Softube Model 82 vs Roland SH101 UPDATE - Comprehensive Comparison + Tips & Tricks for Sound Design
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
- In retrospect I felt like I could have really done my recent Softube Model 82 review much better, there were a few issues with it. That being said, I still stand by my findings that the analog SH-101 square waves are not exactly square. Anyway, it's a nice synth it's just about how much you care about exact waveforms compared to workflow.
Also a lot of comments came through about the Roland Software having clean squares and thus it's a good comparison, no. Post-90's Roland can't even replicate their hardware to output the same signals as the Pre-90's stuff, I would hardly use their software as a comparison, and it also defeats the purpose of the comparison itself, it would create an infinite variable loop.
Anyway! For more information check the link here:
www.softube.com/products/mode...
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Softube Model 82 vs Roland SH101 UPDATE - Comprehensive Comparison + Tips & Tricks for Sound Design
Great vid! Subscribed after 3 minutes of your fair critique, unlike so many other youtubers saying "it sounds like the original."
In my opinion, you mentioned transients. Everytime I heard analog, the transients pop more (I'm a Juno 106 owner), which to me is a defining characteristic of analog. It gives depth. It boggles me that software developers can't get this baked into their products!
they have actually updated the plugin now! as for my ears the filter sounds better now, but that's just by my ears :) maybe you could take another look?
the force of those "simple" synths is waaaay underrated nowadays! This shows it once more! Thanks!
Thanks Dash!
I have the Tal-bassline 101and from what I can see.. I only have the Zelda free oscilloscope. but at the lower registers the saw ways looks like what you have shown on the hardware.
& the square wave also has a slight slant to it.
but the little peak in the tip of the wave form is still there. but much less prominent at the first octave (C1-B1)
I'm amazed that the developers haven't caught on to this when clearly you don't need specialist stuff to find the comparisons.
I got the Tal over the Softtube just because the Tal was cheaper & from the demo the waves looked a little bit better than the soft tube.
I think that the Model 82 is a step backwards for Softube. There is room for improvement. It does not help, if everybody tells them that their work is perfect. That would kill any incentive for progress.
Softube have built a reputation as one of the very best plugin companies. It is out of respect for their previous work that the standard of expectations is high.
Agree. It's a poor attempt at the sound of the 101, I owned one for ages, the rounded soft feel. The 82's oscillators have some awful resonant frequencies. Also, IHMO, there are barely any software filters that come close to good hardware filters when adding a lot of resonance. That smooth liquid sound just isn't here. I don't think anyone has done it in software yet. I got the Softube Juno and thought it sound good but after extensive use, it's just not worth it. Better to save up and get a Nymphes.
sounds like the 82 is just using a random number generator for the random LFO and i bet it probably uses the same thing for noise. the modulation section hasn't been modelled it seems as the envelopes don't sound the same either (SH101 has this piano or rim shot type beginning to its attack stage, whereas the 82 has typical mushy sounding plugin envelopes regardless of the stages being exponential or whatever) the only modelling it sounds like that went on is the filter, but even that isn't really one to one with the SH101(resonance is off by quite a bit IMO)i've got one of the earliest serial numbers for SH101 and yours doesn't sound much different than mine. i think mine might have a hair less bass from a slightly different tolerance of the RC filters before the output, but that's about it.
I agree, that's interesting thanks!
Well... I've also reported the issue with reso being more harsh on the plugin... I really do hope for an update, because other than that the plugin is really nailing it ;)
looks like vital was doing funky stuff near the zero point. would be cool to see how close a wavetable could get to the sh-101, keeping that in mind.
Good to have this follow up. I thought what you said and saw seemed mostly valid (that encoding distortion was unfortunate!), and I thought you were pretty clear that it's good aside from the issues you questioned.
