The long DIVA thread

[lagavulin16]

It's a stupid game. Not worth wasting time for.

You've had a recent change of heart about the idea? iirc, there was talk, first of blind tests, then some kind of objective comparisons? Anyway, fair enough, that's your prerogative.

We had some discussions and I changed my mind. I won't say never, but in the current situation I don't see any benefit in it - we've lost maybe 4 sales to die hard naysayers, and no A/B test will bring them back in.

Truth is, Diva sounds different - IMHO in a surprisingly nice way. We would need to eq the analogues to get them there.

Hence I'm currently more interested in getting her finished before we go on holidays.

An epic synth is an epic synth. If it can run on current hardware and give the warmth the customers will show up.

[PAK]

The envelopes of our Rev 2 are indistinguishable from our Juno 60, and Diva's "analogue ADSR" matches these perfectly.

But my point wasn't about your Juno 60. My Juno 60's filter also behaved differently from what you've modelled - it was much more "gritty" when closing at high resonance. Am I saying that you should remodel the filter based on mine? Nope.

The issue is about envelope flexibility and how many synths have less linear envelope settings (either calibration differences or otherwise) and can (in my opinion) sound more musical for it. All I'm saying is Diva would benefit from some envelope flexibility! Do you actually disagree with this?

We could at any time produce a dozen or so examples where Diva sounds better, more alive, more "3D", more silky, more anything than any of the analogues her parts are modeled after. But that would be just completely useless.

And also pretty much completely unrelated to my point about envelope flexibility

Could that guy more precisely adjust the internal settings of his Jupiter 8 so his envelopes behaved more linear like Diva? Probably. I don't think that his example shows his Jupiter 8 is "superior" either. All I think it showed is that Diva is already close in sound, but has no way to adjust its envelopes to emulate his. Adding this ability has a musical value beyond just A/B comparisons. Do you disagree with this?

Diva speaks for herself. If you need audio examples to prove that she's either right or wrong, then Diva is not for you.

I wholeheartedly agree. However, considering my main point was about envelope flexibility in general, and not about an audio example which shows what I already knew (which is that other peoples hardware Jupiter 8's have envelopes that behave differently from Diva) I'm not sure why you'd give such a response to me?

[hakey]

I'm currently more interested in getting her finished before we go on holidays.

(the rest of the post too)

[metrosonic]

I'm not sure why you'd give such a response to me?

Give Urs a break Pak. He's already mentioned that's he's having a stressful time trying to fathom out multi core support on OS X (and in such a frame of mind probably shouldn't be responding to enquires on forums). So he was a little short with you, so what - move on, it's nothing personal.

JM
------------
http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[Urs]

I'm not sure why you'd give such a response to me?

Sorry for that. As I wrote later, my head is somewhere else at the moment

I neither agree or disagree about envelopes. If the analogue ones sound too linear (they're not linear at all), try the digital ones. They're snappy as hell

[pdxindy]

The envelopes of our Rev 2 are indistinguishable from our Juno 60, and Diva's "analogue ADSR" matches these perfectly.

But my point wasn't about your Juno 60. My Juno 60's filter also behaved differently from what you've modelled - it was much more "gritty" when closing at high resonance. Am I saying that you should remodel the filter based on mine? Nope.

The issue is about envelope flexibility and how many synths have less linear envelope settings (either calibration differences or otherwise) and can (in my opinion) sound more musical for it. All I'm saying is Diva would benefit from some envelope flexibility! Do you actually disagree with this?

No synth can be everything... Diva already has some envelop flexibility by having multiple envelopes. From the sound of it, Diva will likely get a few choice new modules in some future update so could well end up with another envelop or two in the future. How about the feature set that is there is completed before you and everyone else insists upon more and more features added. Diva is about sound quality and emulating some of the beautiful qualities of analogue synths.

[Urs]

The other thing... what I think I wanted to say...

