I miss the excitement …

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

Make no mistake, we are living in the heyday of synthesis … If you choose a hardware workstation or ROMpler, you’re getting massive polyphony, a great big LCD, and probably a slew of physical controllers (knobs, sliders, and buttons). If you choose analog, you can revisit any decade you want and get a velocity-sensitive board with memory, MIDI, and a classic sound that only analog can do. If you choose software, you get unlimited instances, massive polyphony, total recall, and a huge UI for programming.

 

But there’s something I miss …

 

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, synths were advancing by leaps and bounds. And when a new instrument arrived in your music store and you hit the first key of the first few presets, you were in awe… No one could tell what the next year would bring, and it rarely disappointed. 1986 to 1995 was a fun time. GAS was at pandemic levels.

 

Other than the huge advances in polyphony, sample memory, and more physical controllers, I can’t really point to an instrument in the last 20 years that has given me that same rush. I can’t point to a technology or advancement that has given me the same sense of wonder and possibility I had when digital synths were redefining what was possible year over year.

 

Am I old? Does anyone view the next round of synths being epic advancements? Or is it just more memory/polyphony/presets for less money?

 

Todd

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

A rush for you might be Motorola based VAs emulated in software now.  
 

 

https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/

[GovernorSilver]

There's just no replacing the excitement you feel when you're young and/or inexperienced with synths and discover cool synth sounds firsthand, for the first time.

 

It's like when I finally learned how to ride a bicycle - that joyful feeling of finally being able to roll and pedal the bike without falling to one side or the other.  Later on I got to try much nicer bikes than that donated bike on which I first mastered the basic of bicycling, but I never got that joyful first time feeling ever again.

 

[The Real MC]

You're not old.  

 

You're setting standards too high and are disappointed when new products don't result in instant gratification.  

 

Like the woman who is looking for Mr. Perfect (not Mr. Right) and is always disappointed that they don't relive all the fantasy scenarios she has read from romance novels.

[mate stubb]

The Osmose is pretty epic.

[YashN]

Something about the Kurzweil K2061 being the new K2000 does it for me.

[JoJoB3]

Are you taking advantage of everything a board offers? Sitting with it/each to the point you can do almost anything you want with it live and make it your own (solo or with other humans)?

 

Or is it a rough test run of sorts, perhaps calling up most of its presets, reading a bit, a tutorial there, getting bored and then summary? 

[AROIOS]

 

17 hours ago, Sundown said:

...Other than the huge advances in polyphony, sample memory, and more physical controllers, I can’t really point to an instrument in the last 20 years that has given me that same rush. I can’t point to a technology or advancement that has given me the same sense of wonder and possibility I had when digital synths were redefining what was possible year over year.

 

Am I old? Does anyone view the next round of synths being epic advancements?...

You're not "old". Novelty-seeking is built in our genes. It takes a level of mental clarity to see the tools for what they are and to make most of them.

The next round of synth advancement is most likely "patch matching/generation". We throw a snippet of sound at A.I.; boom, it creates a patch of that sound.

[bjosko]

I think the last time I got a wow, was when I fired off the demo on my Korg M1. And with the high quality of the samples. 15-20 years later, not so much on my Kronos. Even it could do everything except making coffee. 
I never bonded with it. 
My first Nord Stage was a bit wow, much because it was so dead simple to navigate , morphing and WYSIWYG, and there was several ways to the goal. 
The rest are slow evolution in my opinion. 
 

Same happens with Smartphones, everything are getting better, but nothing really groundbreaking since the first iPhone. 
 

One thing that looks like an interesting thing are the Osmose ( as others have pointed out), except I can’t see myself having any use for the sounds in it. 
Paired with a Moog or other analog engine and a synth with samples, perhaps. Except that would be too costly for my toy budget. 

[J.F.N.]

I get the feeling that in general very little R&D venturing into unknown territory is taking place today. Lots of revamp of all sorts of off the shelf synthesis is packaged and sold in new boxes, combined synthesis variants shoved into one and the same machine, but still nothing "new".

 

I still wonder what happened to physical modelling and the intriguing stuff from the Stanford research that KORG and Yamaha licensed in the 90's, after one series machines each that just stopped.

 

I bought an EX5R about 3 years ago, only "old" synth I own and will never get rid of, lots of fun when I'm in that mood with the EX5R.

