Hardware vs Software

[RobC]

Microkorg VST only 149 USD? That's a steal (from me)! Nah, pass. Then I'd rather get the hardware.

[Goriila Texas]

I only played with the Extreme at Guitar center and like the way the Tube in it sounded.

The filters are digital maybe it's the converters because the MOSS board I have in it also sounds good.

Auto-gain control and soft clipping are pretty cheap to add to a device. That would add a fair amount of warmth when driven hot.

I found DJ gear tended to add a pleasing warmth.

But you can add that yourself if you really want it. At least that way you get to control what it's applied to.

What did you think of the valve in the Triton Extreme VST?

[Goriila Texas]

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

As a a Triton Studio owner no the sounds doesn't sound the same as the vst. You have to remember although the Triton is digital it still has hardware components that the signal passes thru to the converter and out the 1'4" outputs. It's the same reason any other hardware sounds better, it's some about going thru electricity and hardware components that make them warm. I can tell you for a fact my Triton cutoff filter sounds way more analog than the vst.

That's an effect of the preamps/converters its being run through. One could run the outputs of an audio interface into the inputs and get a similar effect for virtual instruments or run VIs through saturation plugins. I think the only place this hardware vs software debate still holds any ground beyond just preference is with analog gear (synths, compressors, preamps...etc...)

[Jac459]

I'm pretty sure you can install the Mac version on your laptop and the mobile part on a Android phone and that will work as well. Also means that if you like it, instead of getting an iPad mini, you can get a 10 inch Android tablet for probably less money.

Just install it, it takes about 5 minutes to get it up and running

Thanks mate, I'll give it a try !

[EnochLight]

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

https://u-he.com/products/diva/

https://www.roland.com/us/products/rc_juno-106/

https://www.synapse-audio.com/thelegend.html

https://www.softube.com/products/tape-echoes

https://www.softube.com/compressor-collection

Here’s a few…

[Goriila Texas]

What's up Enoch lol. You know at 50 I learned to just let people believe what they want and don't go back and forth with musicians on the internet. Why would they believe me when countless of mega platinum producers, engineers and musicians have said the same that hardware is still king and they don't believe them?

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

https://u-he.com/products/diva/

https://www.roland.com/us/products/rc_juno-106/

https://www.synapse-audio.com/thelegend.html

https://www.softube.com/products/tape-echoes

https://www.softube.com/compressor-collection

Here’s a few…

[avasopht]

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

His point was that if you feed the VST through the Triton converter, it would sound the same because, before the converter, all processing is digital.

But is the pleasing warmth of the DAC really that hard to replicate with DSP?

By the way, you do know that software runs on hardware, right?

[EnochLight]

What's up Enoch lol. You know at 50 I learned to just let people believe what they want and don't go back and forth with musicians on the internet. Why would they believe me when countless of mega platinum producers, engineers and musicians have said the same that hardware is still king and they don't believe them?

LOL well there's "belief" and then there's "fact". Countless mega platinum producers, engineers and musicians can't tell the difference between a quality plugin emulating hardware and the actual hardware in a proper mix, but you keep on keeping on, friend!

[Goriila Texas]

I don't know it might sound the same but this what a MOSS board looks like I couldn't find a picture of my Triton board, but by the looks of it it's more going on than just converters.

MOSS board-.png (344.45 KiB) Viewed 2421 times

It's not the DAC because hardware compressors for example don't have DAC's but are superior to software in sound. Guitar amps, cabinets and pedals are superior to software as well. It's something about circuitry and components that sound different and that is just facts.

Software is just code if you stay in the box and why I run a hybrid setup, just running my audio through my distressors warms the audio.

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

His point was that if you feed the VST through the Triton converter, it would sound the same because, before the converter, all processing is digital.

But is the pleasing warmth of the DAC really that hard to replicate with DSP?

By the way, you do know that software runs on hardware, right?

[Goriila Texas]

The fundamentals of a musician/producer should always be to maximize tone and sound quality the best way you can. If you're not doing that you're not chasing greatness imo.

What's up Enoch lol. You know at 50 I learned to just let people believe what they want and don't go back and forth with musicians on the internet. Why would they believe me when countless of mega platinum producers, engineers and musicians have said the same that hardware is still king and they don't believe them?

LOL well there's "belief" and then there's "fact". Countless mega platinum producers, engineers and musicians can't tell the difference between a quality plugin emulating hardware and the actual hardware in a proper mix, but you keep on keeping on, friend!

