Diva Vs. Real Analog

[IncarnateX]

Speaking of the Human League, they are actually still active as someone already pointed out. Here is a quote from an interview from 2014 with Philip Oakey about their love of synths:

We were dismissed earlier in our career for our use of synthesisers. People thought we were a fad because we use them and synthesisers weren’t classed as an instrument, like the guitar. It has taken a long time, but most pop records have some sort of synth right now.

And here we are discussing whether analog or hardware synths are superior to softsynths or vice versa. How typical: Once the annoying cat is gone, the dog starts chasing it's own tail. I Remember the endless discussions with Heavy Metal fans about whether synths were real instruments or just fake (that was before Van Halen's "Jump" that made the whole HM industry go apeshit) and now synthfreaks are barking at each other instead.

Anyway, I think it is time to pay a little tribute to The Human League. God bless them! It was actually the synths sounds of this tune a long with those on Kraftwerk "The Robots" and Yazoo's "Don't Go" that ignited my burning love for this wonderful instrument called a "Synthesizer":

[fluffy_little_something]

It is not me branding a band as, for instance, a 70's band. I guess a good indicator is the number of hits they had in a given decade.

Again, my point in bringing this up to begin with was just to point out that there were non-prog groups using synths in the 70s. If anyone disagrees with the specific examples I mentioned, fine, I really don't care. All this debate about how many hits in what decade is not relevant to the original point, and certainly not relevant to Diva vs. Hardware.

You know who was a great 70's band? Hall & Oates, that's who.

I don't know who brought it up and why. I just commented on what someone had written previously. But indeed it has nothing to do with this topic, which however has never been an issue for me, off-topic is often more interesting than on-topic

Hall and Oates were a 70's and 80's band, or duo rather. But they were not a 60's band just because they got together in the 60's

[IncarnateX]

BTW: About DIVA (or other emulations) vs. Real Analog it is a battle that in it's essence cannot be won. I have written a little poem about it for illustration. You are welcome to turn it into a synthpop song with whatever synths fits you.

All want A to be like B
That is clear for all to see
But A is A and therefore not B
Like you are you and therefore not me
If B was A, A would be B
No difference would be there to see
To be A and not B, A has to stay A
and can never be B in any possible way

[deastman]

BTW: About DIVA (or other emulations) vs. Real Analog it is a battle that in it's essence cannot be won. I have written a little poem about it for illustration. You are welcome to turn it into a synthpop song with whatever synths fits you.

All want A to be like B
That is clear for all to see
But A is A and therefore not B
Like you are you and therefore not me
If B was A, A would be B
No difference would be there to see
To be A and not B, A has to stay A
and can never be B in any possible way

That's brilliant! Can we get the Human League to cover it?

[IncarnateX]

Can we get the Human League to cover it?

Oh I'd love that Sweet Dreams! (No wait...that is Eurhytmics )

[aciddose]

Not to be disrespectful, but driving a Sallen-Key filter really hot is useless.

This is an amazingly ignorant point of view Urs and I urge you to reconsider this position.

The vast majority of typical application of these filters (MS-10, 20, many other korg products) are heavily driven and driving them further changes the balance between signal and feedback/oscillation while taking advantage of non-itineraries in the signal path.

"Useless" is a subjective bullshit position to take.

The fact is, objectively, there are very significant timbre differences due to driving of these filters.

One could just as easily claim synthesizers like Diva are useless. Especially for solo guitar.

An example of driving a sallen-key filter "really hot", at least from 0v to 14v in this example:

https://soundcloud.com/aciddose-1/analog-example

I'm adjusting the mixer level from the pulse here during the first 17 seconds, no other control is adjusted.

Since the pulse can't be saturated (it already is maximally saturated) the only effect here is the influence on the filter itself. The oscillator is taken out of the equation.

With other waveforms (ramps, sine, noise) this becomes far more complex as an interaction between the non-linear shaping of the waveform itself occurs.

