2018 is the year of hybrid sound synthesis. Half of the synthesizers in the ranking is a delicious blend of analog + digital synthesis in different proportions. Sometimes even digital + digital, which is also interesting. Another half is an attempt to recreate the behavior of cult synthesizers of past years. This is our only chart for 3 years in which there are two MOOG synthesizers at once! This is an interesting and versatile chart, which you should familiarize yourself with and express your opinion, because otherwise you definitely risk missing something important!

Analog generator waveform is far from being perfect – it’s unstable and suffers from inevitable voltage-brought deformation. Many of the analog filters are unsteady – you might hear some noises, phase shift or self-oscillation. But these very drawbacks make the signal so brisk, lively – well, actually, alive indeed. Digital developments helped to tame analog sound, cut it into samples, increase polyphony, give you a synthesizer equipped with the functions which were simply unobtainable in analog instruments. In 1990s instrument manufacturing companies got highly interested in analog modeling technologies development – they were eager to re-create those smallest details of electric musical instrument circuit behavior.