Hardware vs.Software

[a k butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

At 17:15 10/07/2006, you wrote:
>>Here, this is usually referred to as the "software vs. hardware" debate.

>I mentioned this a few times. It is absolutely absurd that there is 
>a differentiation.

the other Jeff explains it well (imho)

>Hardware uses software, software needs hardware.

(not sure this is relevant to your point...but)


If only......


however, not all hardware uses software.
...and there are certain hardware devices that are particularly
intractable when you try and make a software emulation.

Any form of distortion for instance. It's easy in analog,
but to copy that digitally is very much harder, and I suspect
that an exact representation is actually impossible.

Filters also tend to sound different in their digital version,
even if their signature  sound isn't affected by distortion ( which 
it often is).

With a hardware digital delay (or flanger/phaser) it's possible to 
modulate the clock
frequency of the device. In the software/digital domain you'd have to 
use sample
rate conversion, which can alter the sound rather nastily (unless your 
willing
to do it non-real time)

These problems with digital get less as you increase the sample rate,
but the state of the art at the moment is that there's a very real 
difference.


That's not saying that analog is superior though, there's things that
can be done digitally that would never be practical (or would even be 
impossible) in analog.

andy butler
www.mathons.com