I watched Starsky Carr's video after your first one. He didn't have access to a working oscilloscope for his Mac at the time of recording, so he just went by ear playing riffs on his real SH-101 followed immediately by the Softube, and sometimes even alternating notes between the two. Heard that way, it sounded extremely similar, enough that I would happily buy it. Sometimes I preferred the SH-101 distinctly, but it surprised me that there were moments where the Softube was the one I preferred. It's also nice that the plugin plays a greater range of bass notes than the original could. I'll run the demo when I can block out some time to properly try it.
das allergeilste bei Dash Glitch videos = NULL WERBUNG! Das ist so unbezahlbar :thumbs up:
I compared my 101 with the softube and roland cloud 101. Of course I prefer my hardware in all aspects, but in general they are good sounding plugins. Personally I found the behavior of the filter at maximum resonances strange, it is too growling in softube. The hardware filter is softer and more musical at high resonances and doesn't break the tone so much with growling harmonics. I would even say that in some ways the filter in the roland cloud 101 is a bit closer to the hardware. Overall, I was able to match the sound of the roland cloud 101 with the Softube model 82 almost completely (except full resonance). The model 82 interface is more convenient, though.
Softube smashes it with their UI. I’d love to hear what modeling the entire audio pathway for this synth sounds like. IMO the actual SH-101 has a far more elegant, musical and smooth sounding envelope! 😍
Agreed!
ditto about the envelopes
With their bundle you have sorted 90% problems if u r making electronic music..top notch sound
❤
🥳🥳🥳🖤🖤🖤
You’re too clinical about such a thing as music. We don’t live in a world where you have some weird doppelgänger making the exact same tracks as you but with all hardware. If you make a good song , you have made a good song.
Yes I said a
Similar thing at the end ;) I made a track with it that I’m happy with and asked if it really matters
It's the opposite of being too clinical. The tone of instruments make us feel things, some tones make us, uniquely, not like everybody feels the same thing with the same tone, but some tones make us feel things more strongly, that excites us, draws us in, focuses us, so we invest more into instruments that have this effect. This is an emotional feedback system with the electronics, or the bits, whatever it is, a string and wood and wound copper wire around a magnet. But at its heart, as far as a musician/producer goes, it is an emotional resonance issue. The problem is, we don't have a really solid verbal language to effectively transmit our emotional responses to others, so the clinical approach is helpful to quantify what we are hearing, and thereby FEELING.
UI is a major component of our emotional resonance with an instrument. Good looking visuals (relative to and unique to each individual, though there are stacks of market research illustrating trends or commonality in people's visual aesthetic preferences) on software help create emotional resonance. But software is inherently at a disadvantage to real life material interfaces, as the core paradigm of computer use reduces the human user to a one armed, one fingered entity, which is vastly reductive of what a two armed, ten finger entity actually experiences with material hardware instruments.
If the core computer interface paradigm were improved, maybe that would change, simply having two mice, active at the same time, one fore each hand, would improve the user experience of software instruments so profoundly. And I'm sorry for the DS adulators, but MIDI is a travesty in this day and age. It was a miracle in its day and age, but it is a com protocol that should have gone through at least three backwards compatible updates by now, capable of moving gigabits of info per second.
Midi controllers create a profound disconnect with software instruments (versus analog hardware controls on hardware), there is a lag and an imprecision that is reasonable for 1983, but not 2023. It's the equivalent of using an Apple IIc versus the super x super computers we all use nowadays.
So, I'm saying, even if the sound were identical between software and hardware, which it never is, still, the user interface experience will always boost or subtract from emotional resonance with an instrument which directly affects the music, and implicitly, the sounds we make with those instruments.
Anyway the early 2000's called and wants this conversation back. We're all far beyond spoiled for choice these days, and the less you know you're missing with software, the more likely you are to have an emotional resonance with a crappy interface and a crappy sound, so the more likely you are to enjoy the soft music making experience.
And a caveat, of course, I'm neglecting all of the immense pluses to software like instant state recall, more complex modulation capabilities and ease of access to those capabilities, and multiple instances of an instrument. Nothing like plunking down $3k on an instrument and you get one voice out of it at a time, lol, when a $50 soft synth can give you 20 instances of the instrument, all creating unique voicings, all at the same time.
NEWAYS, its all good.
I dont totally think oscilloscope is the best way to compare.. a minor difference in tone can create a large difference in visual waveshape
Also the random thing seems to my ears to be more of a modulation strength vs center frequency than any difference in the actual randomness.. would probably sound the same if you brought up the filter a little on the sh
I think that is exactly why an oscilloscope is a great measurement method, rather than basing anything on what we think we ear, because the ears are very quick to adapt. A spectrum analyzer would display the FFT (all frequencies currently present) but won't take into account the phase of each harmonic, which is hugely important in real-world context, especially with faster/more transient genres :) The random is 100% more of a turing random than true random, it wasn't about where the frequency was hitting and more about the succession of similar sounds it would spit out in a sequence, rather than randomizing over a wider range.