[motuscott]

I prefer a coated REMO Ambassador for snare topside myself, but that's just me

[EnochLight]

The fundamentals of a musician/producer should always be to maximize tone and sound quality the best way you can. If you're not doing that you're not chasing greatness imo.

I think that's the fundamental difference between our philosophies: you appear to be chasing greatness; I prefer to chase the art. I'm not saying one is better than the other - it all boils down to what you feel is most important, IMHO.

[dvdrtldg]

The fundamentals of a musician/producer should always be to maximize tone and sound quality the best way you can.

I get what you're saying here, but the trouble with this statement is that you're presenting a notoriously woolly, indefinable concept ("maximising tone and sound quality") as though it were something solid and foursquare and universally agreed upon

If someone likes the sound of a saturation plugin and thinks it sounds just as good as a hardware preamp, there's no objective measure by which you can argue they're wrong

[avasopht]

I don't know it might sound the same but this what a MOSS board looks like I couldn't find a picture of my Triton board, but by the looks of it it's

Right, so the MOSS board chips are 100% digital.

That means everything it does can be replicated in software with 100% precision.

That's what DSP means.

And this is what the Korg engineers who made the MOSS boards believe, understand, and depend on.

If this was not true, they wouldn't be able to make their MOSS boards. In fact, nobody would be able to make digital hardware if it couldn't be replicated in software. And no DSP chips are designed in a way that cannot be replicated in software.



If there were anything that couldn't be replicated in software you'd know because it would be a horrible-sounding glitch.

Unlike analogue circuits, digital circuits don't tend to give you subtle warming when there are errors in the circuits. Instead, it just sounds ugly.



There is one slight difference between the Korg Triton hardware and the VST - the arpeggio option does not work in the VST.



Now, there's always the highly unlikely possibility that Korg has chosen to make the VST use completely different DSP algorithms, but that would be trivial to measure (and thus far, nobody has demonstrated this). There's also no need to. That would require them to basically design everything from scratch, which would be a gargantuan task, as they'd still have to make it compatible with old patches and their datasets. And we have enough CPU power to not need to cut any corners.

It's not the DAC because hardware compressors for example don't have DAC's but are superior to software in sound. Guitar amps, cabinets and pedals are superior to software as well. It's something about circuitry and components that sound different and that is just facts.

If they're analogue then sure, they wouldn't have DACs. But then we'd be comparing analogue circuits to software, right?

But if it's a digital device, there will be a DAC somewhere (though modern DACs are going to be much more transparent). Some digital hardware doesn't have DACs, and instead, only has digital outputs. It would be interesting to see what you think of a Triton sound when its DAC is bypassed (which you can do by using the optical outputs with the Studio and Extreme).




---

Software is just code if you stay in the box and why I run a hybrid setup, just running my audio through my distressors warms the audio.

There are a lot of misconceptions about "hardware", etc.


What I'm about to say is the global consensus among DSP experts (including all engineers at AKAI, Korg, Yamaha and Roland). If this were not true, DSP would not even be possible


1. Software is machine code that is executed by hardware (CPUs). The hardware DSP accelerators you find in hardware devices perform the exact same work as the arithmetic processing units in CPUs.

2. All DSP chips can be replicated with 100% accuracy in software.

3. The transistor-based logic gates in a CPU's ALU function exactly the same as the transistor-based logic gates in every chip (including the MOSS board). The DSP chips in DSP hardware are not magic. They process audio *exactly the same as software.

4. Not only do all DSP chip designers believe this, but their chips wouldn't function if they could do anything differently than software.

5. The fact that hardware DSP can be 100% replicated by software is a fundamental property of maths, and if it were not true, then software would not be able to function.

*: there are rare fringe cases, but those are extremely rare anomalies, and I don't know of any hardware out there relying on accidental non-deterministic behaviour in their chips because the VLSI industry knows how to avoid accidental non-deterministic behaviour (which can play a role in chips like the 6502).

[Goriila Texas]

Look in world I live in we deal with facts and only facts not opinions and it's a known Fact that hardware in genal sounds better. No one is building million dollar studios when they could just buy plugins. You can like plugins all you want but cannot say it sounds just as good because that is not fact but a opinion. The best you can factually say is that plugins get close enough for You!

[/size]

The fundamentals of a musician/producer should always be to maximize tone and sound quality the best way you can.

