DSP Robotics Support

This is why I love digital!

I can grab a TR-707 (for free!), and make a simple little drum pattern. Then, just by adding 3 audio effects (all free!) I can use my DAW (for free!) to convert this simple and boring thing
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0h7np4evaqmc76l/Spur%202%20%28Abgemischt%2C%208%29.wav?dl=0

into this exciting and sexy thing
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kseqopu6rv3l21/Spur%202%20%28Abgemischt%2C%2013%29.wav?dl=0
(please excuse the 10 or so seconds of silence at the start, just move the play cursor to the start of the sample)

And all it took was 20 minutes and no cent.

I just love it. Especially thinking about the amount of money I needed to spend on hardware in pre-DAW times, without even coming close to such results. And fighting the mixing engineers when they get upset already noticing that I dared to use 3 different snares in my song. Modern times are not paradise, but for musicians it can't get much better!

and no tape heads to clean and demagnetize.

Air conditioning costs in the studio have gone way down as well !

What I see happen with the audio "world" is the same I saw happen with photography some time ago.
The "film/paper" purists were all fighting the digital, saying that the digital photo wasn't able to give the same quality of the film.
The same purists that today take their pictures on full-format multi-megapixel cameras and share them on Instagram. Then go on saying they won't change these cameras for anything.
While the old ones sit as relics, lenses collecting fungus, on shelves.

With audio it has been the same thing. I know a lot of people today who say "a virtual analog sounds different from real analog", and then attempt to prove so by sending you a MP3 recording of each.

I understand digital pictures were bad in the beginning, as well as digital synths, but that boat has sailed long ago.
With ingenious minds and sheer creativity we have been able to create amazing sounding replicas of old synths.
Some people still say "not the same as the real thing", but still I can't remember two Minimoog or two Jupiter-8 that sounded the same.
The one that was in a studio and saw 100000 hours of use definitely sounded different than the one that was on some kid's room, and saw a couple hundred hours only. Which one sounded better? who is to say? we don't know. They sounded just... different.

Having spent so much time and money making my own modular synth in the 80s I often reflect how it’s like being in heaven these days, with FlowStone and all the other goodies we have.

I think what many people miss is having the physicality of owning a synth as an object, rather than just having a picture of a synth on a screen. Maybe it’s a bit like the difference between vinyl, CD and digital downloads. With the latter there’s nothing to hold, no object. Possibly that lack of physicality translates to an impression of having an inferior experience.

I started thinking about that ..... and then I remembered ...

lugging my LINN DRUM around to different Studios.

As a side note ... I did an A/B between a few of the Linn plugins .... against the real thing.

Something about the Real Thing. Plus, opening the hood to get at the Filters and Tuning ...

[also to note .... yes, my LINN was a bit special. I had purchased it from Rodger.


But still, the damn thing weighted a ton. And my Korg M1 was also a drag to carry.

Now that we're old men ... we CAN complain about it

.

Michael, you missed the point!

This is a virtual analog synth I made. I have used a few tricks to make it sound as "analog" as I could.
I think it came out nice.

https://youtu.be/iZUiMvwpXZ4

Took me a couple days to make it, would have taken forever to make a real one, lol.

I might migrate it to FS soon.

A terrific take on something minimoog-inspired; nice work.