This video reminded me of a friend of mine who has a kid who was learning to play guitar several years ago. He bought his kid an inexpensive electric guitar and amp. But his kid thought it sounded terrible. He wanted it to sound just like a real Strat going through a Marshall stack. But to him, it sounded really weak and "thin". I just happened to be over at their house when another friend of mine, who plays guitar professionally, picked up the kid's guitar and started messing around with it. The kid's eyes almost popped out of his head! He just kept staring at his guitar for several minutes - like "wow! what just happened to my guitar?!"
Emulation Not As Good As The Real Thing? Surprise: Two hardware CS-80s also don't sound the same. Just like two $200.000 Steinways model D, won't sound the same. So no wonder ANY emulation of a SC80 will sound different then Kevin Slaney's own CS-80, because they are modeled after different CS80s. Same with ALL the other synth- emulations from Cherry, Arturia, NI, UVI, Xils, GForce etc etc. You can be snobbish and puristic about the difference between electricity and mathematics, but that brings us nowhere (like being snobbish or puristic on ANY subject, imo). If Kevin thinks the Cherry audio Emolation is so off; maybe his CS80 is the odd ball here. Fact is that whether an emulation sounds as close, as good, as bad, as rich, as deep, as thin, as whatever compared to the original, also depends on the quality (or better: character) of the DA of your interface and your speakersystem. The same emulation with the same programm will sound different played through an RME, Universal Audio, Antelope, Motu or Behringer audiointerface. Let alone, the rest of your digital and/or analog chain of processing and your speakers and roomacoustics in the end. So I don't care if the Cherry Audio or the Arturia emulation is an exact match to Kevin's CS-80 or not; what I care about is if it sounds good, and gives me the character and creative workflow of the original. And THAT is why I like most about these emulations of old harwaresynths: part from the fact that nowadays they sound very good and mostly convincingly close to the original, the different ways these original synths were designed over the last 6 or 7 decades in terms of arcitecture and interface provided unique instruments for sound design, and are now all available to us. And most of the time without the irritating quirks of the originals ( crackling knobs and faders, failing voices, tuningproblems, lack of memory, keys that stopped working, leaking condensors, broken powersupplies, etc etc.) , but WITH additional features (higher polyphonie, extra LFO's, more modulation possibilities, extra FX, Sync to DAW-tempo, etc. etc.), that weren't available on the original hardware and that greatly enhance the creative usibility of that particular synth. So, I would say: in most cases Even Better Than The Real Thing.
Of course they don't sound the same and it really doesn't matter. If the digital version of the sound came out first people would be used to that sound and would reject the analog version of that sound, so it doesn't matter. It's all about what you are used to, everybody and everything is a product of their times, what was considered normal at a certain time in history is no longer normal in our time of history.
A tip for the Cherry Audio moaners: Try oversampling x4 + analog drift to 80% + choose from 4 to 16 voices. There you go! PD also detune a little to taste.
Id say when you take a basic osc. sound the software does sound extremely clean and "clinic" like some say "nothing like the real thing", but once you get some modulation going and combining the different sections, It's pretty well done for an emulation. Can it replace the original, no. But at 50.0000$ ++ what are the chance that any random musician will ever own the real thing, and then combine the high chance that IF you have the money, there is pretty high chance that your investment will turn into a 50.000,- doorstopper if any of the custom made IC's inside goes up in flame. Lots of the parts inside is more or less impossible to find replacements for today and will require a very skilled team of technicians to come up with a solution to make it working again. Not even Yamaha can help you out. I'll take the software version any day and use effects to make up for that lack of real analog sound. Then you can start to discuss wether ot not these old school synths or their software remakes actually make sense in the modern day where a digital or expensive analog remakes can sound like a million out of the box with just a few effects and people work completely different today making sounds than the classic way of the 70's and 80 where you had to stack several synth sounds to get that phat analog sound. A CS80 might sound cool on a record together with other sounds but is kinda boring compared to the massive sound you can get from fairly cheap digital synths today
In 2024, 64-bit digital synths are more analog and accurate than analog synths. What everybody argues about is the lack of physical interface. Everyone loves twisting knobs/gliding sliders! Just grab a MIDI controller and set it up! If you're a successful musician, 99% of your audience doesn't even know what a synthesizer is...
Definitely a difference. And that makes sense. Perfect description. I was just surprised how similar the GX-80 sounds up against the analog version which cost around 14k and up.
