KVR Audio

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sun May 27, 2012 11:38 am

xamido wrote:About the cpu hit,sometimes saurus can hit the cpu pretty hard to. If you have the 4x unison and arranger activated it uses 25% of my cpu in studio one. I've never tried minimonsta so i can only give my assesment for saurus.

What cpu do you have?

xamido · Post by **xamido** » Sun May 27, 2012 11:42 am

Examigan wrote:
xamido wrote:About the cpu hit,sometimes saurus can hit the cpu pretty hard to. If you have the 4x unison and arranger activated it uses 25% of my cpu in studio one. I've never tried minimonsta so i can only give my assesment for saurus.
What cpu do you have?

An i5, if you want to compare it think about using massive on the ultra with the same option activated. But overall saurus is pretty good for normal aplication, it's just that i don't use it for big supersaw arpeggio stuff due to that.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun May 27, 2012 2:32 pm

Was testing the Saurus demo last night on this aging 2GHz Core2Duo laptop (Win7 x64) via vsthost, and the CPU/quality ratio is impressive, IMO. One thing to keep in mind, as I'm sure has been mentioned, is you have the FX section, which can save you a few CPU cycles. E.g., most times you want to deal with verb on the mix end, not the instrument end... on this hardware I can save roughly 2% per patch there. Chorus less so, but I would generally leave chorus as-is if it's a key part of the patch sound... in any event unison patches w/ spread+pan settings can also make chorus a bit redundant, soundwise. Also, if you're up there using 4x unison, double check that that's the sound you want... e.g., I was just playing around w/ the Tom Sawyer SK lead patch, which hangs around 13-18% (says vsthost)... if I cut the verb to 0, switch from 4x to 2x unison, and increase the unison spread to 33 or so, I get a much less cluttered sound, and my CPU use goes down to 8-12%... bonus! I can even add delay = 25 @ 3/4 time to really fill things out and only go up by a modest ~1.5%... On this setup vsthost itself is taking ~6% CPU, so subtract 6 from the above ranges...

All in all, impressive!

Hadn't really paid much attention to it, but I think this may be going on my short-term buy list... sounds great and so easy to program!

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sun May 27, 2012 2:33 pm

I wonder why the initialize function of Saurus is turned off in the demo? I mean I can't save anything anyway, so what's the point?

I guess I could just go through all the settings and get them back to a real basic setting or turn off this or that, but by that time, the 10 minute limit is partially used up.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun May 27, 2012 2:35 pm

Examigan wrote:I wonder why the initialize function of Saurus is turned off in the demo? I mean I can't save anything anyway, so what's the point?

I guess I could just go through all the settings and get them back to a real basic setting or turn off this or that, but by that time, the 10 minute limit is partially used up.

Can't save anything? Load it into vsthost and just do save program as... you can save your patches as .fxp files.

pocvecem · Post by **pocvecem** » Sun May 27, 2012 3:43 pm

Hi Examigan,
i have Minimonsta since 5 years and i have Diva. And because i have Diva i didn't feel a need to get Saurus.
But here are my two cents on Minimonsta:
+ first of all Minimonsta always was rock solid on my XP/32 and Win7/64 daws, with and without bit bridging (Ableton + Cubase)
+ Minimonsta is almost a modular system, you can assign own lfos and envs to almost any parameter
+ soundwise it comes very close to a real Mini. There is a comparison between Diva, Minimonsta, Arturia, Steinberg Model-E, Minimogue VA on amazona.de (sorry, german language only: http://www.amazona.de/index.php?page=26 ... le_id=4069) and Minimonsta got place 2 (after Diva)
o simple sounds are ok, but with unison it can eat much cpu
- i don't like the soundbrowser, the scrolling gets annoying if the preset list gets longer
- Minimonsta writes report files randomly into the last recent windows folder that i have chosen (don't know if that'S the case on apple, too)
- the factory presets sound like the typcal oldskool 70s sounds
- few onboard fx, only a simple delay

To me Minimonsta still is a fine addition to my other synths. But it isn't the true allrounder. You surely don't want to have every sound in your track sounding like a Moog.
For me it would be a very tough decision to buy Minimonsta again today. But there are some sounds which i can't replicate in Diva exactly, especially some softer leads and pads. So i keep both, it's almost like having two different sounding Model-Ds.

5 years ago i would have recommended Minimonsta as the ultimate analogue goodness. Today i would recommend DIVA. Even in draft mode it sounds great and takes almost the same amount of cpu as Minimonsta.

Don't have demoed Saurus so far, but it seems to be the more versatile solution if you can afford only one synth.

OT: my ultimate recommendation always is Zebra.

(it seems that with the next update it will even get the DIVA filter models)

Cheers,
gerald

manandmusic · Post by **manandmusic** » Sun May 27, 2012 3:51 pm

xamido wrote:For Godsake, For Once, please stop the Diva comparison. The question is Saurus or Minimonsta. Why must every synth thread be hijacked by Diva, even one that is so obvious like this one?

