The long DIVA thread

[karrikuh]

Well, I havn't seen an analogue synth yet that preserves phase relations between voices.

We might add an oscillator model with phase reset though. Or we might add it to the Juno 60ish oscillator. Dunno...

In my opinion, this is a must for proper emulation of the Juno 60 (which I admittedly have never owned). The Juno uses a master oscillator from which waveforms for individual voices are derived via "divide-down" technique. This is the same technique also found in classic string synthesizers (ARP solina etc) and transistor organs (VOX continental etc). The result is that notes being played simultanuously whose frequencies are related by an integer factor (like octaves) are perfectly phase-locked. On the one hand this is perceived as rather "static" sounding, on the other hand it results in a more consistent sound when e.g. playing staccato octaves. Also, due to the techniqual relationship, this would allow a more faithful emulation of string synth and organ sounds.

BTW, I have to repeat the others by saying that this is the best and most analog sounding plugin to date in my opinion. Keep up the good work!

[Urs]

Does the duo mode work?

Not properly yet, no.

Any chance of implementing that duo+mono-retrigger idea I mentioned a while back?

Regards,

The Weird Brigade

I'm not sure yet. We have a bucket full of feature requests for the voice management, and we want to start with the things needed to recreate the way our 8 inspirations work...

Can you sum it up for me or link to the post? - Then I can get Clemens to put it on our whiteboard...

[Urs]

Well, I havn't seen an analogue synth yet that preserves phase relations between voices.

We might add an oscillator model with phase reset though. Or we might add it to the Juno 60ish oscillator. Dunno...

In my opinion, this is a must for proper emulation of the Juno 60 (which I admittedly have never owned). The Juno uses a master oscillator from which waveforms for individual voices are derived via "divide-down" technique. This is the same technique also found in classic string synthesizers (ARP solina etc) and transistor organs (VOX continental etc). The result is that notes being played simultanuously whose frequencies are related by an integer factor (like octaves) are perfectly phase-locked. On the one hand this is perceived as rather "static" sounding, on the other hand it results in a more consistent sound when e.g. playing staccato octaves. Also, due to the techniqual relationship, this would allow a more faithful emulation of string synth and organ sounds.

BTW, I have to repeat the others by saying that this is the best and most analog sounding plugin to date in my opinion. Keep up the good work!

Hehehe. Our DCO *is* a divide down oscillator with a master clock. So the frequencies are quantised. Our master clock runs at 4 MHz, so the finest resolution is a minuscle fraction of a cent, at any frequency.

There is no phase lock in a Juno 60. If you hold an octave, there's a slow but distinct beating. I can post an example if you want

[Urs]

related: We're contemplating to add a .tun file with exact Juno 60 tunings - we've sacrificed the built-in tuning in favour of the drift and voice mapped parameters.

[Urs]

One thing missing then would be an Oberheim filter. A Matrix 12 multimode filter could maybe kill the CPU (and is lots of work) as the Jupiter 6 multimode could already do in some cases.

We'll see... I've basically bought a Matrix 12, but need to look at it first.

Nevertheless, each filter takes between 1 and 2 months of time to model to the level we're at, with the means and technology we've put together. Maybe a bit faster from now on, for similar models. But next year we're working on a diode ladder... that's gonna be in a whole different ball park. I can't see yet where we're going with future additions.

[atukao]

Regarding SSM, we have an Opera 6 which sounds nothing like Korg's Polysix emulation. That's why we haven't even bothered With any OpAmp ladder until we can get hold of either a Polysix or (better) an Rev 2 Prophet 5.

Reproducing the characteristics and behaviour of the Prophet 5 Rev 2 SSM2040 would be fabulous.

[hakey]

Any chance of implementing that duo+mono-retrigger idea I mentioned a while back?

Can you sum it up for me or link to the post? - Then I can get Clemens to put it on our whiteboard...

I had some trouble giving a concise explanation - the gist of it is duophonic as implemented in Zebra, ACE and Tyrell, but replace the mono-legato envelope behaviour with mono-retrigger.

Here's the original thread - (I think Howard eventually understood what I was getting at and where it might be useful).

That said, it's certainly not a vintage synth feature, so probably low priority, if it's even worth doing at all.

[izonin]

Regarding SSM, we have an Opera 6 which sounds nothing like Korg's Polysix emulation. That's why we haven't even bothered With any OpAmp ladder until we can get hold of either a Polysix or (better) an Rev 2 Prophet 5.

Reproducing the characteristics and behaviour of the Prophet 5 Rev 2 SSM2040 would be fabulous.

Yep, a Prophet SSM and an Andromeda would get every trance guy out there drooling.

[Urs]

Regarding SSM, we have an Opera 6 which sounds nothing like Korg's Polysix emulation. That's why we haven't even bothered With any OpAmp ladder until we can get hold of either a Polysix or (better) an Rev 2 Prophet 5.

