I play funk, and have for many years. I simply cannot accept the lack of bite with VST analog synths. They all suck for funk. EDM? Sure, those are mushy analog sounds. Even the edgier ones still don’t have the attack that HW has. I own a hardware synth, and I simply cannot go VST for funk. Too slow, no bite. I always feel the attack lag. I set the attack at 0 and still sounds spongy. Can’t use it. I am using a UR28M by Steinberg for an audio interface. Same deal with Presonus audio interface and Soundcraft audio interface. I HAVE to use hardware. VST sucks for this. Anyone else experience this? Washed out unison heavily effected techno synths are nowhere near what I am talking about. Take a good listen to Control by Janet Jackson, Jungle Love, and especially Fishnet by Morris Day and the Time. No VST can do that. The attack is not there. Filter envelope won’t fix the attack. May give it a quick decay, but the attack is still sponge city.
Anyone successfully use VST for funk who have grown up on the OB-8, Juno 106 etc.? Not the reverb laden techno sounds, but the tight, sawtooth/pulse moderately fine detuned osc 1 and 2.
Have you tried U-he Repro? There is a soundset for it called “Funk Station” that has a lot of those type of sounds. Diva can get a lot of those sounds too. Sometimes, you have to play with the velocity curve in Cantabile to get a sharper response.
I suspect it is latency rather than attack you are experiencing. I’ve listened through Fishnet - the signature synth sound doesn’t have a super-sharp attack to my ears; it feels a bit mushy in itself. Combine that with latency from the audio interface, it’s difficult to feel this, compared to the hardware equivalent
The interfaces you mention aren’t really famous for low-latency performance - what buffer size are you running them at? If you can get your hands on a Babyface (maybe as a loaner) you might want to give it a try - set it to 96 or 128 samples, it should be far more snappy.
I have my laptops “glitch freed” and Bitsum Project Lasso tweaked with C3 running into Behringer UMC204HD’s ($60 on sale) with the buffer at 256 and I can play my bass through Amplitube SVX and it is as responsive as my bass amp. Same for guitar’s through the Fender collection. I play some funk left hand bass on keyboard also and it feels “normal”. Not contesting your experience, you are actually the keyboard player, I’m a bass player who likes to visit open mics and play keyboards.
Perhaps the ultimate test of this would be drum triggers through my MegaDrum into Superior Drummer. A drummer and I have tweaked the triggers and MegaDrum settings and a different drummer is coming over to see if he can play it for rehearsals. I’ll post back after.
As a progger who relies on bite for leads every bit as much as any funkster I feel your pain, but it is about the tools. Diva + low latency brings joy.
So it looks like grabbing a loaner of a Behringer and a demo of Diva is in order. My son uses a Behringer Utobia something or other and set the latency low. I have become proficient on the Glitch Free book especially chapters 4 and 5. Can’t agree with @Torsten on Fishnet, the synths are very punchy. I do like his idea about adjusting the buffer. I will try that, as well. I am sitting at 512, currently to avoid clicks, pops and dropouts on pads. Having personally performed Fishnet live myself on a hardware synth (OB 8) owned by the band in 1987, I could feel the punch on the attack. The band at that time furnished me with a juno 106, OB-8 and Korg DW-8000. I will check out the U-he, as well. I could get the sound I wanted from the above synths with little time programming. Of course with 2 VCO’s and 2 Envelopes it didn’t take much.
You son has what you need to test - it’s Uphoria. I just went on their website and looked at the ASIO drivers. There are three listed, I’m using the 4.38 version for some reason, there is a newer one 4.59.0
I guess this is a second generation product. I see UMC204 listed as a legacy product and the current one is UMC204HD which is what I’m using. My buffer is set at 256.
I read that the pre-amps and hardware are the same for the entire line, the differences are the amount of inputs and the addition of Midi inputs in the ones with more inputs. Mine is USB only.
There you have it - 512 samples definitely feels mushy - unless you are a professional organ player…
If you want to feel the funk, find an interface that you can do 128 samples or less with.
Cheers,
Torsten
P.S: I was referring to this synth sound: https://youtu.be/qX1o-os-TMs?t=194 - has a funny start phase that doesn’t sound like super-fast attack to me - all I was saying. Not discussing “punchiness”, just attack time
I consume oxygen at any buffer size - but I assume you mean something different???
I have all my interfaces set at 128 samples - I play guitar through a virtual amp, and anything beyond 128 lacks “immediacy” to me. My setup is pretty stable; some complex setups drive Cantabile load above 50%, but it works perfectly live.
For analog type sounds, I use mostly Hive 2, Repro-5, plus Blue II for some stuff. Some older songs also use op-x Pro-II as well. I can get pretty good playability in this setup - no mush or spongy feeling.
@Torsten That was funny! I was referring to Omnisphere 2. (now 2.6). Hive 2 looks good. What I am thinking of doing is using the analog engine in Omnisphere 2.6 to program the funk sound I am looking for, then set the buffer to 128.
The issue is that during a particular show I go from using resource hungry granular synths to basic analog synths. 512 is not my preferred buffer size but seemed the buffer for which I settle. I may need to add a third audio interface to my computer (1 for Ableton backing tracks, 1 for Omni and 1 for low latency needs).
Ableton runs on my Soundcraft driver directly into my UI24R. The other two interfaces would serve C3 through ASIO4ALL (one 512 and the other LL 128). I am using an 8th Gen i7 LT, 512GB M2 and 16Gb Ram.
I am at work and had to this really quickly at a break (that I extended a few minute). It is like a child’s scratch writing and I think I got all of my info in. I may have missed some things, but I think I got it. It is a MS paint created file as a jpg. I’ll try to upload it.
If the UI24R ASIO driver is multi client (I think it is) and you add an RME which also supports multi client then you can run both at once with the ASIO drivers they provide and get rid of ASIO4ALL. I bet that would solve the issue