Totally agree with you!

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sun May 27, 2012 4:05 pm

kbaccki wrote:
Examigan wrote:I wonder why the initialize function of Saurus is turned off in the demo? I mean I can't save anything anyway, so what's the point?

I guess I could just go through all the settings and get them back to a real basic setting or turn off this or that, but by that time, the 10 minute limit is partially used up.
Can't save anything? Load it into vsthost and just do save program as... you can save your patches as .fxp files.

Hey I never thought of doing that, will try it, thanks

GeorgeZ · Post by **GeorgeZ** » Sun May 27, 2012 7:01 pm

Examigan wrote:
GeorgeZ wrote:When I demo'd Minimonsta I found the GUI very fiddly... I mean, it doesn't have too much going on (similar to Saurus) but the blue light numbers on the dials made me completely batty. It's just too much. I couldn't work on that all day (not to mention the dials that have blue glow AND red in them...). Sound wise it's not bad, different to Saurus of course, but not bad at all. More of a CPU hit, but nothing to be concerned about.

For the cash, CPU hit and ease of use, and great sound (and for me, the GUI) Saurus would be my choice.
Thanks George now see... that's what I was looking for. Another set of ears/eyes as I am torn between those 2 synths.

You're welcome my friend

LeVzi · Post by **LeVzi** » Sun May 27, 2012 7:30 pm

xamido wrote:About the cpu hit,sometimes saurus can hit the cpu pretty hard to. If you have the 4x unison and arranger activated it uses 25% of my cpu in studio one. I've never tried minimonsta so i can only give my assesment for saurus.

Try the same patches in the standalone version and see in your task manager if the CPU spike is the same, Studio One isn't the most optimized of DAW's from what I hear.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun May 27, 2012 7:38 pm

Examigan wrote:
kbaccki wrote:
Examigan wrote:I wonder why the initialize function of Saurus is turned off in the demo? I mean I can't save anything anyway, so what's the point?

I guess I could just go through all the settings and get them back to a real basic setting or turn off this or that, but by that time, the 10 minute limit is partially used up.
Can't save anything? Load it into vsthost and just do save program as... you can save your patches as .fxp files.
Hey I never thought of doing that, will try it, thanks

With so many good choices out there these days, one of my buying criteria has become: if after playing with the demo for 2-4 hours I end up with a folder of 10-20 custom FXP patch files, it goes on the To Buy Immediately list. Less than 10 FXPs, it goes on the Revisit If Shioitir/LuSH-101 Is Not Released In The Next Two Months list. No FXPs and it's Good day to you, sir! You are off the list!!

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun May 27, 2012 7:42 pm

LeVzi wrote:
xamido wrote:About the cpu hit,sometimes saurus can hit the cpu pretty hard to. If you have the 4x unison and arranger activated it uses 25% of my cpu in studio one. I've never tried minimonsta so i can only give my assesment for saurus.
Try the same patches in the standalone version and see in your task manager if the CPU spike is the same, Studio One isn't the most optimized of DAW's from what I hear.

Also, bear in mind your audio I/O environment has an effect... 5ms roundtrip ASIO latency via a well-written hardware driver is going to hit the CPU much less than, say, 5ms roundtrip via ASIO4ALL running in user mode on a stock soundchip. Try other driver modes as well, depending on the hardware vendor...

tommyzai · Post by **tommyzai** » Mon May 28, 2012 1:26 am

afreshcupofjoe wrote:These synths couldn't be more different from each other. What's the point? Hey guys, should I buy a boat or a Motorcycle? I can't decide!

Bro, you are too deep into it. Overall, they are both analog emulation VSTi. It's more like Macintosh Apples and Red Delicious apples.

tommyzai · Post by **tommyzai** » Mon May 28, 2012 1:47 am

manandmusic wrote:
xamido wrote:For Godsake, For Once, please stop the Diva comparison. The question is Saurus or Minimonsta. Why must every synth thread be hijacked by Diva, even one that is so obvious like this one?
Totally agree with you!

You guys are insane. It would be ridiculous NOT to mention Diva as it's considered the best analog emulation. If you are comparing #2 and #3, how can you not mention #1?

LeVzi · Post by **LeVzi** » Mon May 28, 2012 2:13 am

tommyzai wrote:
manandmusic wrote:
xamido wrote:For Godsake, For Once, please stop the Diva comparison. The question is Saurus or Minimonsta. Why must every synth thread be hijacked by Diva, even one that is so obvious like this one?
Totally agree with you!
You guys are insane. It would be ridiculous NOT to mention Diva as it's considered the best analog emulation. If you are comparing #2 and #3, how can you not mention #1?

Because the OP asked about Saurus and Minimonsta, I thought that bit would have been blindingly obvious !