Hello all, Dave and Phil,

I have come to depend on my ES8 and ES6 with their PLG150AN boards to do all the 80’s songs in our band.
As I wait to line up to hopefully purchase the XS, I have yet to hear a definititive opinion from Dave P or Phil on how I would get a true hard sync sound since the architecture of the XS deos not support it and a sample does not really do it justice as evidenced by my purchasing the regenerator pack to feel good about the sound.

My question is simply, other than the other numerous improvements unquestionably to the XS from the ES,
how will I make out in my 80’s band with OB-s pads, Jup strings and hard and soft sync sounds.
Can someone who has played with or programmed the XS give me a detailed description of what to expect vs the VA sound of the PLG150 and good voicing with it.

This will really help me decide on whether to make the switch.
I would appreciate with all respect real experince and not speculation.

Thanks,

Mitch

ES8,
ES6
K2500

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilities

I think thats a fair request - and so Im bumping this thread. I would just like to hear some more sound samples. But it would definately help to know about programming vintage sounds.

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

Well I think you’ll be fine for your 80’s band with the XS -

Regarding hard sync - the XS does not do true hard sync since that reuqires analog or virtual analog to do and the XS is sample playback.

That said, the main hard sync sound for 80’s band is the lead sound for the Cars “Let’s Go” and yes, you can cover that with one of the XS Sync voices - there are new hard sync samples in the XS, and they’re really good.

Other than sync, I can’t think of anything you can’t do with the XS for analog-style sounds.

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

There you have it. The verdict is still out. We will all need to hear the XS for ourselves, in person, and each will need to make his or her own decision as to how “analog” the XS can sound.

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

The UN should form a Commision on Analog Sound lead by a High Commissioner for Synth Purism - until they review the XS, there is no authority for me (including myself)! Oh, and foleycore3000 should nominate for the office (presumaly, he will be an even nicer version of foleycore2000, whom we all come to love).

Hope that was useful… LOL

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

Other than sync, I can’t think of anything you can’t do with the XS for analog-style sounds.

How about:

Pulse Width Modulation?
Oscillator edge shaping?
VCA Feedback?

Just to name a few, straight from Yamaha’s own AN1x /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt=

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

Oh well, okay. Ya got me there.

I’m thinking of 80’s classic rock songs. You can do “Jump”, that’s for sure. Here’s my list of songs I know you can cover with the XS -

1999
Let’s Go Crazy
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Karn Evil 9 second impression (ELP)
Baba O’Riley
Tom Sawyer
Frankenstein
Rio (most anything by Duran Duran )
Cars *Gary Numan)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Working For The Weekend (Loverboy)
Only the Lonely (Motels)
Metro (Berlin)
Any song by Yes
Any song by Thomas Dolby
Any song by the Thompson Twins
Any song by the Human League
Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

I’m trying to think of some others, but can’t recall anymore at the moment.

Here’s why I am saying you can do these songs - because all the sounds in these songs are “static”, meaning you won’t have to adjust something like Pulse Width mod, waveshape, or oscillator VCA feedbackduring performance. I should know - I played in 80’s cover bands. I did all these songs. I know you can approximate the sounds for them with the XS.

To be absolutely authentic, well, yes I guess you could say that there are some synth knob movements that you couldn’t duplicate. Would your audience care? Of course not. Let’s get real - you’re playing for people who are drinking and having a good time. They won’t demand their money back because youj didn’t move the pulse-width knob in the exact same manner as so-and-so did on the original. Save that kind of detail work for your original music or label projects where it counts.

If the sounds appropriate for these songs are not in the XS factory set, you can get them from DCP libraries like Vintage Keys.

All is not lost…

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

I’m thinking of 80’s classic rock songs. You can do “Jump”, that’s for sure. Here’s my list of songs I know you can cover with the XS -

1999
Let’s Go Crazy
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Karn Evil 9 second impression (ELP)
Baba O’Riley
Tom Sawyer
Frankenstein
Rio (most anything by Duran Duran )
Cars *Gary Numan)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Working For The Weekend (Loverboy)
Only the Lonely (Motels)
Metro (Berlin)
Any song by Yes
Any song by Thomas Dolby
Any song by the Thompson Twins
Any song by the Human League
Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood


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very very well!

now can we have few seconds of audio demo showing us this?

Thanks

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

Would your audience care? Of course not. Let’s get real - you’re playing for people who are drinking and having a good time.

Let me digress for a moment: Well, that’s what I used to say, but with regard to Tyros 2 better acoustic soundset - why does Tyros 2 have all the brass articulations? T2 is more likely to be played in front of a “drunken audience” /forums/images/icons/wink.gif alt= than the XS.

Also, covers are not necessarily for live gigs - some get properly released, although I am aware that it’s not that usual. Myfelf I’m working on “replica-covers” of the main theme from 80’s action show. These will be properly released and have to sound almost EXACTLY like the original. Would I even consider using XS for that? No chance in hell. That’s what AN1x is for. Will I miss the PLG-150AN integration? Certainly not, as it’s merely a half of AN1x. The XS will serve me for this project mainly as my “soundcard” and source of drum samples.

I’ll be buying the XS for decent pianos, rhodes, guitars, drums and some wacky pads/fx. If it can also produce AN1x-quality synth brasses and basses I’ll be in heaven, but I’m just not counting on it for the time being. I never actually believed in an all-in-one solution.

And let me just close with the question: why is there no successor to AN1x…

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

Jote, if you never believed in an all-in-one solution, then I think you answered your own question.

You said you wouldn’t use the XS for creating exact sound-alikes of synth-driven classic hits. Hmm, okay. So if you need an AN1x for that, you can find them used on e-Bay for next to nothing. I wasn’t even able to sell mine a couple of years back - not one buyer. I ended up giving it away. Not because it wasn’t a cool synth - it’s because no one seemed to know what it was. But when I went to sell my Motif Classic - it was on eBay exactly two hours before I sold it.

As to why there is no AN1x successor - how do you know there won’t be?

Second response to that is - aren’t there already plenty of VA hardware synths out there? Sales-wise, hardware VA synths don’t sell near the numbers as workstations. Not even close. So why add one more to an over-saturated market where numerous products are already clamoring for a piece of the tiny pie?

To a.ferrara - there will be an updated demo for “Vintage Keys” at the motif mart when the XS is released, it will be like the current demo posted now.

Analog emulation

One of the things that gets overlooked in this discussion is that fact that the XS has a huge number of very large samples of vintage synths in it.

There a wide variety of pulse width mod , sync, square waves, sawtooths, pulse waves and different samples of attacks, pads, waveforms from a very wide variety of vintage synths including Moogs, Prophets, Oberheims and all of those synths that were popular in the 80s.

Combined with extremely fast envelopes, the wide variety of high quality filter types and LFOS , this gives the XS a tremendous number of sonic possibilities.

The reality is that almost all vintage synthesizers were based on subtractive synthesis ( oscillator, filter, amp, LFO ) which is exactly the same architecture as the XS. 

The difference is you actually have many more sonic choices in the oscillator section of the XS which uses samples rather than just standard waveforms ( square, sine , triangle, etc.).

So there are way MORE sonic possibilities for synthesizer sounds in an XS than there are in a VA synth - never mind acoustic emulations.

Re: Need comments about Analog emulation capabilit

OK Dave, that should keep them off the street for a decade!

;JOOP!

Re:  Analog emulation

Yamaha_US wrote:
So there are way MORE sonic possibilities for synthesizer sounds in an XS than there are in a VA synth

I am interested in how this is achieved?


Brian Cowell
CUNKA - Audio Reality -

Re:  Analog emulation

Brian, Yamaha US is right. There are more - because, you have so many different waveforms to choose from.

Back in the day (the 70’s and early 80’s) we referred to what is now known as sample playback as “wavetable synthesis”. The first commercially available wavetable synth was, I believe, the PPG Wave.
It used digital oscllators which were analog controlled. You could cycle through a bunch of different “wavetables” for each oscillator. I recall that if you pushed the right combination of buttons the PPG Wave would cycle through all its waveforms successively - which is where the concept for the Wavestation and D-50 came from.

