DIVA (not) missing automatable parameters

[Echoes in the Attic]

Hey Urs,

Forst of all, DIVA sounds great and is a hell of a lot of fun to tweak. All the joy of the immediacy of the old monophonic hardware synths, but being able to swap out different models is awesome. Like using a minimoog patch and thinking, "hmmm, what would sound like through screeching MS-20 filters in series?" Pretty great! Also I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the CPU isn't as bad as I was expecting in mono mode.

My one gripe is this - There are many parameters that are not visible to the host as automation/mapping. I didn't include it as a big report because I wasn't sure if it is a bug or a design thing, but I really hope it's fixable. The ones I'm noticing so far are feedback and noise, as well as pretty much every switch (12db/24db filter for example, or the sync buttons or tunemod switches etc.), and also the oscillator shapes for the dual vco and dco.

The unfortunate thing for this is that these can not be mapped with any hardware control system that needs to see the parameters like novation automap or Kore, or host based mapping (like Studio One mapping or Ableton Macros). Pretty much everything uses this. And DIVA is absolutely meant to be controlled by hardware in it's entirety, just like the classics it's based on!

any chance you can make those parameters and switches exposed to the host?

thanks!

*Edited to reflect that this was fixed long ago.

[Urs]

Yes yes... we'll add a lot more parameters to the automation list. E.g. all the old LFO "invisibles" from early Filterscape/Zebra times.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Great to hear, thanks!

A synth like this will be great to be able to use mouse-free.

You know what would make it really great? If the model selector menus were also automatable. That way we could also change the filter model etc. by pressing a button on a controller (or turning a knob).

cheers

[EvilDragon]

You know what would make it really great? If the model selector menus were also automatable. That way we could also change the filter model etc. by pressing a button on a controller (or turning a knob).

Agreed.


Imagine a hardware controller for Diva!

[Howard]

Imagine a hardware controller for Diva!

[EvilDragon]

[Echoes in the Attic]

You know what would make it really great? If the model selector menus were also automatable. That way we could also change the filter model etc. by pressing a button on a controller (or turning a knob).

Agreed.

Imagine a hardware controller for Diva!

Don't need to imagine it! I've got a Novation SL, which is absolutely perfect for DIVA. A hardware controller like SynthProject ones would be cool, but the layout for the controls change in DIVA, so I think it's best to have a controller like Novation SL with automap, which has LCD screens to show the parameters.

[ddeez]

does that automap function work well for you?

[Echoes in the Attic]

does that automap function work well for you?

It does when the plug-in exposes all it's parameters to the host for automation. In order for the parameters to be mapped, they have to visible.

It works best for hardware style synths with fixed routing because then you have less back and forth between pages. Something like Zebra is a little harder because it has so many modules. It also doesn't expose some parameters like sync. Others like Alchemy or Absynth have too many parameters that can't be automated so they don't work well with it except for macros or performance controls.

The ones that work great are ones like Imposcar, Oddity, Sylenth1, Poly-Ana, Ace, ElectraX. These allow every single parmaeter to be controlled, even waveform selectors and menus, and mod routing targets and destinations. You can literally do everything on the hardware.

DIVA will be absolutely perfect for automap, so long as all these controls are exposed for automation.

Hey Urs, not to push you, I know your'e busy, but can you confirm that the following will all eventually be available as automation parameters?:
-Switches (like sync or osc mod switches in tripleosc)
-Types selectors( like the filter revisions 1 and 2 or the jupiter triangle)
-Buttons (like waveform buttons on the Jupiter style oscs)
-LFO controls
-Mod destinations/sources
-Module selector menu?

I'm pretty sure ACE has everything available so I'm hopeful for DIVA.

If so I will hand over the money immediately! I will also provide an automap template when it's ready. And I'll bet amused will make a Kore template as well.

[rod_zero]

One problem with automap and Diva is that some modules share parameters and so midi controls. Would be nice to have a chart of each module midi control to see which of the share the same.

[xh3rv]

One problem with automap and Diva is that some modules share parameters and so midi controls. Would be nice to have a chart of each module midi control to see which of the share the same.

I would expect errors and I would expect this to change, some notes I made last night -


*** OSCILLATORS ***
'Range' (Octave tuning)
Detune
TuneMod 1 & Src
TuneMod 2 & Src
ShapeMod depth & SRC ( triple )

!! Overlapping [ triple / dual / DCO / eco ] !!
FM / Cross-mod / -- / --
-- / PW / PW / PW

(Mixer) Vol 1 / -- / -- / OSC1 Amp
(Mixer) Vol 2 / -- / -- / OSC2 Amp
(Mixer) Vol 3 / -- / SubAmp / --

-- / PWMod / PWMod / --

*** Filters ***
Cutoff
Keyscale
Res
FreqMod1 & Src
FreqMod2 & Src
FM Depth

*** Envelopes ***

Mode( ! )
A D S R
Release on / off ( ADS )
Velocity
Keyscale

(Q) uantize
(C) urve


*** BOTTOM ***

LFOs - Delay, Sync

Tuning - all

Amp & Pan - just knobs

Tabs:
'Main' - Output, Mode, Voices
'Modifications' - Just knobs

FX:
Chorus - Type, rate, depth
Phaser - Type, sync, rate, feedback, phase, stereo
Plate - all
delay - all
rotary - Controller, all knobs


(Why? Automap 4 has better than MIDI precision. Editor is a pain to use, this will be the first synth I've mapped ... I have to plan ahead for good mappings. Just found out they fixed the qwerty-map button to paging hotkeys, which means non-sequential browsing with very careful indexing ... neat-o )

[Echoes in the Attic]

One problem with automap and Diva is that some modules share parameters and so midi controls. Would be nice to have a chart of each module midi control to see which of the share the same.

No that's a really good thing! It means that when you swap out modules, you can still use many of the same parameters. Ie. filter cutoff is still filter cutoff when you change models. It's pretty easy to tell which are the same and i'm really glad he did it this way. Means you can change modules but maintain a similar sound and not have it reset all the time.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Just found out they fixed the qwerty-map button to paging hotkeys, which means non-sequential browsing with very careful indexing ... neat-o

Woah. Hold up. What's this? Are you saying you can instantly go to a page without hitting the up/down a million times? You can instantly jump with querty keys? I've been wanting this forever! Is this what you're saying?

[xh3rv]

Just found out they fixed the qwerty-map button to paging hotkeys, which means non-sequential browsing with very careful indexing ... neat-o

Woah. Hold up. What's this? Are you saying you can instantly go to a page without hitting the up/down a million times? You can instantly jump with querty keys? I've been wanting this forever! Is this what you're saying?

I haven't tested it on any large maps, but yeah, if you want to jump one page you can assign a button to 'Cmd + up key'. If you want to jump two, assign button to 'Cmd + up key', and 'Cmd + up key', and it jumps two pages.

I think it would never be easy to set this up for a control map without spending some time really designing one, but I'm pretty excited to see if it works well with Diva. I actually was doing multi-page jumps with Tyrell and an AppleScript hack but I had the default spewed map for Tyrell, and it was a little sluggish, but it looks like the hotkeys are much faster.

[rod_zero]

Last nite i couldnt use automap 4 properly so I backed to 3.7 and it was far more easy to map diva.

I hate the new window cant stay on top of the plug in.