FM with Diva - how are you using it?
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- KVRist
- 330 posts since 30 May, 2005
I am just wondering if anyone could give any pointers on how to approach using FM on Diva. I have played around with it a bit (mainly with the Triple VCO) and the results haven't been anything useful for me.
Are there any kinds of tricks or bits of knowledge that could be learned to help understand how to use it musically?
Are there any kinds of tricks or bits of knowledge that could be learned to help understand how to use it musically?
- u-he
- 30222 posts since 8 Aug, 2002 from Berlin
I would be interested in this too.
On a Minimoog you can of course set the modulating oscillator (Osc 3 there) to "low" and make it an LFO. This is probably how it's meant to be, and which I think is covered well by the actual LFO modulation in Diva.
Audiorate FM should at least yield some non-harmonic, if not metallic sounds.And then of course it can be used with Sync. All at which the Dual VCO excells slightly more IMHO...
On a Minimoog you can of course set the modulating oscillator (Osc 3 there) to "low" and make it an LFO. This is probably how it's meant to be, and which I think is covered well by the actual LFO modulation in Diva.
Audiorate FM should at least yield some non-harmonic, if not metallic sounds.And then of course it can be used with Sync. All at which the Dual VCO excells slightly more IMHO...
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Bronto Scorpio Bronto Scorpio https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=98170
- KVRAF
- 5546 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from Wiesmoor, Germany
I guess it depends on how you define "musically". I got all kinds of cool drones, effects and inharmonic sounds out of the Triple VCO FM for example.
It's probably a good idea to begin with triangle waves, otherwise the overtones can of course get a bit messy (which can be good too of course).
I have to agree that I mostly use the Dual VCO for crossmod sounds though.
I somehow get the feeling that many people just try to get cheesy synth leads from yesteryear out of Diva
It can do so much more!
Cheers
Dennis
It's probably a good idea to begin with triangle waves, otherwise the overtones can of course get a bit messy (which can be good too of course).
I have to agree that I mostly use the Dual VCO for crossmod sounds though.
I somehow get the feeling that many people just try to get cheesy synth leads from yesteryear out of Diva
It can do so much more!
Cheers
Dennis
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- KVRist
- 339 posts since 31 Jul, 2011 from London, UK
You can do a lot of things with the FM on Diva
here's one small example patch.....
http://www.box.com/s/vamvahavidnblensrnv0
In this Patch....check how I have used the FM to add a bit more character and growl........just tweak the FM knob to 0 and then turn it to 94...see how it adds more growl and a different character...open the modwheel and do the same.......and notice again...........
I'm using sync here.......but there's more tricks with sync off.....more experienced designers can help you with that......I would also like to know more of em
BTW this patch and more will be in my Revised patch bundle (BRoySound) for the new beta....which will be up in few hours
here's one small example patch.....
http://www.box.com/s/vamvahavidnblensrnv0
In this Patch....check how I have used the FM to add a bit more character and growl........just tweak the FM knob to 0 and then turn it to 94...see how it adds more growl and a different character...open the modwheel and do the same.......and notice again...........
I'm using sync here.......but there's more tricks with sync off.....more experienced designers can help you with that......I would also like to know more of em
BTW this patch and more will be in my Revised patch bundle (BRoySound) for the new beta....which will be up in few hours
B Ray - Embrays - RAY
Valhalla Delay - 120 Presets, FabFilter Timeless 3 - 105 Presets XY, Soundtoys Effectrack 150+ Presets, PA Unfiltered Audio BYOME - 100 Presets, Venomode Phrasebox - 100 Presets - https://gumroad.com/embrays
Valhalla Delay - 120 Presets, FabFilter Timeless 3 - 105 Presets XY, Soundtoys Effectrack 150+ Presets, PA Unfiltered Audio BYOME - 100 Presets, Venomode Phrasebox - 100 Presets - https://gumroad.com/embrays
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Bronto Scorpio Bronto Scorpio https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=98170
- KVRAF
- 5546 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from Wiesmoor, Germany
A small example: http://www.box.com/s/ntg82nodpc1tk6man7k0
I love this sound
It may not be musical in a "Let us sound like Vince Clark" kind of way but I can imagine a lot of possible uses for it
Just play a few notes and play with the pitch- and modwheel
I don't have a Triple OSC example available at the moment but you can do similar things with it.
Sorry for the box link by the way....my webspace is still not working

Cheers
Dennis
I love this sound
It may not be musical in a "Let us sound like Vince Clark" kind of way but I can imagine a lot of possible uses for it
Just play a few notes and play with the pitch- and modwheel
I don't have a Triple OSC example available at the moment but you can do similar things with it.
Sorry for the box link by the way....my webspace is still not working
Cheers
Dennis
- KVRAF
- 26978 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
Mogular wrote:I am just wondering if anyone could give any pointers on how to approach using FM on Diva. I have played around with it a bit (mainly with the Triple VCO) and the results haven't been anything useful for me.
Are there any kinds of tricks or bits of knowledge that could be learned to help understand how to use it musically?
It can add a nice growl to sync sounds...
- KVRAF
- 26978 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
You can set the dual osc both to square wave and set PW down near zero... then start modulating the cross-mod and very small changes to PW with sync off... both create different beatings which you can play with by offsetting the two parameters... that was the basis for this sound... (not sure if you consider this musical, but I do)
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Diva-12.wav
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Diva-12.wav
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 330 posts since 30 May, 2005
I certainly could be accused of making lots of sounds from yesteryear
but I do love electronic music from across the spectrum of time.