@@ProdByThatGuyFace yeah its good enough in my opinion. but I went with Arturia because this one doesnt have mpe, and I have a linnstrument so mpe what I am in it for. To bad we cant just get a deckhands dream for under 1k tho
It’s a combination of the cs80 and the gx1 synth combined . For the price of the vst is awesome compared to arturia cs80 v wich is also incredible but much more expensive
Good work - thanks for your effort to show that the GX-80 is at the very least, 'in the ball park, similar to, a reasonable facsimile of' a revered early analog synth. It just is. This is almost irrelevant though. Almost. The GX-80 purports to model the CS-80, with (very welcome) added attributes from the GX-1, wonderful effects, dual 2-voiced architecture. At the very least, it 'honours' the CS-80 heritage in terms of approximate look, control layout and approach to synthesis offered by the original. Whether it is 'exact' or not ...no. It's not exact. But who gives a flying turkey-bird! If you can get over yourself and whatever exactness-fetish that keeps you up at night, you could move on to exploring a wonnnderrfull synth. In fact, thank you again Cherry Audio for focusing on the actually most important thing. They released a highly desirable, very flexible, big-fat-thin-wispy-warbling-thumpy-pounding-smoothasbutter, ripyourfaceoff synth, which sounds very much like itself, while paying homage and showing respect and love to the CS-80 and GX-1 (while not being slaves to the originals). Approach the GX-80 on its own terms and enjoy fabulous synthesis, and yeah, it's heavily influenced/modeled after those early beasts. The fact that you can get synths like GX-80, Mercury 6, Memorymode and so many others, for pennies on the dollar compared to what original (and often unplayable or not very good) hardware cost ...is a real breakthrough ...if you're actually interested in sound-design, synthesis and music making. When I bought my first MS-20 brand new, I couldn't even dream of the kind of synthesis horsepower, sound quality and capability that is available now for a few hundred dollars. Quit yer whinin and enjoy the good times folks - its a synthesis dreamworld out there.
🙏🏾🙏🏾 . Actually the reason why its not irrelevant is because he said it sounds nothing like the CS80 and does not have that sound. The point was to prove it definitely has the sound of the CS80. Of course its not the same quality but that's not the argument. I was just impressed by the GX-80 coming so close.
The Cherry Audio GX80 might not sound exactly like a CS80. The real question is does a real CS80 sound at least 1000x better and is that difference worth the constant effort in caring for a delicate antique piece of electronic gear , that weighs more than you do? Id rather a bit of software that fits in my laptop and gets 95% of the way there for a price that doesnt involve a second mortgage and keeping a professional synth repair tech on retainer
100 percent!! I totally agree. And you can always run it through some analog gear to add that analog vibe if you need. Personally I like it as is with some console plugin or tape emulation flavor and it sound amazing.
Its funny seeing how pressed people get.. of course the one ya own is better.. its the only one ya got guy lol.. give me alittle eq and saturation i could make any synth vst sound like the real deal.. hell ive used one shots and have had aome respectable guys in the industry say what hardware you get that from.. people really think they can pick out hardware is just laughable to me
Well said! Bro, a lot of these guys aren't actually submitting music and being active in music like that so their opinion will stay in youtube comments. I've been in sessions with some of the biggest in the game. Never once have I seen a sound get pointed out as sounding like a vst or vice versa. Either its dope or its not lol. No one cares where the sound came from.
Your video is great. The soft synth though sounds sterile and thin with to much highs. The Original CS as with any analog synth has round high freqs and meetier low mids. The only CS that comes close to the original is the $40 wonder from Memorymoon ME80
🙏🏾🙏🏾 Thank you! Easily fixed with some processing. Running it through some UAD unison console emulations will definitely beef it up. And if you use UAD Luna you can process it then run it through the Neve/API summing to really add that little extra something. I'm gonna have to try that ME80.
I'm sorry but that poster was correct IMO. I've bought several Cherry VSTs and Cherry's modular system, even programmed a module for it, and not sure what they do, but all of their VSTs have a harsh digital and flat sound. Yes, the basic sound characteristics are there, and it's recognisable, but it has none of the refinement. The more I listened to the Cherry VST's the more their sound sounded the same to me across all of them. It's something you hear and then cannot unhear. I suspect they use low (44khz) internal sample rate processing that generates artifacts or something... It is a both sharp and darkened sound at the same time. A bit like my Yamaha virtual analog keyboard. It's nice if you like that gritty digital sound, but not for much else. To give this a positive spin: I've tested many VSTs to find ones that do sound good, and so far I really liked UE PolyMax and Softube synts. To my surprise VCV Rack at high samplerate (192Khz and above) also sounds pretty great! Especially with the Doepfer mods.
I hear you but I totally disagree. CA synth have always sounded good but IMO the sound quality has definitely improved since they started with the DCO-106. And don't forget you can use the Q button to change the oversampling all the way up to 768 kHz to get the best quality. I do love VCV tho. I will definitely be covering that beast soon.