I get what you're saying here, but the trouble with this statement is that you're presenting a notoriously woolly, indefinable concept ("maximising tone and sound quality") as though it were something solid and foursquare and universally agreed upon

If someone likes the sound of a saturation plugin and thinks it sounds just as good as a hardware preamp, there's no objective measure by which you can argue they're wrong

[Goriila Texas]

Lol man I'm not going back forth with y'all I'm trying to make a beat go ahead and think software is the same lol.

I don't know it might sound the same but this what a MOSS board looks like I couldn't find a picture of my Triton board, but by the looks of it it's

Right, so the MOSS board chips are 100% digital.

That means everything it does can be replicated in software with 100% precision.

That's what DSP means.

And this is what the Korg engineers who made the MOSS boards believe, understand, and depend on.

If this was not true, they wouldn't be able to make their MOSS boards. In fact, nobody would be able to make digital hardware if it couldn't be replicated in software. And no DSP chips are designed in a way that cannot be replicated in software.



If there were anything that couldn't be replicated in software you'd know because it would be a horrible-sounding glitch.

Unlike analogue circuits, digital circuits don't tend to give you subtle warming when there are errors in the circuits. Instead, it just sounds ugly.



There is one slight difference between the Korg Triton hardware and the VST - the arpeggio option does not work in the VST.



Now, there's always the highly unlikely possibility that Korg has chosen to make the VST use completely different DSP algorithms, but that would be trivial to measure (and thus far, nobody has demonstrated this). There's also no need to. That would require them to basically design everything from scratch, which would be a gargantuan task, as they'd still have to make it compatible with old patches and their datasets. And we have enough CPU power to not need to cut any corners.

It's not the DAC because hardware compressors for example don't have DAC's but are superior to software in sound. Guitar amps, cabinets and pedals are superior to software as well. It's something about circuitry and components that sound different and that is just facts.

If they're analogue then sure, they wouldn't have DACs. But then we'd be comparing analogue circuits to software, right?

But if it's a digital device, there will be a DAC somewhere (though modern DACs are going to be much more transparent). Some digital hardware doesn't have DACs, and instead, only has digital outputs. It would be interesting to see what you think of a Triton sound when its DAC is bypassed (which you can do by using the optical outputs with the Studio and Extreme).




---

Software is just code if you stay in the box and why I run a hybrid setup, just running my audio through my distressors warms the audio.

There are a lot of misconceptions about "hardware", etc.


What I'm about to say is the global consensus among DSP experts (including all engineers at AKAI, Korg, Yamaha and Roland). If this were not true, DSP would not even be possible


1. Software is machine code that is executed by hardware (CPUs). The hardware DSP accelerators you find in hardware devices perform the exact same work as the arithmetic processing units in CPUs.

2. All DSP chips can be replicated with 100% accuracy in software.

3. The transistor-based logic gates in a CPU's ALU function exactly the same as the transistor-based logic gates in every chip (including the MOSS board). The DSP chips in DSP hardware are not magic. They process audio *exactly the same as software.

4. Not only do all DSP chip designers believe this, but their chips wouldn't function if they could do anything differently than software.

5. The fact that hardware DSP can be 100% replicated by software is a fundamental property of maths, and if it were not true, then software would not be able to function.

*: there are rare fringe cases, but those are extremely rare anomalies, and I don't know of any hardware out there relying on accidental non-deterministic behaviour in their chips because the VLSI industry knows how to avoid accidental non-deterministic behaviour (which can play a role in chips like the 6502).

[avasopht]

Lol man I'm not going back forth with y'all I'm trying to make a beat go ahead and think software is the same lol.

Oookay.



For the record, I was merely sharing what every electrical engineer and chip designer knows about digital DSP (whether it's software or hardware). And this includes Korg's DSP chip engineers.



Now, my background (in case anyone is mistaken into thinking I'm just here arguing for the sake of arguing) is the traditional Computer Science route (with some DSP and stuff), did some analogue and digital electronics before uni actually, ... skip lots of boring stuff you don't need to know ... now I'm in data engineering.



It's hard to correct misconceptions without coming across as just wanting to argue (which happens a lot).

[jam-s]

Look in world I live in we deal with facts and only facts not opinions and it's a known Fact that hardware in genal sounds better. No one is building million dollar studios when they could just buy plugins. You can like plugins all you want but cannot say it sounds just as good because that is not fact but a opinion. The best you can factually say is that plugins get close enough for You!

I'd suppose its just to impress customers and satisfy a demand from audio philes/fools. Using plugins is just so much more convenient I'd be surprised if those engineers would not mostly use them first and the analogue gear later on just for the voodoo show or to satisfy their confirmation bias.

