LOL, best advice so far

Dune if you want lower CPU usage, and easy to use.
Diva if you want truly warmth analog sounds.

Both are ok, depends on what you compose or do you want to achieve.
You choose.

Have a good day

Dune seems fine... but no matter how many demos I've listened to, or how many times I've played with the demo, I never get that, "I need this!" feeling. On the other hand, it was pretty clear to me right away that Diva was pretty special. If you don't have anything like Dune, it's probably worth having as well.

My only complaint about Dune is the velocity for most patches in the Matrix is set to 100, and I have to lower them down to 20-30 before they are usable for me. I'm sure that is not an issue for everyone, maybe especially if you have good midi controllers I have cheap cheap old old ones.

Now tell me how you feel after getting the fabulous opinions. Don't be so quiet.

^^^^
THIS.

I've always felt the same about Dune, never excited enough to commit $179 for it.

When it first came out there was something about the sound of it that really bothered me especially, but after playing with it again a year and a half later, now that I have the CM version, it's grown on me and I've sort of "seen the light" regarding it.

My advice is buy DIVA, and pick up the CM issue with the free CM edition of Dune. It's missing 12 matrix slots, which is kind of "castrating" that synth, but there definitely is some neat things to be done with the 12 slots you have. The matrix and unison in Dune is kind of the only thing that synth brings to the table in a sea of VA's.

I'll probably end up buying it at some point if I find myself bringing the CM edition up more in songs and get frustrated when I run out of slots.. if they drop v2.0 with some more goodies that'll for sure influence me. (like individual outs for the voices, more flexible, better filter, effects parameters in the matrix etc.)

-B

Certainly wouldn't Dune vs Z3ta+2 or Diva vs Saurus be more appropriate? On second thought let's not go there... But like others have said...try the demos...nothing else matters....

No braj, your not the only one.
The trouble seems to be more evident from possibly those creating the sounds using a sequencer, and not actually play testing to notice the velocity problem there.
There's something you can do to correct it besides lowering the velocity though.
It's in the matrix, assign a slot w/t "const" (amount) "velocity curve".
Adjust that up or down, until you get that velocity that fits your needs there.
All my patches for Dune have both velocity and curve, and no single velocity setting goes over 50, because the curve setting gets it right, and makes it more consistent for playing the keys.

I find Dune to be a bit more 'generic' whereas Diva is quite unique.

Dune has some lovely pads but the rest I can create on other soft synths.

Cool, and to be clear it is not a general issue with Dune but just the factory presets, and as you said it can be easily remedied, I'm already heading for the matrix once I find a patch I like and adjusting that parameter, just like I adjust others for any patch anyway. All presets in all synths IMO need some level of adjustment to fit whatever I'm working on.

I have some of your patches and there is definitely no similar issue with them BTW, everyone with a CM version should check out your CM-friendly patches, I really appreciate that you made some just for us cheap/poor folks
Last edited by braj on Sat May 12, 2012 10:26 am; edited 1 time in total

Yep, the Michael Kastrup soundset in factory bank C makes use of the velocity curve as well. Dependent on what destination you route velocity to, different settings make sense- the default is a linear mapping.

Richard

Just tested Saurus due to this post. doesn't come close to Diva's analog sound. how would that be a fair comparo at all?

What would you say comes closest to Diva, especially with low CPU. I don't necessarily mean regarding 0 delay filters, but overall sound quality. I also agree Saurus really has a different sound overall from Diva, so it is not a good comparison pairing.

Dune and Sylenth seems more reasonably compared to me, from what I remember of the Sylenth demo.

Closest thing to Diva is Tyrell. It's basically Diva LE.
Last edited by djanthonyw on Sat May 12, 2012 11:30 am; edited 1 time in total