Quote:
Originally Posted by TweakHead
I think you can get more creative with instruments you know inside out then you would with a vast collection of instruments you don't know so well. Also, having a limited set of options many times helps. Only after a while you begin to feel the "soul" of the instrument revealing itself. If you pick something like the recent emulations of the famous (and wonderful) Roland 101 out there, and you start playing with it you'll often find yourself getting sounds like Hallucinogen (that's Simon Postford btw) did back in the 90's (and still today) and you'll see that having a limited set of features on a machine with all parameters at hand will make you focus on the interactions between parameters a lot more - and that plays a big part in designing unique sounding patches and more lively sounds. Same thing for Fat Boy Slim, for example, I thought of him with Berni here saying he gets inspired by samples: think of how much music was made with the Akai samplers and a few synthesizers... The main difference was that you used to have to invest the money on hardware to get you going and nowadays you easily have access to lots of instruments with different approaches to synthesis - but each and everyone of them, specially the more complex ones like Absynth has a very steep learning curve...
Software is getting there more and more. But you can get a lot more character from hardware devices still today. Simply running some audio through the amp stage of an analogue device gives you instant warmth you'd hardly get from a plug-in!
So, I'm just questioning the "uniqueness of sound" coming from the huge collection of instruments, here. I don't think so. Used to be easier as any studio would have very different tools: even the mixers had their own sound, you see. And you wouldn't get the same EQs everywhere. All that combined contributed to very different sounding music in the beginnings while today, if you're using the packed stuff from Ableton - for example - you're using tools that are used everywhere by everyone. Not saying they are bad, as most digital plug-ins don't even add any sort of coloration or character into the sound. They do when they simulate some kind of analogue circuitry - and that's come a long way recently for sure! But you see my point!
Take a look at Simon Postford's studio video on youtube. Also, check plug-in guru's videos on absynth. Insane stuff but it takes a lot of interface diving eheh
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yeah despite having a bunch of soft samplers I still use my old Akai most of the time just because I like the sound, filters & know it like the back of my hand.
I thought it was funny on the Simon Postford's video when he was showing how the panning knob worked & said if you are watching on a mono TV you wouldn't get the stereo effect...the video is not recorded in stereo! Too much acid can do that to your brain Lol.