Max digital Synth vs hardware synth
In the past days I've been thinking about buying a hardware synthesizer module (Waldrof Blofeld or Korg Minilogue XD) to control with a MIDI controller I own. In particular, Blofeld catched my atention. It is a 16-part, 25 voices multitimbral digital synth with osc that can be nomal waves, wavetables or samples.
I know that there are plenty of VSTs that can do better than both of those hardware synths, but I started to wonder if it is a feasible option to have a Max project that at does at least the same as the Blofeld.I ask this in terms of "feasability" because I am sure that it can be done, but I am afraid of the following problems
It would take too many CPU resources and any other program in the computer would make it sound distorted.
It would take too much time to develop and debug at a reasonable level.
It would involve manipulating lower level objects such as gen~ objects.
It would not have the sound quality than a hardware synth from a big company due to quality control, experience, etc.
¿What do you think?
On the personal note, I have been using Max intermitently for the past 3 years. I have bachelors degree in a STEM field, so I am familiar with computers. I have built my own devices for Max, which I enjoy very much because I have built a personalized control surface for my MIDI controller that, using pads as knob bank selectors, allows me to control 200 parameters using the knobs of my controller.
Here is a demo of a simple (3 traditional oscillators -> filter -> amp -> Delay -> Reverb, 2 Envelopes for filter and amp, 3 LFOs for Vibrato, Tremolo and Filter Cutoff) substractive synth:
I have little experience with hardware synths and I live in a country where there are no physical stores where I can go to try and hear them to compare their sound quality to mine.
3 random thoughts.
- most blofeld models dont have a midi out, so you can only use patch editors with it when connecting via USB.
- "quality" might be overrated. a totally "unprofessional", naive implementation of an aldo max/msp wavetable synth might still be more useful for your own music than a third party product for a number of reasons.
- buying a hard- oder software is not the alternative to making your own. why dont you do both?
Couldn't agree more with @Roman's points about "quality"(vs usefulness) and hard/soft not being mutually exclusive.
Yes, I'm pretty sure you could replicate the blofeld/minilogue algorithms in Max (esp. with gen~). Yes it would take a lot of hours to put together something like a blofeld package -- likely far more time in building the patch library than the actual algorithms. But, why do that? Why, when you can invent something different (or, borrow things from Max patchers that already work and glue them in more unusual ways to make something new & unique), and create your own library that expresses you?
And yes, you can do both. I've been 100% software focused for many many years, but in the last couple started to get a hardware itch -- partly because of screen fatigue and partly wanting to share the experiences with my daughter. Considered blofeld and minilogue among others. The latter looked interesting as they offer an SDK so there's the possibility of writing a gen~ patch exporting it to run on the hardware (though no doubt there will be a lot of devils in the details... has anyone done this yet?) https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/minilogue_xd/sdk.php
Well in the end I didn't get either, realizing that I'll hit walls fairly soon or get frustrated with design choices in them (the same reason that sent me to learning Max in the first place). Instead we're being sucked into the eurorack vortex... where there's also some really powerful options for gen~ export. More on that soon.
Hi Aldo, you might want to consider experimenting with some of the more advanced and 'modulatable' commercial VSTs in conjunction with Max. I personally love the stuff from U-He, the makers of Zebra, Diva, and Repro, and am able to get a lot of what I want by building complex modulation sources in max, sending that out to them, and then bringing the audio either back into Max or into Live with Max for Live. Just a thought, it may give you some of what you want to achieve. The audio quality of the U-He stuff is second to none and they are designed to allow very complex modulation, so the combo is very versatile. Reaktor is also fun that way.
the u-he stuff even runs on linux so people have run them on tiny roll-your-own pseudo hardware boxes.
hth!
Thank you very much for your responses. I didn't get the notifications of your posts, sorry for taking two monts for replying.
I agree with all of you in your general reasoning.
@Graham One f my motivations of getting hardware was spending less time in front of the computer as work already makes me spend 6/7 hours in front of it. Gen~ export that I need is the VST export, but with the current Ableton integration I doubt it will ever arrive.
@IAIN: I have worked with some vsts and, In effect, they are pretty interesting and modulatable from Max. Routing is somewhat painful but doable.I still rely on max for making most of my sounds as I like to be in total control.