I do not think that it's necessary to convince/persuade/evangelise people much more with examples and stuff. In the years I've been on KVR, I can't remember a product launch that was more positive from the get go - which is remarkable in itself, but even more so when considering the potential of emulations to be dissed and the lack of a consistent factory bank. With other forums (including GS) combined I've counted 5 or 6 overly critical voices, among which only one could name a product or two that he thinks does a better job. And the occasional hissy fit that seems to belong to a Diva's life.

Everything else can wait till later

[Nokenoku]

I do think it is possible to win - but I don't think the hardware or software is there yet. Go compare soft synths from 10 or 15 years ago (FM/digital ones aside) to ones today. Same with compressors and EQs trying to emulate Fairchilds or Pultecs... we get closer every year but we aren't there yet.

Well .. the Korg Legacy plugins are not perfect, but sound still more "analog" than most "analog" plugins after them.
(Edit: Replace "analog" with "vintage" ... that's what most people mean anyways.)
And digital EQs were always great.

Today we might generally have less aliasing in plugins, and plugins might get more technical details right, but in the end the design (of the filters, envelopes, etc.) is still the most important thing.

Haven't tried DIVA out yet, but if it's actually able to nail the old Roland sound, I'd be pretty happy.

[metrosonic]

[No synth can be everything... Diva already has some envelop flexibility by having multiple envelopes. From the sound of it, Diva will likely get a few choice new modules in some future update so could well end up with another envelop or two in the future. How about the feature set that is there is completed before you and everyone else insists upon more and more features added. Diva is about sound quality and emulating some of the beautiful qualities of analogue synths.

100% agreed on this.

JM
------------
http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[PAK]

Give Urs a break Pak. He's already mentioned that's he's having a stressful time trying to fathom out multi core support on OS X

Yep, but he mentioned it in the post after the one I replied to, so I didn't see it before

So he was a little short with you, so what - move on, it's nothing personal.

Pfft, he'd have to be a lot more insulting before I'd take it personally.. And when I said "i'm not sure why he'd give that reply" I didn't mean any perceived personal treatment anyway - it was about a failure to address the actual topic (the value of envelope flexibility) and instead talk about an audio comparison (Which - shockingly I know - I actually don't give a monkeys nuts about )

[PAK]

I neither agree or disagree about envelopes. If the analogue ones sound too linear (they're not linear at all), try the digital ones. They're snappy as hell

I never said they were linear Urs, I said "more linear" than his example.. In his particular example there's a small difference in how the filter opens. It's not the hugest significance ever, but it's a nice thing to have an ability to copy in a general musical sense IMO. I do hope you will consider adding more flexibility to the envelopes at some point.

I do not think that it's necessary to convince/persuade/evangelise people much more with examples and stuff. In the years I've been on KVR, I can't remember a product launch that was more positive from the get go - which is remarkable in itself, but even more so when considering the potential of emulations to be dissed and the lack of a consistent factory bank. With other forums (including GS) combined I've counted 5 or 6 overly critical voices, among which only one could name a product or two that he thinks does a better job. And the occasional hissy fit that seems to belong to a Diva's life.

Yes indeed. The filters in Diva are (IMO) a cut above the native stuff that's went before. Please don't mistake peoples desires to see (what they think would be) small "improvements" as if someone is somehow attacking the whole thing

[hakey]

With other forums (including GS) combined I've counted 5 or 6 overly critical voices, among which only one could name a product or two that he thinks does a better job.

I see someone is continuing his, uhm, not-really-all-that-subtle campaign over at GS now!

[leggie]

I tried the win beta in reaper and it crashed ! with this error message, latest reaper. bridged.

http://screencast.com/t/NCO67IhOQJ

[Fritze]

Diva works good in Reaper x86. A x64 version will be available later IIRC.

[Simon-Claudius]

Hello friends!

I'm thinking about buying a MacBook (Pro). My trusty old MacBook (not 'Pro') is four years old which becomes especially obvious when using current software that is hard on the CPU.

Do you think a quad-core i7 Macbook Pro with 2.4 GHz and 8GB RAM would be sufficient to run DIVA properly?

Thank you very much!
Simon-Claudius
xx