toucher wrote:

"I take it that these synths are the same instruments which try their best to emulate the sound of a real instrument such as a trumpet or guitar, but even at their best are limited by either design, physics, or the ability of the person playing the synth to come as close a possible to replicating the sound of said real instruments."

I am surprised that no one has explained. An example of what toucher described in the quote above would be the GM sound set, which is usually comprised of samples of real (acoustic, electric, and electronic) instruments. Of course there are other sample sets but GM is a well known example.

An example of what the other posters were talking about would be a Moog synthesizer, a real (electronic) instrument that creates synthetic tones in real time. There were a number of such instruments and each had their own signature sound. Although they might have had some sounds that sort of resembled acoustic instruments (horns or strings) they were not sample playback devices.

Interestingly, sample-based devices/romplers often have a bank of sounds that emulate the synthesizers, for example GM has synth leads and synth pads. What the other posters were requesting are Real Tracks of the real synthesizers, not emulations of them based on samples.

Robh pointed out that now one can buy software versions of the vintage synths and some sound just like their hardware predecessors. But I assume that the others were requesting Real Tracks of synths for the same reason anyone would want Real Tracks of any instrument, i.e., you don't have to buy the instrument, don't have to learn to play it, don't have to record it, etc.