@@DashGlitch IMO these plugin designers are going more for an audible recreation of the synth than a scientific one, in Starskys video they sound very similar, but waveforms look "Vastly" different.. yet on the original SH 101 the square wave really doesnt even look like a "square" at all despite sounding like one.. just shows how visual info can be so different from audible perception
@@WAKMM I wholeheartedly agree, but for me phase is important, it's what makes or breaks the low-end in the track, and probably one of the reasons the SH-101 is so iconic for bass sounds. A legato note will resonate with all the correct frequencies, but a staccato note will react very different, depending on which harmonics are earlier in the phase cycle. Starsky only really plays legatos in his video and thus the phase of the sound is irrelevant. It's very much contextual
@@DashGlitch sehr lehrreich !!!
It's clear that Roland engineers tuned the crap out of their circuits back when Roland made relevant synths. They tried hard. And it shows.
I've got an Akai AX-60 from back in the day, which uses the same synth on a chip as the Juno, so, it should sound the same right? The Akai is entirely untuned, with the wrong fader tapers (log/exp/linear) being the cherry on the top of Akai's failure to actually tune a circuit to be a musical instrument, rather than simply being a simple electrical engineering project.
Yes, the Akai can make more f'ed up sounds, but the Juno can always make musical sounds. I'm a FSU kind of producer, but still, I'd rather have the JUNO! And the 101!
Square's use of, ostensibly, a 101 is masterful and what alerted me to the really compelling sound of that little synth. Unfortunately, I lived in LA during those years, and there weren't any 80's analog synths in any dumpsters, that I continually checked, at least. Used prices have always been too high for me.
I haven't looked into it, but I assume the Behri 101 clone falls far short of the actually tuned original? Anyone with experience?
Never apologise. They'll just want more.
I suggest you use your ears instead. The capacitors you circled on the schematic are not in the signal path and do not have LP filter function.
A waveform that curves do not add harmonics, it does the opposite it emphasizes the low frequency, think sine wave, a curve. The harmonics comes from the edges, so sharp edges with a slightly sloping top can very well sound the same as a perfect square. You got it backwards. Also your old SH may be out of spec so it is not the best reference, unless you recap and calibrate. Anyhow, you can learn EE and revisit if your want, or bring in some experts.
They’re literally on the output of the synth and are identical to the filter diagram which I displayed, but ok Einstein 👍 you seem to be the expert so I’ll take your word that ears are the most quantifiable measurement.
P.s there are plenty of adjectivey comparisons in the video too, did you miss the other 45 minutes? 🤣
P.s read the comments of all the other sh101 users who have found the same results, I think you need to check your bias. First you said I must use my ears, then study EE. Do you want the science or opinion lol? I have both my takes in the video and almost all the other sh101 users I know personally and in the comments seem to agree 🤣 do you have an sh101?
@@DashGlitch I have half a dozen old analog synth, I have a 4-ch oscilloscope, I have designed analog circuits. I said use your ears, or study EE and revisit. You don't seem to read very well. Also, since you don't understand waveforms, learn it or don't discuss (unless you want people with knowledge to set you straight, but I doubt you want that). Again use your ears instead. You only make a fool of yourself trying to be scientific when your are clueless.
Use your synth by all means and listen and compare and argue if there is a meaningful difference. But stop pretending you understand harmonics or EE when you obviously don't. I'm not saying there is no meaningful difference, again that's not the point. Again the point is, don't pretend you can explain it scientifically when you are clueless. That's why I say use your ears. I'm sure your have good ears and a sense for when something sounds off in a meaningful way.
@@rikkshow Cool story
thing with companies like Softube , most of the stupid marketing bullshit is ripped apart by someone who knows there stuff
Who ripped apart softube ?
@@chrisrevel2801 No one, he's just "talking" mindlessly.
I had massive respect for your insight on your original review, but you sold out to SoftTube and your opinions are owned by them now.
I haven't changed my opinion though?