Sound Character Of Diva

5149 posts · by **hakey**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:28 am

Numanoid wrote:What you must understand

"you must understand"! :dog:

25934 posts · by **Numanoid**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:32 am

hakey wrote:
Numanoid wrote:What you must understand

"you must understand"!

OK, let's try to rephrase that shall we, "what you must try to understand"

Feeling better then?

5149 posts · by **hakey**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:37 am

Numanoid wrote:let's try to rephrase that shall we, "what you must try to understand"

tone down the silly rhetoric - why must I try?

56 posts · by **FeelingMachine**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:41 am

Did they already invent jokes about the carbon footprints of threads ?

388 posts · by **Synthbuilder**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:42 am

Numanoid wrote:The guy reviewing Diva has been producing and making records for over 30 years.

That would be my fault. I told Paul to ask for that review. I was so taken with the sound of DIVA I thought that he should review it for SOS. Thankfully, he liked as much as I did.

25934 posts · by **Numanoid**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:45 am

hakey wrote:tone down the silly rhetoric - why must I try?

I forgot that you are snowed in, metaphorically :roll:

25934 posts · by **Numanoid**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:51 am

Synthbuilder wrote:
Numanoid wrote:The guy reviewing Diva has been producing and making records for over 30 years.

That would be my fault. I told Paul to ask for that review. I was so taken with the sound of DIVA I thought that he should review it for SOS. Thankfully, he liked as much as I did.

OK so you know the reviewer. Can you testify that he knows analogue synths inside and out, and thus is more capable of making a sound judgment about Diva's sound quality, rather than newbies like me or others who have been playing with plugins just a couple of years or so.

That is the point I'm trying to make, about taking note of the knowledge of expert users.

5149 posts · by **hakey**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:59 am

Numanoid wrote:
hakey wrote:tone down the silly rhetoric - why must I try?

I forgot that you are snowed in, metaphorically

metaphorically?

2896 posts · by **DHR53**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:02 pm

I use Zebra in everything and I can use like 10 of em' So it wouldn't matter how amazing Diva is I'd take Zebra for that reason alone. But Zebra also sounds great so I'm waiting until Diva gets an arp, or I get a new computer... whichever comes first!

388 posts · by **Synthbuilder**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:11 pm

Numanoid wrote:Can you testify that he knows analogue synths inside and out, and thus is more capable of making a sound judgment about Diva's sound quality, rather than newbies like me or others who have been playing with plugins just a couple of years or so.

Paul's been playing synths for well over 30 years. He knows his stuff alright. I like to think that I do too.

But that doesn't mean that I think DIVA is a 100% exact analogue emulation. It's not. But it sure as heck gets as close as need it to for the sort of patches I do on it.

5149 posts · by **hakey**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:37 pm

Whilst you're here Synthbuidler, settle an argument: what was the weather doing in the north Pennines yesterday? Was the road to Alston open?

35032 posts · by **vurt**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:47 pm

was snowing all over the north yesterday, dunno about road closures though, i stayed in.

21849 posts · by **Urs**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:58 pm

Synthbuilder wrote:
Numanoid wrote:The guy reviewing Diva has been producing and making records for over 30 years.

That would be my fault. I told Paul to ask for that review. I was so taken with the sound of DIVA I thought that he should review it for SOS. Thankfully, he liked as much as I did.

Actually, Paul was quite sceptical before the review. Some comments on Facebook suggest that he hadn't had any high hopes, he even disliked the whole concept of Diva. When I heard that he'd write a review, I almost fainted. Thus I was *very* happy when his review turned out to be positive.

35032 posts · by **vurt**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 2:00 pm

its like chocolate, for the ears. from what ive heard.

1655 posts · by **SWAN808**; Thu Feb 14, 2013 3:03 pm

daExpert wrote:I hear people rave about how awesome Diva is and I just don't see it. It's a nice synth but I feel that it has some weaknesses.

I find it sounds somewhat harsh in the higher frequencies, it's an unpleasant harshness that neither zebra or ace have.

The filters have some nice warmth to them, but the front to back depth is just not there. When you sweep the filters on the KLAE MS-20 or V-Station there is a front to back sensation of the sound jumping out at you, whereas in Diva the sound stays flat and 2-dimensional, regardless of the interesting warmth and harmonics going on.

The oscillators by themselves have a thinness in the upper registers.

For the sound it gives you it uses up rather large amounts of CPU.

Maybe this post will trigger some new ideas and thoughts. God bless.

I have posted elsewhere that it does sound quite strident in the high freq. On the flipside - it is one of the few synths that captures the brightness of an analogue oscillator - and to do that - I think you need to oversample. Hence the CPU cost.

However - I feel some of the harsh high end is more to do with the fact that perhaps a high amount of high freq energy can sound harsh if it is quite static. So unlike an analogue high end - where there is some movement - Diva I suspect is quite uniform being a digital model.

Personally I feel that Diva filters are excellent. Very accurate - however as I also wrote elsewhere I feel there is some small thing missing which is again a lack of something - maybe dynamics or saturation - that means the sound is a bit muted when the cutoff is closed...

Not sure about the front to back depth issue you mention...I wonder if it is due to the fact that sometimes there is a volume change which means the sound is slightly quieter - making it not 'jump out' as much...