10 Jul
2014
10 Jul
'14
4:44 p.m.
as a former Gravis user I hawe to tell
you that it isn't really a synth in the way you're thinking of, but a
sample playback system where you had a utility to load your own sample sets
Right for the Ultrasound, i've missed it.
I also think that producing OPL3-quality FM synthesis
with the OPL3's
polyphony is trivial for today's CPUs, which is why you don't see those
technologies around much anymore.
Yes, it might be trivial, but as with every hardware piece there is a sound to it, which I
like and want to know what's possible with them (specially since I can't afford a
nice analog synth at the moment).
But the periodic appearance of hobbyist-level
SID-based devices for modern
PCs indicates you're not the only one with this sort of idea.
I used to think of these devices as hobbyst's things, but (specially regarding the MOS
SID) their demoscene users tend to take some art out of them. And they actually were
designed with a musician's perspective (according to Bob Yannes).
And if you get into hearing the sound of the waveforms and the filters, they have an
undeniable character, which you can probably match by drawing waveforms on an editor, or
with a capable synth like zyn, but then every other sound in the world is synthesizable or
samplable.
It's not only nostalgia, I want to believe.