New DIVA components

[yum-cha]

You might like to check out Plogues Chipcrusher software. It emulates all of this, and more.

Chipcrusher is damn cool and I'm glad you brought it up (need to get it asap) - but it does not emulate the sound of old samplers.

Didn't know about Chipcrusher... it does look cool! But Dr Gonzo's right... it doesn't emulate either the pitch interpolation or emphasis / de-emphasis which I mentioned. Even if it did, you would have to run multiple instances if you wanted to play polyphonically. Still, it does look interesting

[Blue-eyed Blonde Ape]

Any sample playback would ruin Diva as it is now, totally out of place and concept and the last thing I would like to see in it ever.

[EvilDragon]

But a chunky PPG wavetable oscillator wouldn't be amiss.

[Blue-eyed Blonde Ape]

For Zebra 3 It would really be cool, with different aliasing modes, analog filters on top, it would be a modern PPG.

[fmr]

Any sample playback would ruin Diva as it is now, totally out of place and concept and the last thing I would like to see in it ever.

Totally. It would be a module completely out of context.

But a chunky PPG wavetable oscillator wouldn't be amiss.

Agree also

[fmr]

For Zebra 3 It would really be cool, with different aliasing modes, analog filters on top, it would be a modern PPG.

Zebra 2 oscillators are already dynamic wavetable lookup oscillators. The tables, currently, only have 16 waves, but I believe Urs is planning to extend and refine that in version 3.

[yum-cha]

Any sample playback would ruin Diva as it is now, totally out of place and concept and the last thing I would like to see in it ever.

I do hear where you're coming from!

But think of the Roland D70... whose sound is obviously based on its eccentric pitch interpolation... certainly strikes me as more "Dinosaur Impersonating" than VA oscillators of the JP8000 kind, although I do also understand their inclusion. Interesting interpolation algorithms are, to me, far more beautiful than yet more wavetable stuff.

I suppose it could be something for Zebra. To be honest, Camel's Alchemy is probably a better fit.

Anyhow, I only mentioned it because diode filtering got me thinking about vintage sounds which are currently software unobtainium. Kontakt's vintage mode and Morgana are not what I would call an accurate emulation. I would like to see U-He having a go at this because it's a huge technical challenge and I'm not really sure who else is up to the task!

[fmr]

Anyhow, I only mentioned it because diode filtering got me thinking about vintage sounds which are currently software unobtainium. Kontakt's vintage mode and Morgana are not what I would call an accurate emulation. I would like to see U-He having a go at this because it's a huge technical challenge and I'm not really sure who else is up to the task!

What are you talking about now? D70 interpolation or diode filtering?

And regarding the D-70, the vast majority of it's sounds are coming from the raw PCM wavetable sounds, not inerpolation (as it was regarded more or less like an improved D-50). It ended not being neither. And having a PCM based osc without the PCM waves bank is pointless, as observed. But it's your opinion, and I respect it.

Besides, people have spoken, and the most voted was OB-X (from which we still lack at least a properly Osc section, since the current options don't sound as an Obie), and the the CS-80 (which we were debating whether it was possible or not, and if going for a single synthesis line - as was in the the CS-60 - was justifiable or not). The third option, at a considerable distance from the first two, was the Prophet-5 v2, followed closely by the TB-303 filter.

I am unsuspected, since I think I voted for the Synthi (the Obie I am more interested on is the Xpander/Matrix-12), which ended up in a lower position.

BTW - Urs mentioned the CEM3320 for Zebra v3 not for DIVA.

[yum-cha]

What are you talking about now? D70 interpolation or diode filtering?

No need to be rude mate, I was just saying that I was thinking about sounds that you can't do in software at the moment, such as diode filtering like early Roland analogues. And that got me thinking, what other sounds have I always wanted in the box which software doesn't get close to? Well, one type of hardware I really miss when working in the box is old samplers and romplers who use complex interpolation methods... such as the Roland S-550 or the D-70.

