22 Comments

Tim Clark

Looks like your table headings are backwards…

Good overview of these products though.

October 16, 2007 @ 12:44 pm

Richard Lainhart

Yeah, thanks for helping me lug that stuff down the stairs at the end of the night, Peter.

I have to say, though, that I love the Arturia stuff. I have Moog Modular V and CS-80V, and I think MMV in particular is a truly great piece of software. (That’s what I was running on the MacBook Pro at Handmade Music night, by the way.) I don’t think that the raging discussions about how close it actually sounds to a vintage, crusty old Model 55 are really relevant; I just think it sounds beautiful in and of itself, especially if you know how to program it.

And I think it’s a terrific learning tool, especially for the price. I recommend it to everyone who asks me about how to learn analog synthesis.

October 16, 2007 @ 12:50 pm

Peter Kirn

@Tim: thanks; I had screwed up the first couple of rows. Fixed now. Much like Inspector Gadget, I … uh … sometimes get a little clumsy.

Richard, I absolutely agree. The programming technique is different, you have sonic capabilities only possible in software — best to look at this as being able to build upon some of the vintage tech in a new way. My only real criticism of these two bundles is, from an editing standpoint, it’s not quite as nice as the standalone Arturia stuff or some of the other virtual analog tools, if you really want to create your own sounds. (I.e., I’d rather have Arturia’s Jupiter, except that unfortunately requires a dongle … one without a keyboard attached.)

October 16, 2007 @ 12:53 pm

joao z

(Classic quotes: “I do not mind other’s eyesight / I am self-determined so be crazy with be / Do not say that I am aggressive / I am self-determined and that’s what I am!” Top that, Roland.)

HA!hahaha—
i’ve enjoyed “smapling” ever since i learned to do it in the Roland S-550 manual!

October 16, 2007 @ 12:56 pm

metrosonus

Wheres Gmedia in all this? I want to see some undergroud bad bad boy versions of SH, CS, system 100-100m synths.

they are dropping the ball man..

October 16, 2007 @ 1:16 pm

Adrian Anders

I’m not crazy about the vintage/analog rompler instruments. I mean why go for something like that when for not much more you can buy an analog modeling instrument that can do a whole lot more in terms of custom sounds. There’s also older analog sampler libraries that can be manipulated much more than a static rompler instruments or if you look enough on ebay you’re sure to stumble upon an analog bargain or two.

These two are just simple, limited, and rather silly IMHO.

ATA

October 16, 2007 @ 2:09 pm

dead_red_eyes

For $349 with a little keyboard, that’s looking pretty hot. On the other hand the IK SampleMoog looks pretty buff as well. I’d love to get one or the other as I won’t take the Moog on the road or to a show … the damn thing is just too old and takes a bit to warm up. Hmmm …

October 16, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

Richard Lainhart

“My only real criticism of these two bundles is, from an editing standpoint, it’s not quite as nice as the standalone Arturia stuff or some of the other virtual analog tools, if you really want to create your own sounds.”

And I’d agree with that - I don’t find these packages as interesting as the standalones, because of the lack of programmability. Actually, the Arturia product I’m really looking forward to is Origin, which is fully programmable and lets you combine modules from different emulators for the ultimate programmable softsynth (in theory, at least.)

October 16, 2007 @ 2:14 pm

Peter Kirn

Well, obviously, there are some people who just want to pull up some presets, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

But the interesting thing, as far as how much you can edit, is to compare Native Instruments’ Kore 2. They have the front end where it’s easy to browse and find presets, and now those engines are built in so you don’t have to own the standalone products. But if you do, say, buy FM8, you can then go in and edit the patch from the ground up. That’s not to compare these products, which are vastly cheaper and focus on vintage sounds. But it does demonstrate that some compromises are possible. And honestly, if you get to the point where you’ve done a whole lot of sound creation of your own, you might also like easy patch browsing.

One other note: if you look through, there is still a fairly significant amount of programming possible. ROMpler-style, perhaps, in that the emphasis is on presets. But you could do some pretty drastic presets with filters, effects, etc., in each, and in SampleTank, the sampling engine itself has some flexibility. I think that’s likely why the preset count is so high relative to the number of actual samples/models. I also prefer the standalones, but just saying, it’s not like you can’t still do some programming with these, and we’re talking $250 or $350 bucks.

October 16, 2007 @ 2:21 pm

Richard Lainhart

“One other note: if you look through, there is still a fairly significant amount of programming possible.”

True. If I could, I’d amend my post to say “because of the relatively limited programmability.”

October 16, 2007 @ 2:31 pm

Steve

I’m not so sold on the idea of this add-on keyboard. It’s the equivalent of using a Windows mousepad. It’s disappointing that it wasn’t designed to compliment the software functionally. I think Arturia’s Origin will be much more interesting.

@Adrian: doing a whole lot more isn’t going to be a deciding factor for most of IK’s target market on this. More the opposite, it’s for folk who want a package that in fact does very little else but emit the sounds they expect to hear with zero effort required.

October 16, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

Steve

And by compliment, I of course meant complement. Would that I could edit post-sending.

October 16, 2007 @ 2:50 pm

Keith Handy

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.

October 16, 2007 @ 4:00 pm

Peter Kirn

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.

October 16, 2007 @ 4:51 pm

Oto

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.”

October 16, 2007 @ 5:42 pm

velocipede

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.

October 17, 2007 @ 1:09 am

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

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

October 21, 2007 @ 1:43 am

poorsod

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).

October 23, 2007 @ 10:43 am

Peter Kirn

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.

October 23, 2007 @ 4:29 pm

velocipede

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

October 24, 2007 @ 1:50 pm

dinerdog

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

November 13, 2007 @ 11:40 am

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

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

December 12, 2007 @ 12:34 am

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