[Jac459]

Look in world I live in we deal with facts and only facts not opinions and it's a known Fact that hardware in genal sounds better.

I am sorry but your reasoning is not very convincing.
You keep repeating "this is a fact" but without providing any!

I hope you understand that demonstrating your conclusion by saying that "it is a fact" is actually not a demonstration.
Also saying that everybody thinks like you but not giving any example, is (laughably) not really convincing...

You basically sound like a flat-earther repeating that "the earth is flat is a fact" when all the scientific and engineering evidences are given to you.


Also you are mixing analogic and digital things. What we are telling you is that digital things when coming from a board or a cpu are exactly the same. The point is that nowadays a vast majority of hardware are... digital.

For analogic stuff like the compressor you were talking about, it is a different story. It may indeed sound slightly different even if generally it is snake oil in my opinion (but certainly not always).

It is like the high definition audio, there is a whole market about it, billions of dollars about "hidef audio", streaming with mqa and 192 kHz formats, yet there isn't any scientific study showing that human can make a difference between 96 and 44 kHz formats...

[Creativemind]

You could try with some hardware gear but I don't believe plugins can accurately replicate hardware components.

https://u-he.com/products/diva/

https://www.roland.com/us/products/rc_juno-106/

https://www.synapse-audio.com/thelegend.html

https://www.softube.com/products/tape-echoes

https://www.softube.com/compressor-collection

Here’s a few…

And they are very very good but still not quite there yet. If you talking software too, Sylenth should've been on there but there is still something hardware has, a quality, a warmth and I've still yet to hear it in software.

[EnochLight]

You can like plugins all you want but cannot say it sounds just as good because that is not fact but a opinion. The best you can factually say is that plugins get close enough for You!

Keep chasing that greatness. I’ll keep chasing the art.

[Goriila Texas]

Bro don't say nothing else they have to be trolls because these things are common knowledge and speaks volumes of what they don't know. They would get straight laughed at on any other forum and get straight murdered on gearslutz high-end forum. The fact I got to explain the difference between audio going through my Triton board through converters, amp section and other components is not the same as code is a computer is crazy to me.

And they are very very good but still not quite there yet. If you talking software too, Sylenth should've been on there but there is still something hardware has, a quality, a warmth and I've still yet to hear it in software.

[Goriila Texas]

You can like plugins all you want but cannot say it sounds just as good because that is not fact but a opinion. The best you can factually say is that plugins get close enough for You!

Keep chasing that greatness. I’ll keep chasing the art.

[avasopht]

... what they don't know ...

Wrong! I have a degree in Computer Science and am a Data Engineer by profession.

Designing digital circuits was semester 1 content (which I was already doing at the age of 12).

I've no concern for what anyone on gearslutz has to say on whether hardware DSP differs from software DSP. I've earned my stripes and know what I'm talking about in this case (besides, these are very well-established facts that every circuit designer knows for a matter of absolute fact).

To accuse me of trolling when I am in line with the global consensus among DSP engineers (hardware and software) is remarkable

You've lost all credibility

[avasopht]

The fact I got to explain the difference between audio going through my Triton board through converters, amp section and other components is not the same as code is a computer is crazy to me.

This is a lie.

I have very clearly pointed out the likely influence of the converters (and by extension, the amp section and any other analogue components in the signal pathway) in any difference you had noticed. You are lying if you are claiming I don't know this as I've referenced them many times (as have others). I've never said otherwise (and you wouldn't be able to find a quote of me saying that either).

But you were claiming that hardware DSP chips (digital, not analogue) sound differently from software.

Not the converters, amp section and other components. You claimed that the DSP chips are different.

• It's all in this thread and very strange that you are trying to deny this. Very strange behaviour.

I and others were the ones EXPLAINING TO YOU that the difference (if any) is most likely due to the analogue components in the signal chain (which is why I and others said that you could get that same warmth by passing the VST output through the same analogue signal chain ... i.e. converters, amp section and any other analogue components).

Any claim that hardware DSP chips are capable of processing that can't be replicated in software is factually incorrect (and provably false). This isn't even something that is up for debate.

And then you have the audacity to suggest others are trolling.



This is very odd behaviour.

...

Again for those who don't know (in case anyone thinks I'm just arguing an equally uninformed point for the sake of arguing): my background is in Computer Science (with some DSP) and I am a Data Engineer by profession. It's my job to know the basics of data processing.