Reproducing the characteristics and behaviour of the Prophet 5 Rev 2 SSM2040 would be fabulous.

Yep, a Prophet SSM and an Andromeda would get every trance guy out there drooling.

Hehehe... indeed. The Andromeda's factory presets are a Trancefest. It's a very brilliant synth capable of way more things though. They should've at least added *some* classical presets from days of Prog and Berlin School.

[carrieres]

are they still some sceptical alive after that Diva analog fest ?

[xh3rv]

related: We're contemplating to add a .tun file with exact Juno 60 tunings - we've sacrificed the built-in tuning in favour of the drift and voice mapped parameters.

Would it be possible to get a right-click menu with some macro options on the voice tuning? Something like the options on an MMap or ACE's table. You could put lab results from specific synths in there. I think having a macro command to spread equally between voices 1 and 8, and then another two to increase or decrease distance of each knob from the average value of 1 and 8 would be pretty useful.

Also along the lines of me being a control freak in general, I sort of want to suggest a syntax for the modulations page - [ add / multiply toggle ] [ src1 ] [ src 2 ] with invert, rectify, and quantify still as mod sources, per mod target. More Zebra-like and I'm assuming this doesn't lead to nasty behaviors I don't realize. Just two cents and passing thoughts!

[Echoes in the Attic]

Simply amazing!

I can't say anything for the accuracy of all the modules or how perfect an emulation it is, but I can say it's already inspired some tracks which is really what matters right? everything sits right. it takes so little time tweaking when things sound good from the start.

I could do with the ability to modulate more of the controls, maybe add delay option on the LFOs, but even without those I'm already stoked. maybe an arpeggiator if I was feeling super greedy.
...

I agree with this...and an arp would be a killer feature. Still, pretty awesome as is...the only thing that could make it better is to give a bundle price for Zebra and Diva together for those of us that are new to u-he goodness....

Zebra's *exact* arp would be perfect for DIVA. My favorite thing in Zebra is punchy analog sounding arps.

Would it possible to simply lift the Arp right out of Zebra and smack it down on a page in DIVA?

[Urs]

We'll be working on the Mods page shortly... the modulators are set up so you can plug any into any, but I have yet to persuade the framework to allow for these connections.

With drop downs and stuff, I'll be working on a new menu class that allows us to customise pull downs for more tidyness and for exceptional cases that are specific to plugins and stuff.

[SWAN808]

re muffle... when I hook the analogues uprecently I'm always surprised how flat and IMHO even dull they sound. They sound great, rich, full. But not as direct as Diva anymore. That's a very subjective impression, maybe because I've been working with her a lot over the past few months and got used to that.

I might add an eq-type thing that matches the overall frequency response of Diva with e.g. the Junos. That could be in the fx section then.

I don't tnink it's anything though that can't be fixed with a bit of filtering. There's no magic. There's just transfer functions, and settng them up for more neutral sound as in Diva is better than leaving anything out that can't be put back in.

I really like the softer sound of analogue...Diva is very accurate and I think you are right - Diva does sound more direct and it still sounds much more modern to me than real analogue. However this I think is good for people (a lot of people) who make modern music styles. I myself make more old school influenced music but its obvious to me that for the most current styles - the original analogue equiptment isnt always appropriate. It may not be a worthwhile investment for a dubstep producer to own a Minimoog IMO...Similaraly I heard some ABs of Diva with a MOPHO on Gearslutz and I think Diva sounded better in the context it was in (modern electro sound)- but it was still less analogue because of this 'direct' and accurate aspect.

However for someone who loves more old school sound - I'd love it to have this option on Diva - which I think would make sense given that it directly sets out to model. Having the option would obviously be the best of both worlds.

However - rather than a static frequency response - would it be possible to have a more dynamic softening for the high freq? In the digital realm static hig freq cuts sound muffled and dull to me - whereas dynamic/saturated highs sound closer to those in the analogue realm - musical and sweet...

I have this experience when using the Nebula sampled EQ and filters. The dynamics and saturation from the VVK technology makes filtering more musical than standard digital EQ.

[Urs]

Would it possible to simply lift the Arp right out of Zebra and smack it down on a page in DIVA?

It's not that easy. We have not yet touched the multicore things, and we have yet to see how it affects future options for architectural changes. We're relatively sure that we can not have a ModMatrix like in Zebra or TyrellN6 as is, which is why I added the Adder/Multiply section. I'm also not sure about sequencers and arpeggiators that add a level of complexity to the MIDI Note stream, because we need to pre-schedule the whole timing of voices to ahve them render on different cpu cores.

I'm afraid that, if we did add that extra complexity, we will run into trouble with the multicore support. And as of now, I'd prefer multicore and playability over seq/arp. An arpeggiator or sequencer (or both) may surely be an option for a later update, and we'll work on this stuff next year when concentrating on Berlin Modular.