shifters."

[Mr Arkadin]

Really, if you want such a thing, then Sonic Core's XITE-1 is hard to beat. From the people that brought you Minimax (which many still consider the best Minimoog emulation), a modular synth based in DSP with as many modules as your DSP can handle (which on the XITE-1 is quite a lot):



All available in a 1U rack which is better than using the old cards for PCI traffic. The longevity is a worry with computer stuff. Sonic Core's (previously Creamware's) PCI cards are obviously dependent on motherboards still having PCI slots (Mac got rid of them years ago). However support for the PCI cards still continues from 1999 and the new XITE will see support for some years now, so I've been using this same platform for 13 years, which is pretty good in computer-land. Then again, it is more like hardware than software in many respects.