Outboard Gear

[lostnthesound]

Yeah I've just been curious lately as I watch a big argument unfold with digital lovers and analogue lovers over which is best. Was thinking there is no right or wrong answer it's what works for you. Then I got to thinking if digital lovers were to be given a large cash sum to spend on audio gear by their label would they still go digital or would they want to now buy analogue.

We have the plugin for the voyager and have it sync'd in the daw but TBH don't use it too much the voyager has an on board memory of around 1000 patches and all controls are there in front of you. Very good synth though wouldn't say it's worth the £5k price tag though

Thanks for the kind comments the studios taken a lot of time and money to get to where it is but have a really nice working environment really couldn't ask for much more

Interesting comment regarding the voyager. What would you say would be the Moog product worth the coin? Little Phatty? Furthermore what synth (hardware) would you say has given you the most bang for your buck?

 

[Paul Ashmore]

Come to think of it, the only true analog gear in my studio is the mixer and a small compressor. Everything else is all digital gear. Which you didn't mention in your poll :/

Come to think of it, the only true analog gear in my studio is the mixer and a small compressor. Everything else is all digital gear. Which you didn't mention in your poll :/

Yeah a lot of people do think that just because it's outboard or a synth that makes it analogue. I had a guy ask me if my clavia nord electro 3 was analogue. I replied for it to be analogue it would have to be huge and have 100's of real piano and organs. There would have to be a string quartet built into it. You would pretty need a full orchestra sat inside the synth for it to be analogue. A lot of gear now is digital dsp outboard and vitual analogue. Would you say this is the future?
Plugins will be replaced with uad2 cards emulating hardware?

I would say 25% of our studio is digital outboard. I did run a pole elsewhere with the options.

Digital outboard hardware
Analogue outboard hardware
Digital vst plugins
All the above

Most replied all the above.

I followed up that pole with.

If your label were to turn round and give you £100,000 would you spend the money on

Analogue outboard hardware or
Digital vst plugins

90% said analogue outboard hardware.

What would you make of that ?

 

[Paul Ashmore]

Interesting comment regarding the voyager. What would you say would be the Moog product worth the coin? Little Phatty? Furthermore what synth (hardware) would you say has given you the most bang for your buck?

Interesting comment regarding the voyager. What would you say would be the Moog product worth the coin? Little Phatty? Furthermore what synth (hardware) would you say has given you the most bang for your buck?

I would personally say Moog is awesome Moog is Moog Moog sounds amazing very distinct character when you hear it you know it's Moog. Now with a price rage of £2000+ is it really worth it. I wouldn't say it was. Moog voyager is by no means my go to synth. It is for basses and fx but not leads pads etc etc. Now we recently bought a moog mintaur which are £450 two oscillator beast of a bass synth. Now this was impressive for the price you get the Moog name in your studio. Extreamly basic synth you can get the exact sound you want straight away no hidden features well there is but not of your just using it as a little desktop synth. I used to have a little phatty before I upgraded it to the voyager. In my personal opinion there wasn't a great deal more going on with the voyager which the phatty couldn't do. The voyager is great but you have to expand it into a semi modular synth with the vx 351 and vx 352. Otherwise it's extreamly basic still good still fun but very much like right that's the synth ok what else can we do with it.

The synth that's has given me the most bang for its buck is by far the virus ti. Use it on everything of there's a sound you want it can be created on the virus. It is just like ni massive but x 100 sound wise. Virtual analogue so it's great and do many features. Also the great thing about it is you bring it up in your daw as a plugin. Then edit your sound via mouse or by hand with the knobs.

This is what I make of the synths we have.

Clavia nord electro 3. Amazing for live sounds orchestra strings trumpet piano organ etc
Arturia minibrute. Great for leads and bass
Moog voyager. Go to synth for bass and fx
Moog Taurus. Go to synth for sub bass and wobbles
Doepfer dark energy. Great little analogue synth for a different style of bass to the voyager and Taurus
Roland Gaia. Plastic sounds sounds very cheap and digital but very good for making sounds you want in the mix but no dominance in the mix.
Korg prophecy. Awesome for leads and pads a massive pain to program though don't use a great deal.
Roland xv5080. Incredibly good for pads my go to synth for pads
Emu orbit. Great sounds doesn't get used to much
Emu planet phatt. Great samples on it but these days kontakt will do a similar job if you have the samples library
Access virus ti2. The go to synth I could sell all the above and just have this no problems
Access virus ti snow. We use this one just as an effects unit. If you want a virus this is the one to start with exactly the same as the others just less dsp power on board.