Re: [LAU] Hardware synths

On Saturday 01 December 2007, lanas wrote: [...] Theoretically, there shouldn't really be a reason for softsynths to be inferior in any way at all these days. If the same algorithms are used - and that's well within reach with current CPUs - the results are identical. Obviously, you need to use a serious sound card to do any softsynth justice. Actually, you'd probably have an edge over most hardware synths if you use a really good 24/96 sound card. So, why do hardware synths still tend to sound better? (*If* they do, that is. I'm out of the loop, so I just don't know what the best of the respective worlds sounds like at the moment.) I believe it comes down to tweaking and polishing. Hardware synths are expensive beasts, and all you get is one instance with limited polyphony. They *have* to sound better, or be vastly superior in some other way, or no one is going to pay that kind of money. There shouldn't be a problem getting at least as good sound out of a softsynth, provided someone actually takes the time to tune the DSP to perfection and program a set of really good sounds. I'm not sure that is ever going to happen for Free/Open Source synths - but then again, it just might if/when the community reaches that particular critical mass. //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate .------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------. | http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine | | http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine | | http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting | '-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --'