Item — HN Reader

This kind of musical chips sits at the slim frontier between the analog era and the CPU/DSP-based digital era [0]

It is the custom logic IC that generates the sound, but in the original cards, the (low-fi) DAC also contributed to its audio quality.

Of course, people use these eurorack modules for the DIY and tactile hands-on experience. I get that. However, sound-wise, a lot of the hardware geeks are still convinced that software does not (and/or will never) sound the same, even for "digital" chips like the YM3812/OPL [1] !

What is “the same” ? And to whom ? These are the nuances.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30735683

[1] https://www.discodsp.com/opl/

3 comments

> This kind of musical chips sits at the slim frontier between the analog era and the CPU/DSP-based digital era...

Part of what made FM synthesis such a brilliant discovery was that it was actually possible to implement on contemporary computers. The kind of FM synthesis produced by Yamaha's early chips had such an impact on how modern music evolved. I can't help wonder if it would have been considered at all if contemporary DSP technology had allowed any kind of serious analog modeling. It's absolutely amazing that within the space of just over a decade we went from synths being built entirely out of discrete analog components, to FM synthesis on LSI chips, to DSP based synths.

I'm an FM junkie and own various pieces of gear based on old yamaha FM chips, as well as actual yamaha FM keyboards. I think the various emulations out there are actually pretty good, and I have to admit I'd probably have a tough time with blind A/B tests. Probably the most noticeable (and sought after) out of the "lo-fi" effects is the ladder distortion effect on the old Sega megadrive YM2612 chips. I own a MegaFM synth with one of those and I do love the sound. I'm not sure if most emulators actually try to emulate it, but the plogue chipsynth MD plugin does. The creator has a really cool video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLxTHYGLKY0.

> Probably the most noticeable (and sought after) out of the "lo-fi" effects is the ladder distortion effect...

My personal favourite artefact is the DX7 Mk1's trademark 'saturation'. I've never heard anyone conclusively pin down the exact source of the synth's characteristic distortion.

Plogue have done such an amazing job on their DX7 emulator. It definitely does a great job of emulating the synth's particular character.

And then there is music that used those chips quirks to the advantage, like how imperfect (IIRC) volume control in SID was used as crude DAC in some cases, but later better version of chip "broke" that "feature". Later people figured out other weird trick to get a DAC out of it even out of "fixed" chips by tactically resetting the waveform generators

And that one did contain actual analog multi-mode filter.