Did you actually use the Oversampling function. 3x or so is where it starts getting the depth of a real analog, but even 2x on is a major improvement. And thing thing I think everyone complains about of soft synth vs real analog, and this includes people I have heard complaining about the DX7 emulations as well, the originals have to be plugged into a preamp of sorts to record it. Those preamps will almost always add some color and depth to the source audio. The way I get around this honestly is, I usually take a video of someone that has the original, I capture it's eq profile, then put that profile at the end of my signal chain. Usually it gets you almost spot on the the sound of the original, in the Cherry Audio, OP-X, Synapse, and U-he worlds with. :)
I do hear (compared with Arturia) a bit of brightness in most of Cherry's synths but I'm not sure if that is the "digital" sound you are referring to. All of Cherry's synths have an oversampling feature which doubles the sample rate. That said I think most of Cherry's synths use antialiased oscillators, so you shouldn't hear any aliasing even at 1x. What you might be hearing is just that some of the presets are bright and edgy and if combined with distortion, you might not like the sound of the preset. My guessing is the preset creators for Cherry tend to go on the brighter side of the spectrum, where Arturia's presets gravitates to the dark and warm. From what I hear most of Cherry's synths sound pretty good but some might start to break down at extreme modulation settings (which is a problem for most VAs) but for basic filtered and relatively slow modulated sounds, Cherry does fairly well. I find listening to test comparisons such as the Memorymode, I couldn't tell much difference between hardware until they started doing FM sounds (a test he used for other synths as well where they also started to break down). My guess is oversampling might help for the FM stuff. I found when trying to recreate some of the dark Arturia patches though, I could get those sounds more or less on the GX. Also when comparing an analog against an almost 50 year old synth, there will be differences as there would be differences from one CS-80 to another. As I doubt Cherry and Arturia used the same exact reference synth and even if you are using a reference synth if the synth hasn't been maintained, it might be out of calibration after 50 years and most likely won't sound the same way it sounded in 1977. Also as far a "flat" sounding that could mean anything as when I go to Guitar Center to try out a real Analog synth, I find some of them can sound "flat" and lifeless as well as many of those synths lacks effects and can sound cheesy from a modern perspective. I remember the first time I heard an analog synth in the 90s after reading about how "warm" they sounded from reading articles and only being exposed to digital synths. My friend brought over a Roland JX8P and after going through some presets, other than one or two bass patches, I was highly unimpressed (but I didn't know then that the beauty of an analog synth was its ability to coax the sound and program it into what you need)
There's brightness. Arturia honestly I consider as a joke at this point, so I will no longer comment or try to defend them. The brightness doesn't make sense to me to be honest, but the Cherry with Oversampling on sounds great. Kinda of like the new OP-X 3 Max, with Oversampling, except for the first time, OP-X 3 doesn't sound or feel like software, instead it's a UBXA killer at 1/10th the price. I would urge anyone to try it out, but I urge anyone to actually try Cherry on their own machines as well
@@ProdByThatGuyFace I must admit that this time I did not try oversampling. I should have tried that, and stand corrected on this plugin. My bad experience with them mainly comes from VCV, which internally works at a low samplerate and does not seem to oversample. I actually tried developing an specific set of devices for it, using their Java SDK, where I used oversampling and a multi-channel cable to instead of multiple sound channels, would send double the data bandwidth over it. Try comparing it with VCV at a higher samplerate. I never finished the project, but something good came from it, since from that I developed my own filter and oversampler for hifi :-)
They actually don't sound the same but close enough, like who cares, only fucking nerds. He has a point in that if it doesn't sound the same then why buy it if that's the sound you're after. However, no one is making an album of PWM oscillator tests so.... If you make good music you make good music, and if you don't you don't.
His point was debunked because it does have the CS-80 "sound" just not the same quality of course which doesn't matter. LOL yep no pwm test albums whatsoever. But I agree with you, if you make good music then it will be good and vice versa.
Well done dude, I do love RU-vid assholes, they are really funny guys. Arturia version is a general soft synth as all Arturia synths are. I do like their Rhodes though.
😁@@ProdByThatGuyFace Oh yeah, they sure are. If you have not yet tried out Cherry Audio's Pro Soloist, give it a shot, really good emulation. Greetings from UK
We're not comparing the quality. That's not even possible. The test is, does it have the CS-80 sound because according to Kevin it sounds nothing like a CS-80 and hes wrong. That was the point of walking through the video because I wouldn't have been able to follow the video the way I did. Even the bell sound at the end would've been completely different.
@@mylittlestudio Absolutely plastic. Never a VST can sound like a real hardware. VST are so "perfect" and cold while hardware has a lot of electrical imperfections that make sounds unique. Good luck...
nonsense digital clone - there are a few plugins that sound pretty nice (OP-x, The Legend, by Synapse) - but this one sound like a parody to me - missing all good - and copying only what they are able to copy - it's like somebody copying a solo of gary moore and you say it's close - note its right scales licks - but zero soul - zero of just that element why I like Gary Moore - example
@@vimfuego8827yeah, I think he was dead and gone by the time most people found soft synths lol. Maybe OP-X was around? Speaking of OP-X 3 Oversampling version just released last week, and it's hands down the best soft synth I have ever heard.
