Roland AIRA

Forum for Aira
JunoJohn
Posts: 815
Joined: 08:29, 24 February 2008
Location: Washington DC

Re: Roland AIRA

Post by JunoJohn »

Thanks, Tom_1970!

Here are the links for the Owner's Manuals:

TB-3 Owner's Manual

TR-8 Owner's Manual

VT-3 Owner's Manual
Gambler
Posts: 60
Joined: 00:54, 27 February 2012

Re: Roland AIRA

Post by Gambler »

PauloF wrote:Pure analogue was the 20th Century way, hence the instability of the Oscillators and difficulty to control them.
I know that is by some purists it is considered as a good thing and as vintage, but IMO it doesn't make any sense to produce boards that way now, as the technology evolved and Digital / Modeling are capable of generate / Simulate ANY sound without the pure analogue drawbacks.
You're saying it doesn't make any sense to produce analog synthesizers in 21st cntury, but it does makes sense to spin CPU cycles simulating analog circuits from 30 years ago?

Analog electronics has advanced a great deal since the 80s. It's easier to design and cheaper to produce than ever before. Plus, there has been tons of academic research in EE field.
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PauloF
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Re: Roland AIRA

Post by PauloF »

Gambler wrote:
PauloF wrote:Pure analogue was the 20th Century way, hence the instability of the Oscillators and difficulty to control them.
I know that is by some purists it is considered as a good thing and as vintage, but IMO it doesn't make any sense to produce boards that way now, as the technology evolved and Digital / Modeling are capable of generate / Simulate ANY sound without the pure analogue drawbacks.
You're saying it doesn't make any sense to produce analog synthesizers in 21st cntury, but it does makes sense to spin CPU cycles simulating analog circuits from 30 years ago?

Analog electronics has advanced a great deal since the 80s. It's easier to design and cheaper to produce than ever before. Plus, there has been tons of academic research in EE field.
I did not say CPU cycles, did I?
I'm not a fan of computers generating sound waves at all, and for that to be done properly, lots of CPU cycles and computer resources are needed.

For your information I owned an electronics music company and designed and built lots of analogue and digital equipment back in the late 80's and early 90's, some of them are still around (Effects, Digital Controlled Mixers, etc), so I know what I'm saying and why.

Pure analogue circuitry was never stable enough to be used without some drift issues, caused by fault tolerance on Transistors, capacitors, etc. Those problems were specially noted on Oscillators and LFOs.
It was not possible to create very stable circuitry without complex designs and expensive components, which made the best Synths incredible expensive (not only because of this but also because of the "mood").

All my Synth designs were Digital using High frequency Crystal controlled oscillators to generate the master Clock and the sampling was done at 512Khz, capable of sampling a 16.744hz C8 into 32 slices, or a 8372Hz C7 into 64 slices.
The Path could be analogue but totally digitally controlled (DCOs, LFOs, DCF, DCA, DADSR). The final design was complex, all made with discrete components and Digital and Analogue Integrated Circuits (No special designed LSIs as we did not have the money for that), and the only microprocessors inside were used to scan the Keyboard, compute velocity and for controlling the Display, the Program Memory and the Front Panel buttons. Two Z80 micro controllers were used for these purposes.
I know, this is pre-historic Digital, but technically was very successful.

It makes all sense to produce analogue synths today YES.
I'm happy to see today's designs like the Prophet 12 for example, where all the Sound path is analogue, but the control and Oscillators are all digital. This is much better than using all digital and ADC/DACs, as there is no low frequency sampling involved, as the signal is all Analogue from generation to output.
spottingjonah
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Location: Tennessee, USA

Re: Roland AIRA

Post by spottingjonah »

PauloF wrote: For your information I owned an electronics music company and designed and built lots of analogue and digital equipment back in the late 80's and early 90's, some of them are still around (Effects, Digital Controlled Mixers, etc), so I know what I'm saying and why.
Now that’s one heck of a credibility building statement.
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PauloF
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Re: Roland AIRA

Post by PauloF »

spottingjonah wrote:
PauloF wrote: For your information I owned an electronics music company and designed and built lots of analogue and digital equipment back in the late 80's and early 90's, some of them are still around (Effects, Digital Controlled Mixers, etc), so I know what I'm saying and why.
Now that’s one heck of a credibility building statement.
That was not the idea behind my answer at all...and just one or twice mentioned this before.

Just mentioned to justify why I prefer DIGITAL together with ANALOGUE and not only one or the other.
The sound is analogue, but if we can solve the analogue electronic drawbacks and flaws with digital technology, the better. The sound design evolution proved that combining the two technologies we get the best.
OneToForeseeForOne
Posts: 4
Joined: 11:38, 14 July 2005

Re: Roland AIRA

Post by OneToForeseeForOne »

PauloF wrote: It makes all sense to produce analogue synths today YES.
I'm happy to see today's designs like the Prophet 12 for example, where all the Sound path is analogue, but the control and Oscillators are all digital. This is much better than using all digital and ADC/DACs, as there is no low frequency sampling involved, as the signal is all Analogue from generation to output.

The prophet-12 oscillators are full digital, they are DSP based. After the DACs the audio passes through analog filters, but then after the VCA the audio passes through ADCs to reach the onboard digital delays. So there are many ADC/DACs inside it.
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