Difference Between a Synclavier & Oasys

[CrazyFoo]

My title isn't exactly worded correctly, what I really mean to ask is this:

Is there anything a Synclavier 3200 system can do that an Oasys can't?
Reason I ask is they have one of these old bad boy for sale on Ebay.com for a BIN price of $7,000. If I remember correctly, these things used to be $30,000+ back in the day.

So it got me thinking, why would someone want to buy one of these for $7,000 when for $4,000 to $5,000, you could pick up a used O88, have newer technology, and not have to cart around a rack the size of a fridge.

Besides owning a piece of synth history and nostalgia, I don't see the upside to the Synclavier.

What say you?

PS--> the photos of this thing look really badass.
The item number on Ebay (.com) is: 220592843320

[Synthoid]

Reason I ask is they have one of these old bad boy for sale on Ebay.com for a BIN price of $7,000. If I remember correctly, these things used to be $30,000+ back in the day.

Here's some info about the Synclavier from Vintage Synth Explorer:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/synclav.php

They sold for far more than $30,000 back in the day!

[rainy-taxi]

it's all about the sound. Synclavier is a very high end instrument. Though the enormous pricetag for the Oasys, I don't believe it's actually high end (in terms of component quality, ad/da convertors etc.).
Synclaviers are still used in studios and by musicians all over the world. They have a very warm and analog like quality (even though its main source for creating sound is FM synthesis) which is something I never heard in the oasys (or any modern synthesizer for that matter like the triton, karma or even the fantoms, vsynth, s90, motifs etc.).

However, they use a lot of electricity so beware of that.

[peter m. mahr]

agreed - it's all about the sound!

Will never forget the Demo of the Synclavier in Vienna. I left the demo with the wish to own one day an instrument that comes close to it.. and is "affordable". When Korg launched their OASYS appr. 20 years later I realised my dream came true.

Still there are sonic differences and there is probably a good reason why still people are using it. If I recall correctly Michael Jackson had two systems, one 9600 and a 3200 during that time... the keyboard was the same that SCI used in their T-8.

http://www.hashmoder.com/wp-content/upl ... er9600.jpg

peter

[danatkorg]

Here's some stuff I've written about the Synclav in the past. I owned a small Synclav FM system for a while, btw.

* * *

In re sonics: as noted elsewhere, one of the things we're particularly proud of with OASYS is the bandlimited interpolation of the PCM oscillators, which results in very low aliasing. See this comment from the Sound On Sound review of the Prophet 2000, in re aliasing and the Synclavier:

Quote: http://www.analoghell.com/studio//p2...age=sos-review
"From subsequent use in studios I have found the Prophet
sampler to be second to none in terms of accuracy and
flexibility. It has the fidelity of an AMS with the analogue
processing capability of the Emulator. It suffers less from
aliasing than the Synclavier when you replay the sample
lower than the original pitch and yet any aliasing that starts
to creep in can be quickly and easily dealt with using
keyboard-tracking filters which the Synclavier system doesn't
have."

And, in re converters: converter technology has advanced significantly in the years since NED ceased production on Synclavs. I've checked the Synclavier reference manual, and while it's very specific on pinouts and other service-oriented information, it doesn't offer much information on audio specifications per se, especially for the outputs. All of their converters were 16-bit, although they enhanced the effective dynamic range of the outputs by using analog amp stages post-conversion.

OASYS uses TI PCM1793 converters for all analog outputs:
24-bit
up to 192kHz (OASYS uses 48kHz)
Dynamic Range: 113 dB
THD+N: 0.001%

I can't comment on the relative sound quality in comparison to Synclav Poly voices (their sample playback hardware), since I haven't listened to the two side-by-side. The Synclav will sample at up to 100kHz, which would be an advantage in some cases. On the other hand, OASYS uses 32-bit floating-point processing and 24-bit converters, both of which should significantly reduce quantization noise.

In general, I think the Synclavier's legend has perhaps grown a bit oversized. It was truly ground-breaking, and did many amazing things for its time. However, much time has passed since its introduction in the mid-1970s, and not surprisingly its capabilities now show their age in comparison to modern synthesizers: no modulatable filters of any kind, little in the way of real-time modulation or LFO/envelope facilities, etc.

Edit: corrected re stereo sample rate limitation

[Synthoid]

Dan... I have a few questions concerning the Synclavier & FM synthesis.

Back in the 70's, John Chowning at Stanford University patented FM synthesis technology and eventually licensed it to Yamaha. The Synclavier was invented before the DX-7, so obviously NED must also have received a license from John Chowning to utilize FM technology. I recently read on another forum that development of the Synclavier was partially funded by Yamaha... something I've never heard before. Is that true? Any further insight into this?

Thanks.

[peter m. mahr]

Another point beside SNR, THD, dynamic range, low aliasing I found to be important is the mono compatibility. I do not know how the OASYS compares to the Synclavier in that aspect. In general there are probably several factors that one needs to take into account when it comes to mono compatibility (EFX, eg chorus, EQs, etc.). But what I have found is that for example the Roland JP-8000 always made problems, whereas the Voyager is very good. Listening to some of the JPs sounds in stereo was always great but then checking them in mono sometimes was a diametrical experience.