And regarding the D-70, the vast majority of it's sounds are coming from the raw PCM wavetable sounds, not inerpolation (as it was regarded more or less like an improved D-50). It ended not being neither. And having a PCM based osc without the PCM waves bank is pointless, as observed. But it's your opinion, and I respect it.

I think you're maybe missing my point. I'll try and explain, please excuse me if you already know this:

Not all PCM based oscillators sound the same. When you play the root key of a sample on an Akai S950, it sounds more or less similar to if you play the root key of a sample on an Akai S1000. But if you transpose the sample up or down a fifth, they will sound radically different and that makes a big difference if you're playing chords. This is because the S1000 interpolates the sample digitally, whereas the S950 changes the clock speed individually for each individual voice, ie it changes the sample rate. And that's why I personally prefer an S950 to an S1000 if I'm playing polyphonic patches. Obviously emulating sample clock rate alteration is quite tricky in a computer but typically this can be done using high resolution sinc interpolation, and indeed Kontakt does a fairly reasonable job on this, minus accurate modelling of the internal distortions of the analogue filter and output stages. Still doesn't sound the same, but it's not a world apart.

However, the Roland S-550 and D-70 have particularly unusual sample interpolation which is often even nicer than having the variable clock, in my opinion... and this is made extra complicated because they also encode the PCM data internally with an emphasis curve (a bit like how vinyl or tape recordings are not recorded "flat"). Well, it makes a really huge difference to how polyphonic patches sound in the S-550 and D-70. This might be because the de-emphasis, I think, occurs after the pitch transposition has been calculated. And yes, it's similar to the PCM components in the D-50 but obviously lacking the digitally generated waveforms. So I can't agree with you when you say that the D-50 and D-70 are "raw PCM wavetable sounds, not interpolation"... because they do not have individual samples for each note but calculate the transposition using complex and beautiful algorithms. That is what I'd like U-He to model, because you can't make any of the sounds in software at the moment. And maybe that's why the D-50 card in the V-Synth didn't really sound right too?

Besides, people have spoken, and the most voted was OB-X (from which we still lack at least a properly Osc section, since the current options don't sound as an Obie), and the the CS-80 (which we were debating whether it was possible or not, and if going for a single synthesis line - as was in the the CS-60 - was justifiable or not). The third option, at a considerable distance from the first two, was the Prophet-5 v2, followed closely by the TB-303 filter.

I am unsuspected, since I think I voted for the Synthi (the Obie I am more interested on is the Xpander/Matrix-12), which ended up in a lower position.

BTW - Urs mentioned the CEM3320 for Zebra v3 not for DIVA.

I accept this, and don't mean to go against the popular vote. For sure, we would all welcome some more classical analogue circuits, but I just wanted to give a shout out for the really unique timbre of certain machines which have been overlooked because I see no mention of them in this discussion or in any existing software. That's what connects early Roland diode filtering and late 80s and early 90s Roland PCM based machines as well as the serial and parallel filter architectures of the Crumar Spirit and the Synton Fenix.

As much as I would love a SSM2040 based filter, you have to admit that you can already get into the same territory using other OTA based designs in Diva and other software synths.

Anyhow, I've said my bit. I'm not knocking down anyone else's opinion

[Urs]

Hehe, thing is, we didn't initiate this vote, we'll do what we think is best* anyway :-p

It is kind of pure coincidence that we modelled the SEM filter which was also the winner in this vote.

We'll see where things go from here, but please don't expect any update with new modules in 2014.

