Whats the fattest sounding VA? A Virus?
 

Maybe you guys could define what you mean by 'fatness' whilst your at it! To me, VA's can put out alot of sound......but is this really 'fat' ? I think of analogs as being fat...yet most of them dont have more than 2 oscilators....and 1 filter. Most dont even have a unison button. So my question is.....what defines fatness....and in your opinion...whats the fattest sounding VA?

DS

fat=harmonicly rich?

I guess so Tommer.....however that can be misleading....because i think most VA's are harmonically rich....but there is often something 'missing'. Well to my ears...thats what it sounds like....however maybe this could be explained in terms of the audio limitation of digital?

DS

My def's:

Fat = dynamic, with depth, articulated, full (but not overpowering), saturated, coloured, warm, very smooth, harmonically-pleasing, not harsh, and doesn't require much post/external processing (if any).

That's all I can think of for now.

Can't really say which VA sounds fattest as I have limited experience of the whole shebang of VAs.

Listening to many various samples and audio demos of real analogues in the past (not VAs), the Jupiter8 and the Juno106 appear pretty damn phat compared to most, although I haven't been able to try them in person yet.

This is difficult.

Some people (who mostly use analog gear) define that "fat" means mostly the sound of the filter, maybe with high resonance amounts and how the filter sounds when it's been tweaked. So the filter sweeps may sound "fat" only with 1 or 2 oscillators. So this might be the fatness of the filter.

Many trance music producers define that "fat" means a sound where a huge amount of oscillators are playing at the same time with different detune amounts. The sound is fatter the more you can detune it and add oscillators without losing the sounds original character to noise. At some point the sound becomes just a huge noise if there are too many oscillators playing at the same time so there's always a limit of fatness. The filter has nothing to do with this kind of sound fatness so this must be the oscillator unison fatness.

Then there's the fatness of a single oscillator playing just 1 basic waveform. Analog's always sound fatter than digital synths. I can easily recognize a sound of an analog synth altough the filter is fully open. For example the waldorf pulse sounds very fat altough the oscillators are digitally controlled (DCO). VCO synths sound the fattest of all. Then come the DCO's and finally VA synths.

Usually I mean the unison sounds if talking about fatness.

The fattest sounding va synths are the JP80x0 and the virus.

i dont think fatness is a case of a number of oscillators. the purest, biggest sounds i come up with (not necessarily in volume mind you but in terms of presence) are single oscillator sounds. pure saw on audiorealism bassline. i can only imagine what its like on a real TB but i can hear the difference in my 303 lines with those of fatali on the track city of god. theres a lovely warm analogue hiss and warmth and a slight pfffhhhh kind of muffled fuzz along with the sound thats gorgeous on the real TB.

the more oscillators i pile on the virus, the more complex the sound becomes but it loses its purity in the process. pure sine basses and pure saw 303 type leads. those are the kinds of sounds i try to get in the music i write. and i think they sound much bigger than some of the more complex patches i produce. im going through i phase where im going back to basics and discovering some of the purity and simplicity in sound. i think ive been bogged down too much with multi oscillator, multi filtered, multi effected, multi timbral patches.

unison? thats one way of making a sound artificially bigger. increasing the volume is a not so subtle way of making a sound bigger. as is distorting/overdriving it.

the jp's supersaw imho sounds fat. but not when you over do it. when you overdo the detune, overdo the chorus it loses its purity. its a really fine line but retaining some of that simplicity and just enough of the pure saw wave sound, it really sounds amazing to my ears.

i think when i talk about fatness im referring to a quality that a sound has. in particular, a warmth and a presence without the need to artificially increase it via bass boost type effects/overdrives/compressors/unisons.

in the case of TBs - sure a good distortion only makes it sound better (especially for some hard psy leads. HELL YEA!) but you dont feel as if you need to heap on the effects to get it sound better. it already sounds great and big and FAT. all the effects you put on it, that just accentuates an already great sound. just accentuate an already BIG sound. pretty shit description i know because i havent really described it - jsut described everything around it and said 'well its not that'

but you get the idea right?