[JamPro]

I myself felt an incredible excitement when my midi-only sequencer upgraded to a digital recorder.  I built a new studio computer specifically to use this technology.  I remember feeling great excitement for Gigasampler, and felt crushed when they closed shop (of course, that technology is now under the hood of every virtual sampler).  I still get excited by the endless creative possibilities of NI Reaktor, and I love to spend time exploring those possibilities.

[ProfD]

9 hours ago, GovernorSilver said:

There's just no replacing the excitement you feel when you're young and/or inexperienced with synths and discover cool synth sounds firsthand, for the first time.

Bingo. Seems to be true of life in general. 

 

It has been said that drug addicts spend a lifetime chasing the initial high. I have zero experience in that regard.

 

However, I can see a similar thing with KBs. I remember those exciting moments checking out new gear in yesteryear.

 

Having played quite a bit of gear over several decades, the excitement of discovery has been replaced with the feeling of familiarity.

 

Sense of familiarity isn't necessarily a bad thing. That knowledge and experience provides me with an ability to get around on new gear easily and realistic perspective of what I can do with it musically.

 

Younger musos dive into old and new gear like kids in a candy store.  The possibilities to create and play music seem limitless.

 

OTOH, some seasoned musicians evaluate pros and cons and compile a wishlist of sounds, features and functionality they'd like to see in the next new gear update.

 

The *trick* is to approach gear with an open mind. As mentioned above, explore every nook and cranny of it. Be creative. 

 

There's a lot under the hood of today's KB gear (synths, ROMplers and DPs).  It doesn't lack anything. The gear is waiting for the musician to do their thing.😎

[lsj]

I agree, was blown away when midi first came out, when the Yamaha dx-7 and the Roland D-50 came out.

[marino]

In the last 20 years or so, the trend I see is more memory, more processor speed and parallel processing - but not many innovations in synthesis methods.

 

The most advanced synthesis methods used today are physical modeling and granular, both developed in the 90s. When I was growing up, the pace of the innovations was incredible: modulars, then integrated synths, patch memory, polyphony, FM, additive, Phase Modulation, sampling, MIDI, digital recording, digital effects, VA, physical modeling, digital everything...

Sadly, the most innovative wave in this field seems to have been the retun to *analog* in the early 2000s! Not that I don't appreciate it, but still.......

 

In late 2000 or early 2001, one of my first posts in this forum was about harmonic resynthesis. I attended the Italian presentation of the Technos Axcel, an incredibly advanced Canadian instrument; I also tried to understand how resynthesis was implemented in the Synclavier... well, Technos closed doors before they even started, and the resynthesis program on the Synclavier was never fully developed. I was hopeful that by early 2000s someone would implement an usable, advanced version of it; I saw it as the future of synthesis, the ideal crossing point between sampling and additive. But after the IRCAM/Oberheim fiasco, nobody seemed to care about it. There were a couple of attempts - a software called Chamaleon and also something else - but none had the same sophistication and details of the past instruments. (I think there is a version of it on Alchemy, but it seems to be limited as well)

 

[YashN]

3 hours ago, J.F.N. said:

I still wonder what happened to physical modelling and the intriguing stuff from the Stanford research that KORG and Yamaha licensed in the 90's, after one series machines each that just stopped.

 

I bought an EX5R about 3 years ago, only "old" synth I own and will never get rid of, lots of fun when I'm in that mood with the EX5R.

 

Still around: Aodyo does a cool one., some of it is in Kronos/Nautilus.

 

Yamaha could have leveraged the VL engine on a card for new synths, but they didn't somehow.

[YashN]

BTW, the Nonlinear Labs C15 can do some of that PM too, if you know how.

 

V.A.S.T. as well, but it can do everything and here again, you need to know your synthesis/DSP.

[YashN]

1 hour ago, marino said:

Sadly, the most innovative wave in this field seems to have been the retun to *analog* in the early 2000! Not that I don't appreciate it, but still.......

 

It looks like history repeating itself. It's all been done before. There's been a glut of analogue and what people are feeling is probably 'Subtractive Synthesis' fatigue, hence the many threads about lacking innovation or enthusiasm. The good side of that, especially with New Entrant Behringer (c.f. Porter's 5 Forces of Industry Competition), is affordable prices for mono, poly, drum and modular analogues. I, for one, appreciate that: I have my RD-8 rather than seek out the OG gear for a hefty price.