Could it be that the Synclavier came with a software that was good for syncing to movies? I think the guy demonstrated something on the big system.. he was syncing sound effects to a short movie and it was very impressive.

[danatkorg]

Dan... I have a few questions concerning the Synclavier & FM synthesis.

Back in the 70's, John Chowning at Stanford University patented FM synthesis technology and eventually licensed it to Yamaha. The Synclavier was invented before the DX-7, so obviously NED must also have received a license from John Chowning to utilize FM technology. I recently read on another forum that development of the Synclavier was partially funded by Yamaha... something I've never heard before. Is that true? Any further insight into this?

Thanks.

I'm not much of a Synclavier historian, but nothing I've found indicates any funding from Yahama. I believe that the FM license was from Yamaha, however, as Yamaha already had a license (perhaps exclusive?) from Stanford. NED grew out of academic computer music, so it's no surprise that they would think to use tech from another academic music group.

[danatkorg]

Another point beside SNR, THD, dynamic range, low aliasing I found to be important is the mono compatibility. I do not know how the OASYS compares to the Synclavier in that aspect. In general there are probably several factors that one needs to take into account when it comes to mono compatibility (EFX, eg chorus, EQs, etc.). But what I have found is that for example the Roland JP-8000 always made problems, whereas the Voyager is very good. Listening to some of the JPs sounds in stereo was always great but then checking them in mono sometimes was a diametrical experience.

Except for a prototype DSP card of which apparently two were made, the Synclavier had no EQ. It had no effects of any kind. Even panning was an optional hardware feature; some systems wouldn't support it. You'll see references to "real-time effects" (aka RTE) in the Synclav documentation, but this refers to modulation, and fairly basic modulation at that. The examples given in the manual are:
• Mod Wheel to Vibrato Rate and/or Depth
• Velocity to Partial Volume
• Velocity to Partial Tuning
("Partial" refers to the four layers that make up a sound.)

Mono compatibility will relate to the use of processes (such as effects) which alter the phase between the left and right channels. In particular, "psuedo-stereo" outputs which use phase inversion to create a stereo effect will not be mono compatible. Some of the OASYS Mono-Mono effects offer this as an option, with a note about the lack of mono compatibility. The Voyager has no effects, so it's not surprising that has no problems with mono compatibility. Put some effects on the output, however, and you might have a different story.

Could it be that the Synclavier came with a software that was good for syncing to movies? I think the guy demonstrated something on the big system.. he was syncing sound effects to a short movie and it was very impressive.

Yes, the Synclavier was a pioneer in hard-disk recording. It was amazing when it was released. When I worked on one in 1988, however, I was already amazed at the deficiencies in the sequencer, in comparison to Performer on the Mac - and that was more than 20 years ago.

[Synthoid]

Thanks Dan.

[peter m. mahr]

As usual very informative. Thanks, Dan.

peter

[robmcw]

I have a Synclavier 9600 and 16 tracks of PostPro. I resurrected it from a friend
who used it for scoring music to film. He moved on to Nuendo and other Mac recording software. My friends thought I was nuts due to the two huge fridge size mainframes, cabling, installing a 30 amp outlet for the 9600, antiquated sequencer, and so forth. That was 4 years ago and I still love and use it all the time. It is a latter system. 1998 I think, so it has stereo sampling up to 100hrz
and some added real time effects. I have my Korg and Roland modules connected through midi and they all follow along fine. Its one heck of a sound.
Thats why I put up with it.

Rob

[danatkorg]

I have a Synclavier 9600 and 16 tracks of PostPro. I resurrected it from a friend
who used it for scoring music to film. He moved on to Nuendo and other Mac recording software. My friends thought I was nuts due to the two huge fridge size mainframes, cabling, installing a 30 amp outlet for the 9600, antiquated sequencer, and so forth. That was 4 years ago and I still love and use it all the time. It is a latter system. 1998 I think, so it has stereo sampling up to 100hrz

I looked into this more, and what I wrote about 100kHz was incorrect. I was thinking of the direct-to-disk option, in which one-track-per-disk (!!!) allowed 100kHz, but four-tracks-per-disk maxed out at 50kHz. My mistake.

and some added real time effects.

Interesting - maybe you have one of the prototype "digital signal processor" cards (supposedly only two in existence!).
http://home.earthlink.net/~yaking/html/wsnFAIL.html
What real-time effects?

[Synthoid]

Just curious why the Synclavier uses so much electricity compared to other keyboards?

[danatkorg]

Just curious why the Synclavier uses so much electricity compared to other keyboards?

They're 1970s-style minicomputers. The keyboard is only a small part of the system, and does nothing by itself; think of it as a master controller. The voices were in computer rack enclosures; for instance, a collection of five cards generated each set of 8 FM voices (seven cards for the stereo version). Sample playback cards played four voices each. And these are big cards, each around the size of a desktop motherboard; towers could easily be four or six feet high, and larger systems used multiple towers. The keyboard served as the user interface in the very beginning, but a terminal was required for more complex functionality, and eventually a full Apple Mac system was a required component for the UI.

Some photos here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~yaking/html/ ... nPTOW.html