- Urs


* "best" may as well be replaced by "doable"

[fluffy_little_something]

Was just demoing the latest version and discovered that it uses way less resources than I thought. I always thought my computer was way too weak for Diva as one chord tends to use 50%+ in my default DAW. However, there seems to be a certain incompatibility between Diva and the DAW, and I tried it in another DAW today, where a chord in divine mode uses less than 10% CPU

While the sound is very good of course, the user interface is definitely not. Contrast is poor, fonts too small... I mean, the GUI area is actually pretty big, yet you are using such small knobs and fonts, especially in the bottom red half, crazy...
I wish you would work on the GUI as thoroughly as you do on the sound engine I

I think one of the problems might be that the GUI was designed on a computer or even notebook where the designer was either very close to the screen (which is unhealthy) or looked down on the screen instead of horizontally as ergonomics experts advise, face and screen should be parallel planes at the same height. That makes a big difference, I just noticed when I stood up and accidentally looked at Diva from above.

On my quest for one high-end synth plugin in my setup I have put aside money waiting to be spent, love the sound, even my computer can handle it, yet there is no point in buying Diva because I don't feel like programming sounds with a magnifying glass in one hand

Also, is it not possible to modulate envelope attack speeds and other envelope phases by velocity?! Would be odd as even some cheaper synths like Saurus or Dune offer that possibility, which is important when emulating real instruments (think of fingered vs slapped electric bass for instance).

Tried a few factory patches, I noticed that many sounds easily distort, for instance IW Mini Electric Piano II. Is it just on my computer or a demo version thing? Similar distortion sound as the demo noise...
PS: Just noticed that the distortion goes away when activating Multicore support. The Multicore option should be global, though, independent of the patch. Either the computer requires it, or not.

Why can't one scroll through the patch drop-down list with the mouse wheel? Clicking on arrows is a bit outdated.

[DrGonzo]

but please don't expect any update with new modules in 2014.

You obviously mean no new modules in january 2014, right?

/C

[mcnoone]

Was just demoing the latest version and discovered that it uses way less resources than I thought. I always thought my computer was way too weak for Diva as one chord tends to use 50%+ in my default DAW.

A lot of it is in how many voices and stacks.
The lower the voices and stacks the lower the cpu.
Some of these you can manually lower and save, without any note cut-off happening, so long as you are staying in the 3-4 note chords area.
I design all my Diva sounds with this in mind, and get no overload on my mbp coreduo2 w/t only 4gb ram, and a 2.8ghz chip.
Your specks are much higher, (I've seen you've mentioned before) which could mean that you may have too much running in your background processes causing a lack of power that really shouldn't be happening.
In mono modes Diva uses no more cpu than any other soft modern soft synth imo.
In poly mode there are things that can be done to lower the cpu usage.

btw...I don't use multi-core at all.
I'm in divine mode always as well.
The multi-core doesn't always work well on my system. Gives it random hiccup type issues, so I don't use it.
I still don't get any cpu overload/distort issues. Using my own sounds at all.

[EvilDragon]

The Multicore option should be global, though, independent of the patch. Either the computer requires it, or not.

It is global, per instance.


Regarding the skin, check out Divalicious:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 4#p5604934


I use it instead of the default skin - it's cleaner and better on the eyes IMHO. YMMV.

[Phil999]

bad Diva GUI? This is the first time I read something like this. In case someone doesn't know, it can be made bigger. I guess it depends on the monitor one uses. On my laptop with full HD resolution all things look a bit small, and I was recently thinking about enlarging the Diva GUI one notch. But no, it is all so well arranged I don't have to read the labels any more, and I remote control Diva anyway. I don't have to look at the computer screen. And I have good eyes, I'm grateful about that.

Envelope attack time modulation was not featured in old polyphonic synthesisers. I guess this is the main reason why it isn't featured in Diva. I admit it's not a bad feature, but on the other hand we have to ask ourselves if it is really necessary. Countless examples of great music has been created with those old synths, and nobody has ever missed envelope attack time modulation. There are modern softsynths for these 'modern' features.

Performance: glad it runs fine in divine mode on 2 core machines, and even with multi-core disabled. I wasn't able to play polyphonically with my 2-core machines. I even bought a new laptop with 4 cores, extra for Diva. So that I can play live sessions outside my studio. I may try the recent version on those older machines, although I doubt there could be a better performance than before.