Diva

Berlin-based developer u-he (Urs Heckmann) has now released a public beta of their new synth Diva, and a special introductory price.

Diva's oscillators, filters and envelopes (which can be mixed and matched) closely model components also found in some of the great monophonic and polyphonic synthesizers of yesteryear. "But," says Urs, "what truly sets Diva apart is the sheer authenticity of the circuit emulations – at the cost of a relatively high CPU-hit, Diva is the first native software synth that applies methods from industrial circuit emulators (search for "PSpice") in realtime. Especially the authentic behaviour of Diva's zero-delay-feedback filters, when pushed to the limits, demonstrates the advantages of this groundbreaking approach."

u-he describes the available filters as "famous transistor ladder", "screaming Sallen-Key", "classic OTA ladder" and "OTA state-variable" (and similar for the oscillators), and owners of classic analogue synths will already know how best to apply these models – they are easily differentiated in the gorgeous user interface.

Pricing & Availability

• Estimated release: mid December, 2011.
• Estimated price: 179$ (+19% VAT in EU).
• Introductory offer: 119$ (+19% VAT in EU).

For more info and downloads, please visit www.u-he.com