While an analog synth like a minimoog or Prophet presents you with four to eight different waveforms, they are all simple - sine, ramp, square, pulse, sawtooth,triangle, etc. You can vary the width of the pulse wave, that’s true. In later virtual analog designs, like the Alesis Ion, you have continuosly variable waveshaping capability - you can select a square or sawtooth wave and twist a knob to smoothly adjust its shape. In both true analog and virtual analog, you modify the rest of your sound with filters, modulation, envelopes, and cross or ring modulation, hard sync, and effects.

With a sample playback synth like the XS, you have hundreds of different waveforms, many of which are extremely complex in nature (like a waveform made from a “stack” of hardware synths like the Neuron, Nord, and Virus, combined with software synths like Reaktor, etc.) There are also waveforms constructed from programs like Max DSP. Many of these waveforms sound like wavesequences, they contain rhythmic or pulsing repeating elements. Some of them sound like complete sci-fi movie scores on their own - an entire movie scene sound in one waveform.

When you add filtering, modulation, and arpeggiation and DSP effects, yes, you go beyond what virtual analog can do. Way beyond.
And no VA or analog synth can make a piano sound. There are tons of acoustic instrument waveforms in the XS, drum sounds, etc. along with the assortment of synth and sound effect and musical effect waves.

So - while it is true that on the XS you cannot continuously vary the width of a pulse width waveform, like you could on an analog or VA synth, there are many things you can do on the XS that would be impossible on an analog or VA synth.

Re:  Analog emulation

Okay, I’m feeling a stirring in my loins for the XS again as a result of this discussion.

DP - LOL Frankenstein and Karn Evil 9 were definitely ‘70s tunes, not ‘80s (I got into more than one band in high-school being able to play Frankenstein)

Here’s some more 1980s analog synth examples off the top of my head (and my MP3 downloads collection when Napster was Napster)

Corey Hart - “Sunglasses at Night” - Ebminor triad riff
Pat Benatar - “Love Is A Battlefield”
Giorgio Moroder - “Scarface” Soundtrack
Vanity 6 - “Nasty Girls” - Especially synth groove towards end.
Spandau Ballet - “True”
Nena - “99 Red (Luft) Balloons”
Cyndi Lauper - “Time After Time”
Deniece Williams - “Let’s Hear It For The Boy”
Arthur Baker Productions - i.e “IOU” by Freeze, “Crash Goes Love” by Loleatta Holloway, etc.
Anything by the band Japan (check out some video at Sonic State)
B-52s “Summer Of Love” (Remix w/ analog synth filter sweep)
Synth pads/chords used by Hall and Oates
Synth pads/chords used by Genesis/Phil Collins
Shannon - “Give Me Tonight”, “Let the Music Play”
Pointer Sisters - Break Out - Entire Album ("Jump", “Automatic”, etc.)
Rod Stewart - “Young Turks”, “Some Guys Have All the Luck”
Manhattan Transfer - “Spice of Life” (Great synth chordal work)
Madonna - Madonna - Entire Album
Laura Branigan - First and Second albums
Billy Idol - “Eyes Without a Face”
Haircut 100
Naked Eyes
OMD
etc… for additional 1980s New Romantic bands

Re:  Analog emulation

Dave, the MOTIF had lots of synth waveforms, the MOTIF ES had lots and lots of waveforms....and now the XS has more on top of that. Fine. Thats ROM growth.

How does the synthesis engine differ from the proceeding two MOTIF generations?

- - Has the modulation matrix changed on the XS?

Are these new wavesequencing/rhythmic waveforms of the ME category?

From what I can see on the surface of all this, is that the XS shares the same “subtractive synthesis” engine as the MOTIF, MOTIF ES. Which apart from more ELEMENTS in the XS, it will have the same “sound shaping” capabilities. So if I put these new XS waveforms into the ES via sampled RAM - you would need a good ear to hear the difference........

- - Are the filters different? Are the PEG/FEG/AEG loopable? Can I track the resonance with the PEG or AEG? (I won’t even ask about LFO’s - shapes or offsetting phasing)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to rain on the “XS parade” that is marching through the streets. I need answers - like everybody else - not lines from a marketing brochure.

I do value the feedback.

Brian Cowell
CUNKA - Audio Reality -