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Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 2:03 pm
by tlaskows
Honestly, I wasn't very impressed with the Novation sound. It sounds a lot worse than a Virus or a Nord. The oscillators are weak and the filter sucks. I'm gonna have to go ahead and stick with Scope synths cause they sound a lot better.
-Tom
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:39 am
by JoPo
oxygenial wrote:Novation quality according to my experience is not the greatest or even very bad!
I'll not disagree with you ! The often used knobs of my Supernova are out of order and worst : the analog jack output have bad soldering and I must fiddle with to get the sound...
BUT ! the sound is absolutely awesome !
Anyway, I think if you buy that kind of synth :
http://uk.novationmusic.com/synths/ultranova?rd=1# you'll have the same quality and maybe even better... But apparently, still without digital output... I can see there is a microphone, so it must have a vocoder feature or something like that..?.. 425€ at Thomann, the price seems fair. But yes : the hardware quality is not the best at Novation, it's not german manufactured ! Like our PCI or Xite from SC ! Really a pity for such gear. Indeed, as soon as I can, I control my Supernova with other midi controler or better, with SoundDiver.
I also have a Novation Nocturn and the knobs are bad quality too, I don't use it much... But it can be a good DAW remote.
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:42 am
by JoPo
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:00 am
by frokka
This is a piano recording and it hardly has any sound above 7000 Hz.
That's not the proper way of testing a difference in sound potentially found in the higher frequencies.
I'm not saying there should be any noticable difference though, I don't know the motivation behind adding SP-DIFs to instruments - other than the fact that it provides a pure signal unaffected by gain and conversion. Perhaps the noise floor is different, or SP-DIF is more robust in live settings, touring, etc.
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:04 am
by tlaskows
Yes, I know...
But why put only one output on the M3 when it has a few analog. It doesn't make any sense!
-Tom
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:18 am
by frokka
tlaskows wrote:But why put only one output on the M3 when it has a few analog. It doesn't make any sense!
If you play your synth / instrument in a band, perhaps you only plug in one stereo channel (per instrument) and perhaps SP-DIF is seen as preferable over jacks in a gig setup..?
I've never played in a band so I wouldn't know..
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:23 am
by tlaskows
No, I don't play in a band. Not good enough. I played a clarinet at my high school and was very good with it. But the sound? It sucked! Come on. Sounds almost like a square wave with a little bit of low pass on it
Then I invested into a SoundBlaster AWE32. Yes, that one had an Emu chip and could load SoundFonts. It had filters (only 6dB/oct) but they were better than no filters! The reverb sucked. Well, everything sucked about it, but it was cheap.
-Tom
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:42 am
by tlaskows
Oh yeah,
The optical cables keep getting loose/falling out. Is this 80s technology? I switched to Z-link and they never get loose.
Hooked up my TV digital out to my soundbar, and the stupid cable keeps falling out! These were expensive cables
-Tom
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:52 am
by zerocrossing
I did. It translates to a lot more than an XITE-1 new to me. It includes some extras, but nothing that is of value to me. I pm'd the seller to see if they'd break up the sale.
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:40 am
by JoPo
Oh !

What I found :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Novation-Supern ... SwI-BWKedg
The price is unbeatable ! The one who has the money and like analog style synth should jump on it ! It is worth it !!
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:54 am
by tlaskows
Someone will take it...
I just got my 300$ Plugiator working with 64 bit Sonar Professional. Everything cool
The FM synths is neat and a drum box is not bad.
-Tom
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 8:23 am
by zerocrossing
I've been doing a bunch of testing to see if it's worth keeping my Neptune 2 considering I have Scope 5 and a couple of other analogs like the ATC-X. So far, here's my findings...
In terms of audio rate filter cutoff modulation, ProTone sounds almost as good as the Neptune 2 (though different, of course we're not talking emulations) at lower resonances. Start cranking up that resonance and the Neptune keeps it's self together where things I put together in modular and with ProTone and Minimax, start falling apart. Most native plug ins fail here too, though XILS 3 does really well. Is there a Scope synth that handles things like this well? A filter module?
Anyway, I can see for most bread and butter type sounds one might say "sell your analogs" but for more extreme things, I'm glad I didn't.
Re: What, if any, analogs would you keep?
Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 8:52 am
by tlaskows
Yeah, some hardware is good to have for sure. But for most stuff, software will be cheaper and won't cost you $$$ to fix if your chips die
That's why I sold my Jupiter a lot time ago.
Cheers,
-Tom