Why 'hardware' synths sound better ?

[jhulk]

one reason that i find that harware sounds better than software including dsp

all hardware uses some sort of cpu

but the cpu is mostly used for the navigation and lcd

its the purpose made synth chips the antialiasing filters the oversampling dacs the components used and layout

which gives its charm to the sound

the dx7 and its of spring yes there are native equivelents but they dont have the expression of the hard ware

i have many real analog synths and many digital analog hybrids

and i can tell you that the software dont come close

the other thing which is great about the hardware is player ability switch on and your playing switch presets is fast

unlike softsynths and dsp which can take ages

you have to first switch on comp and wait then load program and wait then choose presets and wait

and there are no vsti filters that sound as good as a real analog one

ask any one with a modular synth the bottom end punch from a analog filter is cone smashing

but what is good about softsynths is the pitch tune

if you have ever played a polymoog live and the temperate rises due to weather they can go out of tune so quickly and you have to recalibrate them

not good when playing in front of an audience its happened a few times to jmj

the asr10 transwave synthesis is amazing and the synth is over 20 years old and still there is not a good vst or dsp synth that does audio rate wavetables and it has polyaftertouch no midi controllers come with that today the keyboard is a fatar keybed but they use ensoniqs coil boards and scanner chips for poly

and the audio rate wavetable module which is one of the lacking modules from our beloved modular

i have been making comparisons to the diva semi modular synth and the thor semimodular synth from reason and they sound similar they modules in the thor also remind me of the scope modular and john bowens scope synths which came first

[ehasting]

Warp69: can there be any differences in outcome due to floating point rounding.. or is the resolution on the float to high to see any impact when comparing cpu with dsp?

[tgstgs]

analog moves _ digital stays and is always the same
----------
dsp_cpu

to get a picture lets say you build a criclebuffer with 1024 taps and a multiply add for each tap;

you may realize this in stereo on an intel dualcore cpu with double var;

then you are at its end__

each task mr wi_ndow_s decides to be more important could bring dropouts______

--

on an old dsp you can realize this in mono without the chance to have a dropout at all_

so you need 2 old dsps for stereo

--
or other way round you need at least 7 * 2.4GHz intel dualcore to get close to an old scope prof.

the probl. with the delayed tasks on pcs stay____________

but that does not mean cpus are bad;

they have other advantages;

so the best would be to use them both -> like on our scope platform_

let the developer decide which one is better for which task to do__

combining the best out of two worlds_

good vibes

[the19thbear]

Cant say i understood everything, but interesting none the less!

[dawman]

Moral of the story, anything that sounds good, gets used.
The all CPU crowd is plain lazy IMHO, the all DSP crowd is too cheap to buy a modern CPU, and the Analog only crowd is deaf from years of overexposure and has too much money on their hands, probabaly 1%'r's, so the State should confisgate their gear, and have it at the Smithsonian for all of our Comrades to share and enjoy.
Sorry, my mind has been slightly warped recently from the Class warfare specialists at where my son is being indoctrinated, and the White House.

[Warp69]

But due to the O/S of the computer the performance differs with computers vs dsp for the SAME type algorithms latency wise; don't just look at DIVA look at any quality Native synth (Native starts out with higher latency due to buffer-size and it is Cumulative. And when a algorithm is too demmanding 'power-usage-wise included' some sort of Offline processing is often used wich is not a 'Timely manner').

And as far as power-consumption goes (The harnessing of the Processors power); the O/S plays a role in this as well wich is seen in benchmarks by ADK , DAWbench. When comparing Windows to Mac Windows was far more efficient core scaling with plugins and produced a greater result and when comparing older versions of Windows to newer versions the newer was more effiicient and yielded more instances, naturally the number of instances shrink as the buffer-size decreases (The compueter becomes less powerfull with less buffer latency). Also Native is limited by the Asio driver wich can be at full load while Task Manager is only reporting 10% use of computer. Every benchmark comparing uad to most powerfull computers by running the same plugin that's available for both platforms in a benchmark, the computer won but not to the extent it should have (i think one of the benchmarks showed the 6-core i7 computer at around 5x more powerfull then the UAD QUAD but its GFLOPS stated it should've been 10x more powerfull, obviously the O/S, Asio, DAW, etc (Native enviroment} are preventing the computer from being as powerfull as it should be as far as power/speed goes. Basically the benchmarks state that a plugin is more demmanding on a computer than it is on dsp's in many situations, and the results continue to worsen in some situations for computers (it becomes less then 5x the power). The computer's general purpose O/S and extreme multi-tasking while only truly being able to do one thing at a time all cuts into it's power/speed. When you're Natively simultaneously running DAW's, instruments, effects, automation, Audio tracks, sound-card drivers, Video-card drivers, internet, the O/S, Antivirus software, etc etc that speed of the computer is reduced. The reduction of the speed is often compensated for to a extent by raising the buffer-size of your DAW but none-the-less the speed is reduced.

Merging Technologies was GREATLY impressed with the performance they got out of a computer when they BYPASSED THE O/S for their Pyramix DAW.


EDITED

Does the above have any relation to the original question? Or any thing I wrote?

[Warp69]

Then what are the philosophical differences between DSP's, CPU's and GPU's that have positioned them as specialists for thier given application ? Thier reason for existing, if you like.

Or might manufacturers just as well be throwing intel CPU's onto 3D gaming cards and Avid HDX cards (if not now, then in future, when the software catches up ?)

A very simple answer... Price. GPU's are abit different since they are actual very simple cores (don't have alot of conditional and loop instructions).