[Stollmeister]

While a friend lent me his Arturia Microbrute I decided to make a quick shootout between some hardware and some software synthesizers. This is no scientific test. I made the sound as simple as possible to make the synth programming easier. The sound is based on a single saw wave through a low pass filter. The synths heard are in order of appearance:

1. Native Instruments - Monark
2. Hardware Eurorack modular. Malekko Richter Oscillator II into Eowave Magnetosphere low pass filter.
3. U-He Diva.
4. Hardware DSI Mopho.
5. Hardware Arturia Microbrute.

The entire cycle of 5 synths is repeated once.
Obviously the features and sound of the Mopho and the Microbrute differ from the others. The latter two are not Moog-based filters. The Mopho might have been programmed to sound closer to the modular, but the interface is so fiddly that my patience ran out.
https://soundcloud.com/gussunkri/synth- ... f-hw-vs-sw

[deastman]

While a friend lent me his Arturia Microbrute I decided to make a quick shootout between some hardware and some software synthesizers. This is no scientific test. I made the sound as simple as possible to make the synth programming easier. The sound is based on a single saw wave through a low pass filter. The synths heard are in order of appearance:

1. Native Instruments - Monark
2. Hardware Eurorack modular. Malekko Richter Oscillator II into Eowave Magnetosphere low pass filter.
3. U-He Diva.
4. Hardware DSI Mopho.
5. Hardware Arturia Microbrute.

The entire cycle of 5 synths is repeated once.
Obviously the features and sound of the Mopho and the Microbrute differ from the others. The latter two are not Moog-based filters. The Mopho might have been programmed to sound closer to the modular, but the interface is so fiddly that my patience ran out.
https://soundcloud.com/gussunkri/synth- ... f-hw-vs-sw

I'm just curious... What conclusions did you draw from conducting this test?

[Stollmeister]

They all sound great. But I decided that if I'm going for a really simple bass sound I won't bother recording the hardware modular, I'll just use Monark.

[EnGee]

I'm looking to find solutions for existing problems.

My problem with Diva is not the sound. The sound is great IMO and can make a good substitute for expensive polyphonic analog synth. My problem is in the cpu usage.

I'm trying to understand what is the 'costy' part of emulation that needs all that CPU processing. I knew from another thread that oversampling is requiring cpu power and it is costy. What about other code that is taking so much cpu processing?

Can that be solved by putting a hybrid system of analog filters and digital everything else? Can it be done with existing technology?

Another question, what if Diva (or another soft synth of analog emulation) acts like an editor and a complement for a small usb device that has analog filters (and whatever necessary to reduce the cpu processing) but gives more analog feel/sound?

I'm still searching in wikipedia and other information resources, but as I'm not a DSP programmer or analyzer, I thought to have possible answers directly from the developers (or knowledgeable users) as sure they had such ideas before.

[aciddose]

You need to adjust the controls so they sound the same, as close as possible first.

What you're seeing here is mostly variation of sustain for the amplitude envelope. Eliminating this requires simply using gate/hold for the amplitude. Do that.


The only one standing out is the microbrute. No surprise, this is the very sallen-key filter drive that Urs said was "useless".

[Chopper]

Skrillex single-handedly created a new major genre of electronic music which for few years dominated everything from dancefloors to TV commercials...

You are not from around London, i can see that...

[fluffy_little_something]

I fail to see the point in that audio comparison, the envelopes are set so differently that one can hardly compare those 5 synths. Some also seem to be drier than others. Taking that into account I like the Diva sound most, it sounds tighter somehow. I am a bit surprised how poor those hardware synths sound...

[bluedad]

alright a little bit of cleanup done. Let's try to keep on topic, and ego's in check. You know who you are.

[T-CM11]

Hall and Oates were a 70's and 80's band, or duo rather. But they were not a 60's band just because they got together in the 60's

Yes they were! They're a 60s band! Do you have a logical argument that proves they're not? (=this is just silly, are there any rules?).