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Peter Vogel with his new Fairlight CMI-30A: is it analogue or digital though?

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For as long as there have been software instruments and effects, many developers - and indeed, many musicians - have been fixated upon the idea of creating utterly authentic software emulations of classic analogue hardware.

However, this has proven to be no easy task; it's easy enough to code a Minimoog-like interface, for example, but debate still rages over whether software can match up to the genuine article in terms of sound. Make no mistake: doing analogue modelling properly in a plug-in is no easy task.

But of course, analogue classics are not all that the software industry has sought to bring back to life. Digital legends have also been brought to the virtual marketplace, but while the high quality of many of these emulations has been recognised, those with a fundamental grasp of all things digital might assume that creating them wasn't quite as tricky.

It's not unreasonable to infer that translating the 'noughts and ones' aspects of the hardware into a software plug-in should be straightforward compared to analogue modelling. But is this strictly true?

Back to the start

The place to start when it comes to answering this question is the development process itself: how do you go about emulating a piece of digital music making gear? Waldorf's Wolfram Franke is part of the team that recreated the famous PPG Wave 2.2/2.3 synths, and he decided to begin by asking the experts.

"The first step was to collect as much technical information about the PPG Wave 2.2/2.3 as possible and work through it and understand it," says Franke. "We were assisted by the two PPG geeks with the deepest understanding of its architecture: Hermann Seib, who has himself developed a PPG Wave simulation; and Wolfgang Palm, the inventor of wavetable synthesis and original creator of the PPG Waves.

"The second step was to develop algorithms copying the behaviour of the original PPG Waves. Third was to compare the stuff against real PPG Waves and modify it so that it matched the original as closely as possible. Meanwhile, the other stuff had to be implemented, like file handling, user interface, communication, etc."

Universal Audio is famous for its analogue-emulating UAD plug-ins, but it also took on the job of emulating the EMT 250, the first ever digital reverb, for the platform. Like Waldorf, its first port of call was the original developer, as UA's plug-in product manager Will Shanks explains.

"The most important step was to track down the original EMT 250 algorithm designer, who of course was digital audio pioneer and MIT professor Dr Barry Blesser. We found out that he still had the original EMT 250 design documentation," reveals Shanks. "So the next step was to sign him up as a developer for the project in repurposing his original work for plug-in use. This allowed us to get an exact copy - not just an approximation - of the multiple algorithms found in the EMT 250.

"The next step was to procure a 100% original and operational 'golden unit', which we found with Allen Sides' collection at Ocean Way Studios. This allowed us the best measurement data for the analogue and digital system models. The next steps were for our engineers to do the design and incorporate Barry's work, and for me to conduct the sonic evaluations directly against the hardware, fixing bugs along the way."

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