Regarding your last question - just look at Intel Larrabee/Knights Corner/MIC. Eventually everything will be merged into the CPU. Intel have Larrabee/Knights Corner (Haswell might include Larrabee like cores), AMD have Fusion and NVidia have Denver.

[Warp69]

Warp69: can there be any differences in outcome due to floating point rounding.. or is the resolution on the float to high to see any impact when comparing cpu with dsp?

Yes - you will exprience differences if you don't use the exact same number representation. That's infact the reason why you can't null DSP and CPU algorithms - you can't just recompile your program for another platform and expect identical results. The developer really need to take care of number representation, overflow handling , timing etc. etc. The question is then - do developers take the time to match the different platforms - not really.

The function sin() doesn't produce the exact same result for Sharc, Intel, Motorola, ARM etc. You would have to develop your own sin() algorithm or emulate one of the orthers.

[Sounddesigner]

But due to the O/S of the computer the performance differs with computers vs dsp for the SAME type algorithms latency wise; don't just look at DIVA look at any quality Native synth (Native starts out with higher latency due to buffer-size and it is Cumulative. And when a algorithm is too demmanding 'power-usage-wise included' some sort of Offline processing is often used wich is not a 'Timely manner').

And as far as power-consumption goes (The harnessing of the Processors power); the O/S plays a role in this as well wich is seen in benchmarks by ADK , DAWbench. When comparing Windows to Mac Windows was far more efficient core scaling with plugins and produced a greater result and when comparing older versions of Windows to newer versions the newer was more effiicient and yielded more instances, naturally the number of instances shrink as the buffer-size decreases (The compueter becomes less powerfull with less buffer latency). Also Native is limited by the Asio driver wich can be at full load while Task Manager is only reporting 10% use of computer. Every benchmark comparing uad to most powerfull computers by running the same plugin that's available for both platforms in a benchmark, the computer won but not to the extent it should have (i think one of the benchmarks showed the 6-core i7 computer at around 5x more powerfull then the UAD QUAD but its GFLOPS stated it should've been 10x more powerfull, obviously the O/S, Asio, DAW, etc (Native enviroment} are preventing the computer from being as powerfull as it should be as far as power/speed goes. Basically the benchmarks state that a plugin is more demmanding on a computer than it is on dsp's in many situations, and the results continue to worsen in some situations for computers (it becomes less then 5x the power). The computer's general purpose O/S and extreme multi-tasking while only truly being able to do one thing at a time all cuts into it's power/speed. When you're Natively simultaneously running DAW's, instruments, effects, automation, Audio tracks, sound-card drivers, Video-card drivers, internet, the O/S, Antivirus software, etc etc that speed of the computer is reduced. The reduction of the speed is often compensated for to a extent by raising the buffer-size of your DAW but none-the-less the speed is reduced.

Merging Technologies was GREATLY impressed with the performance they got out of a computer when they BYPASSED THE O/S for their Pyramix DAW.


EDITED

Does the above have any relation to the original question? Or any thing I wrote?

Yes because it points out the difficulty of making a high quality algorithm run on a Native platform. It was all summed up in the Urs quote i posted "When it comes to sound quality computers get freakishly slow". I pointed out in my above post many of the ways a computer gets slow and naturally this affects algorithms. My post was pointing out how the Native enviroment operates and all the things that diminishes a computer's power and Realtime-timing both of wich some algorithms depend on heavily.

There is also another Elephant in the room that some may be overlooking and that is copy-protection. I believe that when some Native developers do get better algorithms than their previously released Native plugins they run straight to hardware world with it, such as Arturia (its possible the new algorithm Arturia had may have had difficulty running on a computer but in this situation i suspect copy-protection/money may have played a role in going the hardware route). I know when i spoke with Yardstick reverb company about a reverb port to SCOPE they gave me two reasons why not and that is neither Native or SCOPE can run the algorithm it's too demmanding (Despite the wild claims of computers being all powerfull and King of processors ) and copy-protection. Even SCOPE was'nt protected enough for them, but dsp's still are far more protected than Native thus more attractive to some Higher-End developers.


EDITED

[dante]

I guess when you remove the context of the environments the 3 types of processor currently run in (GPU, CPU and DSP) then the pure math of getting the best output from the same input becomes the same. The processor speed and programmer skills can result in variations in the quality or latency but the 'best sound' algorithm remains the same and can run on any of em.

So the skilled programmer may desert native in favour of the copy protection of a hardware platform, but in the end, his algorithm is still going to run on a processor, be it native, CPU, GPU or DSP. And it remains the same algorithm.

[Nestor]

I think that there may be reasons not yet discovered in terms of “energy”. I think that the sound may be different also because of the electromagnetism that flows into the circuits of analogue stuff, and not only because of the codes. Electromagnetism can transform both, the emitting sound and the way we perceive it.

One of the curios things that happen with analogue that happens in a lesser way in digital is that analogue synths tend to give you headaches after long periods of exposure to the sound, while digital emulations allow you to play for a much longer time without feeling sick.

I don’t think that we know all about “sound” already, not at all, because sound is related to energy and is energy in itself, so there is a long, long way to go still, to really understand what is behind it.

Anyway, I truly vote for a deep scientific investigation about the existing relation between electromagnetism and sound, specifically, the electromagnetism that sound can generate, this is what I mean.

[dawman]

Just buy a Solaris hardware synth and it will teach you the sound of science....

[Nestor]

Just buy a Solaris hardware synth and it will teach you the sound of science....

Cool, it will mesmerize me you mean...

[dawman]

I be Mutha' Fuckin' Hippno-Tized & Shit...

[Nestor]