 

The biggest innovations were already done in the 80's and 90's from analogue to FM then to workstations with PCM + digital synth an on-board effects, waveshaping, physical modeling and do-everything-in-DSP.

The VL1 was insanely good even though for me it's not the emulative application that I find the more interesting. The VP1 was unfortunately not released for the masses and I think there's an opportunity here.

 

Kurzweil V.A.S.T. wipes the floor out of anything versatility-wise, yet many people even forget it exists - look at any 'synth timeline' and you're bound to find that many don't even include it(!). It is the most misunderstood platform even 30 years after its release.

[Bill H.]

16 hours ago, Sundown said:

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, synths were advancing by leaps and bounds. And when a new instrument arrived in your music store and you hit the first key of the first few presets, you were in awe… No one could tell what the next year would bring, and it rarely disappointed. 1986 to 1995 was a fun time. GAS was at pandemic levels.

 

The reason that decade was so exciting to me was that flagships were - finally - affordable !!!  As amazing as they were, there was no way I could get all that worked up about the previous decade's flagships, because as a married father of two I could never own one. I did have a DX7, but it wasn't until I got a Roland DP and rompler that I felt complete. 

[AROIOS]

4 hours ago, YashN said:

...Yamaha could have leveraged the VL engine on a card for new synths, but they didn't somehow...

They did test the water with VL expansion cards that worked with a bunch of Yamaha synths, but pulled the plug when MOTIF XS came along. There was likely not enough demand for those sounds.

https://ca.yamaha.com/en/products/music_production/accessories/plg150-vl/index.html

[CrossRhodes]

17 hours ago, Sundown said:

Hey all,

 

Make no mistake, we are living in the heyday of synthesis … If you choose a hardware workstation or ROMpler, you’re getting massive polyphony, a great big LCD, and probably a slew of physical controllers (knobs, sliders, and buttons). If you choose analog, you can revisit any decade you want and get a velocity-sensitive board with memory, MIDI, and a classic sound that only analog can do. If you choose software, you get unlimited instances, massive polyphony, total recall, and a huge UI for programming.

 

But there’s something I miss …

 

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, synths were advancing by leaps and bounds. And when a new instrument arrived in your music store and you hit the first key of the first few presets, you were in awe… No one could tell what the next year would bring, and it rarely disappointed. 1986 to 1995 was a fun time. GAS was at pandemic levels.

 

Other than the huge advances in polyphony, sample memory, and more physical controllers, I can’t really point to an instrument in the last 20 years that has given me that same rush. I can’t point to a technology or advancement that has given me the same sense of wonder and possibility I had when digital synths were redefining what was possible year over year.

 

Am I old? Does anyone view the next round of synths being epic advancements? Or is it just more memory/polyphony/presets for less money?

 

Todd

 

 

Have you thought about getting into the modular world? I just started exploring with the free version of VCV Rack and am already hooked on the endless possibilities. Hoping to transition into the hardware realm eventually but this is a great tool for learning and exploring new sounds in the meantime.

[YashN]

31 minutes ago, AROIOS said:

They did test the water with VL expansion cards that worked with a bunch of Yamaha synths, but pulled the plug when MOTIF XS came along.

 

That was exactly what I was already referring to: these cards could be used in several pieces of hardware up to MOTIFs, but you can't use them anymore in newer platforms. They could have used that card system again in Montage/M or integrated it but they didn't.

 

They did improve on other things, like the AN1X engine, but they also used just part of the FS1R for FM AFAIK...

[The Real MC]

9 minutes ago, YashN said:

That was exactly what I was already referring to: these cards could be used in several pieces of hardware up to MOTIFs, but you can't use them anymore in newer platforms. They could have used that card system again in Montage/M or integrated it but they didn't.

 

Standard procedure for Yamaha - planned obsolescence.  They have always obsoleted portable storage with advancing new platforms.  That way you can't load patches from new platforms into legacy products, forcing you to buy their latest keyboards.

