Keyboards.de compares vintage and emulations

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Wed May 05, 2004 7:27 pm

Check out some samples the German magazine Keyboards made in a comparing test @ http://www1.keyboards.de/magazine/m0404/404022wp.html

Years ago, Keyboards also made Saturn, a classic on our platform.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:01 pm

Did Saturn use stock CreamWare atoms or did they make their own algorithms?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:45 pm

Stock atoms. You don't install new atoms with the device, do you?

This doesn't mean there can't be no new algorithms - they can be made using low level stock atoms.

Faybs · Post by **Faybs** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:58 am

Which is the emulation and which is the original ? (First or second ?)

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:15 am

I believe it says the first recording is the emulation, followed by the hardware version.

I just took a listen to the Pro One comparisons, and I was surprised that they made several examples where the settings are different between the two:

example 4 - the filter envelope's sustain level is different (higher) in the hardware recording.
example 5 - the emulation's pulse settings are not set to as 'square wavish' as the hardware settings.
example 6 - the emulation's oscs are tuned to the same octave; the hardware has the oscs an octave apart.

To my ears, these affect the results in a significant enough way (more
so for #5 & 6).

with #4, was the tester trying to set things by visually comparing the
knobs? This could explain the sustain difference, but I would think it's
not a valid way to compare things.

Anyway, just was a little surprised to hear these examples with the
obvious 'mistakes' in the two settings, and wanted to express my
opinion.

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:26 am

On 2004-05-06 04:15, johnbowen wrote:
Anyway, just was a little surprised to hear these examples with the
obvious 'mistakes' in the two settings, and wanted to express my
opinion.

Good! I mean, bad... I mean it's good you noticed that, John. Bad is they did it unfair. Somebody German speaking should point them at their forum or at the headquaters.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:35 am

I think that mistake comes from the fact that, with emulation, people try to recreate patches from patch books to see if the replica is "exact". I think.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:14 am

Hi John,
well, you are right first comes the emulation example then the original.

They wrote, that the emulation is very close to the org. Pro One in the "simple", maybe not so complex, sounds. #2 and #3

In the higher tones the emulation and org. sounds different. #1,4,5 It seems that the emulation sounds "too good".
The emulation has more higher tones but not the same bite.

At #6 they wrote that the org. has a softer attack and the emulation is always harder and more precise. They mean that the emulation works too fast. The envelopes of the org Pro One are not so fast.

Well, I can translate any answer from you and forward it to the magazine, if you like.
But I think you don´t care alot about it, or?

cheers

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:37 am

i particularly thought the Pro One examples were unfair - it doesn't seem that they have tried to match the sounds but the settings. There's one sound with a long rezzy filter sweep and the second one (original i presume) sounds great and it seems as if the emulation is weedy.

However with a little knob tweak you can easily get that rez sweep. i'm not saying CW's Pro One is as good as a real Pro One (i don't own a real one so i can't say), but i do know you can get that deep rez sound. i think they must have tried to literally match the knobs rather than the sound, which given analogue gear's ability to drift from unit to unit over the years is stupid.

Maybe they should have tried to match the sounds better and then discussed any differences in knob positions and the range of a parameter like attack etc.

Mr A

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2004-05-06 06:39 ]</font>

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:47 am

On 2004-05-06 04:15, johnbowen wrote:
I believe it says the first recording is the emulation, followed by the hardware version.

I just took a listen to the Pro One comparisons, and I was surprised that they made several examples where the settings are different between the two:

example 4 - the filter envelope's sustain level is different (higher) in the hardware recording.
example 5 - the emulation's pulse settings are not set to as 'square wavish' as the hardware settings.
example 6 - the emulation's oscs are tuned to the same octave; the hardware has the oscs an octave apart.

To my ears, these affect the results in a significant enough way (more
so for #5 & 6).

with #4, was the tester trying to set things by visually comparing the
knobs? This could explain the sustain difference, but I would think it's
not a valid way to compare things.

Anyway, just was a little surprised to hear these examples with the
obvious 'mistakes' in the two settings, and wanted to express my
opinion.

I actually did a comparison of original and your Pro One a while back via another internet forum. A guy who had a real one would post a sound and a pic of how the knobs were placed and I would try to copy it. If I copied the exact positions, I would get a different sound, but with slight tweaking of the envelopes I could get really close. So yeah, it's not quite fair to just copy settings "as is". You have to tweak it to try and get the sound as close as possible.

Faybs · Post by **Faybs** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:51 am

The minimax looks really great, but in example #6 resonance seems to be different.
Does somebody own a minimoog ?

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:47 pm

I also thought their "comparisons" seemed quite different between the hardware and the software. They were dumb demonstrations music-wise, too. And they used low-quality MP3 -- they really didn't tell me anything!!

Shayne

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:04 pm

The Creamware emulations sound pretty close to the real thing, extremely, and in some cases to me, they sound better. The same happens with the first synth, the Arturia 80V, the emulation sounds for me better than the real thing... just a matter of taste.

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Thu May 06, 2004 2:06 pm

I listened to these comparisons a couple weeks ago. They seem rather pointless since the mp3's are encoded at 96 kbps. Silly.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu May 06, 2004 2:29 pm

seems one has to peek at the mags' advertizers index first before reading a(ny) reviews

in the current issue of Keys (the other german mag) there's a special about drum processing. In one chapter there's a sentence about the Transient Designer '... an absolut must have for anyone processing lots of drum sounds...'
They not only refuse to mention the version running on Scope, but even deny it's existence '... there is NO software implementation yet ...'

cheers, Tom

ps: at least one of the artists named Adern and 'KickMe' as his favourite tool

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-05-06 15:30 ]</font>

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu May 06, 2004 2:48 pm

On 2004-05-06 15:06, Joxer the Mighty wrote:
(..) these comparisons (...) seem rather pointless since the mp3's are encoded at 96 kbps.

96kbps, mono. that's not too bad :>