Comments on: AES: Moog, Classic Synths Go Virtual with Competing Products for Vintage Lovers

By: Create Digital Music » Our Favorite Things: Music Technology Holiday Gift Picks from CDM

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:34:19 +0000

[...] IK Multimedia SampleMoog, $239 from Amazon.com (see our coverage of the announcement and comparison with Arturia’s offering) [...]

By: dinerdog

dinerdog — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:40:44 +0000

Peter, I was wondering about CPU usage? How does that compare between the two?

By: velocipede

velocipede — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:50:45 +0000

I tried the demo of Analog Factory last night. The few patches I tried were quite nice. Could be the poor man/lazy programmer’s Kore.

Here is a link to Arturia’s explanation for their “True Analog Emulation”:
http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/analogfactory/tae/intro.html

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:29:00 +0000

poorsod … that’s true, but I’d say the use of the wavetable oscillator, the signal flow after that, all important. And in a digital synth, having a “sample” for a single cycle is, well, necessary.

By: poorsod

poorsod — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:43:04 +0000

You’ll find that most all analog-emulation synths are sample based at the very heart. In everything from Massive to FM8 to Thor to (I’d guess) Minimoog V the ‘oscillators’ are actually single-cycle samples of an existing synth (or perhaps additively synthesized; either way it’s a sample).

By: abplanet » Blog Archive » AES: Moog, Classic Synths Go Virtual with Competing Products for …

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:43:20 +0000

[...] from unknown [...]

By: velocipede

velocipede — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:09:08 +0000

Peter, you say that the Arturia Analog Factory is sample based, but is it, really? My impression was that, under the hood, Arturia Analog is modeled. If not, Arturia is really hiding that info. They say, “These TAE® powered sounds offer unparalleled audio quality.” I suppose that could mean samples, but that would be fairly deceptive.

Assuming that AA is modeled, I think the Experience is an incredible deal. 3500 presets with a fair amount of programability is probably more than I could ever need (for synth sounds, at least). I admire people who whip up amazing patches. And, I enjoy tweaking their creations! To me, though I do it occasionally, the time I spend creating a patch from scratch is usually time better spent practicing or composing.

The AA Factory Experience keyboard looks nice, but the proof will be in the playing. If I did not have a Novation SL, I would be very tempted.

I wonder if Arturia can/will make the AF patches upward compatible with the full versions and/or make the keyboard compatible with those programs as well? (They could do something like Logic 8’s ES2, which has a simplified UI that collapses from the regular plug-in window.)

At the same time, I am left flat by sampled synth libraries. I’d rather use a free softsynth that actually generated the sounds from scratch. That’s just me, though. The proof is really in the sound, right? I have heard pro’s who prefer Scarbee’s sampled Rhodes to the real thing, but I would rather use the EVP88 (or the real thing). To each, his own.

At this point, though, I still have 1000s of patches to go through in Logic 8, Reason 4 and the GMedia synths before I need to add to my palate.

By: Oto

Oto — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:42:13 +0000

I honestly don’t know why I’ve heard so many people knocking both of these products, especially on Matrixsynth. Maybe they’ve forgotten that there are still children and musicians who are just getting started in electronic music and would benefit from a quick, easy way to play classic sounds without creating/tweaking patches from scratch, etc. Also, as Peter said, “we’re talking $250 to $350.”

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:51:20 +0000

We really are going to roll out comment editing. I promise. It’s the least we can do, given we have commenters who actually want to edit what they’ve said — how rare is that? I’ve just been a bit busy.

Well, the hardware itself makes sense to me; I think the thing is, there are lots of keyboards with this functionality already set up that would work equally well. I sure would like to see more hardware like Korg’s now-discontinued Legacy Collection controller.

By: Keith Handy

Keith Handy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:00:31 +0000

I don’t understand using sampling to mimic analog synths; isn’t the whole point of using analog (or analog modeling) to be able to do portamento/glides and manual filter sweeps, or manual changes to an LFO rate? Well, not the whole point, but still. Seems like it would be unpopular for the same reason that electric guitars are still more commonly used than sampled electric guitars; because of the limits that samples, by sheer definition, place on your control over the sound as it’s playing.

Modeling, on the other hand, makes sense to me.