The question actually came from trying to emulate the bass sound from Michael Jackson's Thriller which to me sounds very FM'y (actually kind of DX7ish - though the album came out before the DX7 came out). When I tried to get that sort of metallic/reedy fm sound out of the triple osc it just didn't yield anything like that. I tried modulating the pitch of OSC1 with a fast envelope and after not getting very far with that, started to get the feeling that the results would always be rather unpredictable.
It made me wonder why the fm was even included in the 3Osc module.
I will have a play with those presets you guys uploaded and see where that leads me.
but I do love electronic music from across the spectrum of time.
The question actually came from trying to emulate the bass sound from Michael Jackson's Thriller which to me sounds very FM'y (actually kind of DX7ish - though the album came out before the DX7 came out). When I tried to get that sort of metallic/reedy fm sound out of the triple osc it just didn't yield anything like that. I tried modulating the pitch of OSC1 with a fast envelope and after not getting very far with that, started to get the feeling that the results would always be rather unpredictable.
It made me wonder why the fm was even included in the 3Osc module.
I will have a play with those presets you guys uploaded and see where that leads me.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 330 posts since 30 May, 2005
This is beautiful. No question about the musicality of this from my endpdxindy wrote:You can set the dual osc both to square wave and set PW down near zero... then start modulating the cross-mod and very small changes to PW with sync off... both create different beatings which you can play with by offsetting the two parameters... that was the basis for this sound... (not sure if you consider this musical, but I do)
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Diva-12.wav
I love the subtle organicness that can be coaxed out of Diva. I get so lost inside her (can I even say that????....
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- KVRian
- 814 posts since 18 May, 2007 from Berlin
Like the others already said, just a touch for extra flavour, or crank it up for harsh metallic stuff.
This sound here feels a little like one of those ancient stone instruments, this is mostly FM:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15480420/Diva%2 ... ophone.mp3
As you can hear, the tone isn't always consistent, but that's maybe in the programming. So yes, sometimes you hit the right value and there's a constant pitch, but you've got to look for it.
This sound here feels a little like one of those ancient stone instruments, this is mostly FM:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15480420/Diva%2 ... ophone.mp3
As you can hear, the tone isn't always consistent, but that's maybe in the programming. So yes, sometimes you hit the right value and there's a constant pitch, but you've got to look for it.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 330 posts since 30 May, 2005
Fantastic, would you mind describing a little how this patch is built?The unshushable Coktor wrote:Like the others already said, just a touch for extra flavour, or crank it up for harsh metallic stuff.
This sound here feels a little like one of those ancient stone instruments, this is mostly FM:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15480420/Diva%2 ... ophone.mp3
As you can hear, the tone isn't always consistent, but that's maybe in the programming. So yes, sometimes you hit the right value and there's a constant pitch, but you've got to look for it.
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- KVRian
- 814 posts since 18 May, 2007 from Berlin
Thank you, Mogular! Just looked at the patch again.Mogular wrote:Fantastic, would you mind describing a little how this patch is built?
This is a very simple patch, happened while experimenting around, I didn't know from the beginning how to achieve such a sound.
This is not made with the FM knob in the OscBank, but with one of the Eco oscillators (no particular reason, but I liked the dirtiness of the result), whose pitch is modulated by the two LFOs combined through the multiplier. Both LFOs turned to a very high speed. I used the filter to remove the nasty frequencies, because otherwise is would have been very noisy and unpleasant.
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- KVRian
- 814 posts since 18 May, 2007 from Berlin
This is a great example of the usefulness of FM for grittiness and texture. Love it.BRoySound wrote:You can do a lot of things with the FM on Diva
here's one small example patch.....
http://www.box.com/s/vamvahavidnblensrnv0
(Man, your sounds are three times as loud as all the others, almost gave me a heart-attack)
That's a lovely sound!! Sounds like faraway church bells. Musically extremely usable.
Strangely, just one note kills my CPU. It's the Sallen Key highpass filter choking it. If I replace that with another model it's fine.
- KVRAF
- 4176 posts since 2 Feb, 2003 from lost in music
I've just done another little example of the crossmod
it's a kind of FM sound
starts with lotsa crossmod
then the crossmod is turned down by the modwheel
the sound is not stable throughout the whole range, but ...
DIVA crossmod
it's a kind of FM sound
starts with lotsa crossmod
then the crossmod is turned down by the modwheel
the sound is not stable throughout the whole range, but ...
DIVA crossmod
sound is vibration, vibration is life
- KVRAF
- 1617 posts since 11 Dec, 2008 from Minneapolis
With the Triple OSC it's possible to get oscillators cleanly back in tune. Finding the right spot is sort of a manual operation; the easiest way I've found to get there is to turn the volume of osc2 down quite a bit, and osc3 off. Then sweep osc2 tuning until there's some beating, and fine tune from there.
Starting with a stable setup like this and then changing fm amount (slightly), osc1 waveform, osc2+3 tuning, sync, volumes etc. might be a good path to some subtler behaviors.
Cross-mod in the Dual OSC seems tougher to tame quite like this. The DCO has some waveforms that are maybe interesting here - I think they're applicable to a much narrower range of FM-esque sounds and it takes some work in the filters and envelopes, but it's sort of more subtle sounds with the Roland vibe.
Starting with a stable setup like this and then changing fm amount (slightly), osc1 waveform, osc2+3 tuning, sync, volumes etc. might be a good path to some subtler behaviors.
Cross-mod in the Dual OSC seems tougher to tame quite like this. The DCO has some waveforms that are maybe interesting here - I think they're applicable to a much narrower range of FM-esque sounds and it takes some work in the filters and envelopes, but it's sort of more subtle sounds with the Roland vibe.
