That's probably very true, so folks should only be allowed to write reviews after having used a Plug in at least 10 finished tracks/productions then
But that would need a review police controlling that

Certainly there is a variation in quality. Both the MKS-50 and the Matrix-1k are hybrid synths with DCOs. They both sound somewhat static. Neither has a stellar filter either. The Oby has a late CEM based filter and the MKS has Roland's IR-3R05 as is in the JX8 and JX10. While both synths are popular and have something of a following for their own reasons, neither is considered a benchmark of analog sound.

If you know of a VST that you think does a better emulation than Diva of the Roland Juno filter IR3109, or the Moog Ladder filter (practically any variant), then, by all means, tell me about it.

A rating that is never given is ihmo obsolete.

In practice, a 10/10 rating means that a plugin was subjectively great at the time the review was written. This aging could be taken into account, in that either old reviews are discarded (e.g. after 5-10 years) or their ratings automatically lowered. Some of our oldest discontinued plugins have 10/10 ratings, which makes no sense by today's standards.

Richard

KVR should introduce a "mute"-button for the term Diva, pretty please

haha, not saying that at all. It's an observation, not saying there is anything wrong with it. Review away! I'm all for it.......besides......I relate

great is an 8, or an 8.5...great doesn't mean there's no room for improvement...10 means there's no room for improvement

Kind of agree with Richard here... a scale loses its meaning if the top tier doesn't exist. A 10 should be reserved for those select few products at the top of their game at the time of writing the review. I'm sure the very first human that ate a raw egg gave it a 10, if only because he was likely so damn hungry, anything would have been a ten. By the time he'd discovered scrambled, poached and boiled eggs, that raw egg dropped down (or off?) the scale.

Just an opinion, of course; you could make a good case for reserving the 10 as an ideal that will never be reached. Makes me feel pessimistic and joyless, though.

Just read a few posts near the top... how the hell did the "real analogue" discussion get in here?


P.S. Diva Diva Diva

well, i thought diva was worthy of a 10 when i first used it, but i the colour of the gui (sorry) and the lack of arp made it less than perfect

you are right, though, i guess i can't have it both ways - if perfection is impossible, then nothing could be a 10...

how about nothing ever is a 10 then ?? we just bow to the IDEA of 10

MUTE

Sorry... couldn't resist. Like a "Don't touch, fresh paint" sign.

LOL

What do you want me to say. I know that you are knowledgeable but I've tried your synth before and it didn't grab my attention. I downloaded it again, to give it a quick try but I'm not really moved enough to use it long enough to justify a review.

For example, I really don't like your user interface. Workflow is important and your synth is too small, the knobs are fiddly, and the arrangement is clumsy. The synth itself sounds a bit sterile and pinched in the midrange. That's meaningless, I know, but, it's got to get past that first sniff test for me to spend hours with it. Right or wrong, that's my approach.

It could be sound design and honestly, I think that you need to team up with a better sound designer as well as an artist.

I just entered a quick step sequence into a new midi part in Reaper and cycled through some of your presets twiddling the filter, waveshaper, and envelopes. Nothing really makes me step back and think "yeah, crazy, what's going on there." When I load Diva on the same little pointless sequence I suddenly want to turn the thing into a track. Diva is very much like a Roland Juno 60, you have to work really hard to make a bad sound with the thing.

I don't have time to dig deep into anything that isn't exciting out of the box. You have to bring it all together in some way these days.

That said, I did like a couple of your patches as layers behind Diva, they didn't stand on their own, but they did ad nice dirty bite to that deep Diva sound. Of course, I'm not convinced that something else in Massive wouldn't grab my attention more, and modifying it would be more pleasurable due to the superior interface.

I'll leave it installed for the time being, but to be clear, I'd never pay for it as is. Then again, I'm not addicted to collecting plugins and I'm quite aware of the psychological power of "loss aversion", i.e., I don't care if I don't have this or that sound. I will use a finite, and small, number of sounds in tracks that I make. I consider limitations of available instruments to be an asset to creativity, not a detriment.

I was quite serious, I like Diva, ACE, and Reaktor. I play with MFL, but honestly, I don't like it as synth building tool, I mostly use it to create user interfaces for Reaktor tools and other VSTS in Live. Since I have NI Komplete I use Massive for a low CPU subtractive synth and I often find FM8 (or operator) to be the compelling choice.

I use kontakt for non-synth sounds as well as the NI organ from Komplete 5. I also like the samplers in live because of how well they integrate with live.

Finally, I use some simple free synths from time to time just because they have limited interfaces and are fast to program or easy to manipulate live, e.g. the TAL synths, the freebie Alchemy-Lite, etc.

It's not clear to me why I need anything else and for me to get excited about it it has to not only grab me, but it has to be really interesting in some innovative way. It has to be something that is more compelling than the wide variety of awesome free synths. If it's just a basic synth design, then it must be something that can't be quickly created in Reaktor.

to my knowledge no other synthesizer on earth has the same filter saturation characteristic mine has. one other synthesizer has part of it - nexus2. it doesn't have the new features i've recently implemented.

"mid-range" is an odd characterization. it's possible you're used to pre-eq'd sounds. all the sounds i get out of xhip sound identical to what i get out of my analog gear. it's hard to pin-point the cause for a subjective thing like that. if the sounds genuinely had a peak in the mid-range that would be easy, but the fact is they're completely flat.

making a claim like you have, that a juno-60 can't produce anything bad is ridiculous at best. i've heard horrible sounds come from a juno-60. i own a sh-09 and a alpha-juno myself which are along a similar axis, although the sh-101 filter has has a much higher distortion than the discrete otas in the sh-09 and the filter in the alpha-juno is configured differently than in the juno-60 so couldn't come close even with identical components.

http://soundcloud.com/aciddose/isaidno

so, bad interface. that's a fine complaint. i find it difficult at first as well but i've never really cared for interfaces so i'm open to whatever anyone wants to do. branis did the one you're looking at although i replaced the controls with my own.

http://soundcloud.com/aciddose/ohnoes

can't you come up with any more direct technical attacks? that's the great stuff.

http://soundcloud.com/aciddose/atracne

a reviewer's inability to find technical faults just points to a fault with the reviewer in my opinion.

these clips? which one is diva? (to one familiar with presets it should be obvious)