[RABid]

My first exciting decision as a keyboardist was choosing between a MiniMoog and an Odyssey. The other very few keyboardists in my area were choosing between a Rhodes or Whurley. My priorities were synth first. I remember reading the Keyboard Mag review of the Rhodes Chroma twice, and it was a big review. Then I called New York and ordered one from Sam Ash. No one in my state carried it. I had the MiniMoog but this was a BIG step up. When I decided to quit my day job and go full time I took a trip to Louisville and visited the local music stores. Went to the keyboard department of Far Out Music and Wow. There was a Prophet 5, Memory Moog, Jupiter 8, and I don't remember what else. That is the three that interested me. I went for the MemoryMoog. For me, that was a high point. Then came cheap DCO poly synths with simple voices covered by effects. It seemed like such a decline. I did grab a DX-7. I needed a variety of sounds including piano, and I was tired of trying to keep big analog beasts in tune. 

 

For me the next high point was the ROMpler race between Korg, Roland and Yamaha. They were not the only games in town. Emu, Ensoniq and Nord had interesting devices. I had the Nord Modular Rack, Emu Command station and a few other devices. Like most other people I had a Virus. But every year or two we felt the need to upgrade our ROMpler to keep up with the racing advancements. Now that has slowed. I feel like we are in another sweet spot. Things are so good across multiple manufacturers there is no really bad choice. I finally got a Fantom 7 as my forever keyboard and topped it with a Jupiter X and System 8. Still got a Kronos 2 on top of a RD-2000 and an XK3c with extra manual. I don't see a need to ever get rid of any of them. For me, keyboards have gotten as good as I need them to be.

[David Emm]

"Epic advancements" are what I hope for in my compositions, not the technology. Part of the newbie sense of magic came with a lot of the sounds & methods truly *being* new. The mechanical issues were bound to be addressed and once they were, the responsibility for using the improvements shifted back onto the user. I echo Rabid; things ARE as good as they need to be. If there is any novelty still to be had, it'll be in ergonomic refinements that make the playing process smoother and broader, a la Osmose.

 

I still get excitement from occasional new patch sets, which either hit a perfect spot for something I was struggling to synthesize or more often, give me intriguing sounds to reverse-engineer. Playing in a live band is one kind of team-up; amplifying a good designer's patch into a new personal voice is another.

[Sundown]

Probably the last time I felt a true sense of wonder and possibility was when I saw Greg Ondo demo Cubase and VST technology at a local Guitar Center clinic. That was around 1999-2001. And honestly, the technology ultimately delivered on the promise he showed. It took a few years to mature, but pretty much everything he promised came true. It was the ultimate game-changer for a home studio musician.

 

Todd

[YashN]

3 hours ago, The Real MC said:

 

Standard procedure for Yamaha - planned obsolescence.  They have always obsoleted portable storage with advancing new platforms.  That way you can't load patches from new platforms into legacy products, forcing you to buy their latest keyboards.

 

Interesting. Kurzweil is planned non-obsolescence.

[Ed A.]

The funny thing is that back in the eighties into the nineties, the only synths that gave me that rush of excitement were digital synths. Ever since the Yamaha DX-7, Roland D50, Korg WS, M1, Z1, Waldorf and PPG wavetable stuff, Ensoniq ESQ-1, Prophet VS, Kurzweil K2000, Kawai K5000 all hit, I never bought another analog synth ever since.  But the Arturia PolyBrute 12 is tempting me. 😀

[DroptopBroham]

It's about time Korg brought us a new game-changer. Yamaha and Roland are clearly not up to the task. Need something to spice up these stale covers. If I have to play that Eddie and the Cruisers song one more time

[AROIOS]

5 hours ago, YashN said:

...They could have used that card system again in Montage/M or integrated it but they didn't. 
 

They did improve on other things, like the AN1X engine, but they also used just part of the FS1R for FM AFAIK...

I sure wish Yamaha flagships continued to accept PLG cards. But across the board, "XG" and "Piano" were outdated, "DX" was already a big part of Gen1 Montage, and there's little demand for "Vocaloid" or "VL" sounds. So "AN" expansion was arguably the only missing piece of the puzzle. Then Gen2 Montages came about and filled that void.

[YashN]

34 minutes ago, AROIOS said:

and there's little demand for "VL" sounds.

 

There was enough for them to enable the use of the cards on several gear lines for years. They could easily have included it as they already had the tech and know-how.

 

In the meantime, there was enough demand for a new entrant:

- Aodyo Anyma Phi

- Aodyo Anyma Omega

 

And prompted the Native Instruments founder to make his own synth capable of supporting that kind of synthesis, although not the exact same technology inside and they don't advertise that side of it.

 

There's always the Kronos/Nautilus as well.