Diva vs Analogue - a real world test

[IncarnateX]

In contrast I lack any examples from you or other that show that the opposite can also be true with regard to the synths in question.

That's true, but that doesn't destroy the validity of my point (that there is a large spectrum of sounds not covered by those tests) does it?

But sweetie, you have not validated your point in the first place and thats my point. You are running in circles here. The examples given here does not ruin the possible validity of your point, but as long as you haven't proved anything to the contrary of the examples given, we know nothing about whether your point is valid or not.

[Z1202]

In contrast I lack any examples from you or other that show that the opposite can also be true with regard to the synths in question.

That's true, but that doesn't destroy the validity of my point (that there is a large spectrum of sounds not covered by those tests) does it?

But sweetie, you have not validated your point in the first place and thats my point. You are running in circles here. The examples given here does not ruin the possible validity of your point, but as long as you haven't proved anything to the contrary of the examples given, we know nothing about whether your point is valid or not.

You are misinterpreting my statements. My point is exactly the same as your latest statement in the above: "we don't know whether Diva is as good as hardware for anything beyond the bread and butter sounds."

As for the proofs, as I wrote earler, I do not own the respective hardware (not even my setup is configured to accept any audio input), but I might do a Monark vs Diva test later.

[chk071]

Question:

These "extreme" sounds that are being requested. How often do you actually hear them in real world application?

All the time... different people listen to different types of music

Yes. Especially ambient music has a lot of those "extreme" sounds, all the filter blips, extreme pitch modulation, snappy sequences with lots of resonance... i wouldn't at all call it non-real world.

Then by all means, somebody show me where Diva falls apart on these sounds. I have an open mind. Let me hear the difference. Why is it that nobody can do that?

I don't see that anyone claimed that. All that was in question was the validity of this kind of comparison, when the sounds are simple, have no extreme settings, and therefor will be possible to replicate more easily than sounds with extreme settings.

[Z1202]

Or maybe as a first demo, some Diva fan could dial in something similar to this:
http://www.native-instruments.com/filea ... _knobs.wav
It doesn't have to be exactly this (especially since we don't know which knob positions were used), just the similar type of sounds. We won't compare the precision of the emulation, just the general ability to produces such sounds.

@Urs: I hope it's okay with you. I'm feeling a little as if I'm trying to bash Diva. Believe me, I am not. My apologies, if this is causing hard feelings, was not intended.

[wagtunes]

Question:

These "extreme" sounds that are being requested. How often do you actually hear them in real world application?

All the time... different people listen to different types of music

Yes. Especially ambient music has a lot of those "extreme" sounds, all the filter blips, extreme pitch modulation, snappy sequences with lots of resonance... i wouldn't at all call it non-real world.

Then by all means, somebody show me where Diva falls apart on these sounds. I have an open mind. Let me hear the difference. Why is it that nobody can do that?

I don't see that anyone claimed that. All that was in question was the validity of this kind of comparison, when the sounds are simple, have no extreme settings, and therefor will be possible to replicate more easily than sounds with extreme settings.

Which implies that Diva, on extreme sounds, is not as good as hardware.

That is what all this is about isn't it?

From what I've heard, to my ears, Diva is just as good as the OB 8.

The dissent is that it isn't a valid test.

Fine, somebody do a valid test so we can end this debate.

[wagtunes]

Or maybe as a first demo, some Diva fan could dial in something similar to this:
http://www.native-instruments.com/filea ... _knobs.wav
It doesn't have to be exactly this (especially since we don't know which knob positions were used), just the similar type of sounds. We won't compare the precision of the emulation, just the general ability to produces such sounds.

@Urs: I hope it's okay with you. I'm feeling a little as if I'm trying to bash Diva. Believe me, I am not. My apologies, if this is causing hard feelings, was not intended.

Except this isn't at all relevant to this thread. Read the title. This isn't real analog. It's Monark. So what? Who cares? It's another soft synth. If you think Monark is better than Diva, fine. Let's put Monark up against "real analog" and have it out.

That is the whole point that soft synths are not as good as hardware. Anything else is pointless.

[IncarnateX]

You are misinterpreting my statements. My point is exactly the same as your latest statement in the above: "we don't know whether Diva is as good as hardware for anything beyond the bread and butter sounds."

That point is valid all right, though not for hardware in general, which you write here, but as far as the OB8 and DIVA concern yes. However that point is trivial and does not bring us closer to the question whether
1) there actually are a spectrum of sounds not covered by the examples (though I think it is fair to assume so, but even so it is at best an assertion we share then)
2) whether those sounds not covered can be emulated or not, and that is after all the burning question

[fluffy_little_something]

I suppose this thread is only so narrow because that person wants to advertise their Diva sound and skin set.
I would find it interesting to evaluate more synths not just Diva. GForce and Xils stuff for instance.

[Z1202]

Or maybe as a first demo, some Diva fan could dial in something similar to this:
http://www.native-instruments.com/filea ... _knobs.wav
It doesn't have to be exactly this (especially since we don't know which knob positions were used), just the similar type of sounds. We won't compare the precision of the emulation, just the general ability to produces such sounds.

@Urs: I hope it's okay with you. I'm feeling a little as if I'm trying to bash Diva. Believe me, I am not. My apologies, if this is causing hard feelings, was not intended.

Except this isn't at all relevant to this thread. Read the title. This isn't real analog. It's Monark. So what? Who cares? It's another soft synth. If you think Monark is better than Diva, fine. Let's put Monark up against "real analog" and have it out.

That is the whole point that soft synths are not as good as hardware. Anything else is pointless.

Unfortunately, I don't have a respective Minimoog recording, but I guess it would sound pretty similar. But the point of the suggestion is simply to test how well Diva runs in the extreme settings range. Monark is used just as a reference which works "sufficiently well". Let's not be nitpicking and stay practical. The same as the real point of this thread is whether Diva can do as good as real analog, not so much whether it can do it exactly (although some people might insist on the latter).

Edit: I understand that some people might be looking after "that Moog sound", so it is a valid requirement to exactly reproduce it on the bread and butter sound. For the extreme sounds the exactness of the reproduction is way less critical, IMHO, because they are less recongnizable anyway. It's more about the general quality of those sounds.

[chk071]

Question:

These "extreme" sounds that are being requested. How often do you actually hear them in real world application?

All the time... different people listen to different types of music

Yes. Especially ambient music has a lot of those "extreme" sounds, all the filter blips, extreme pitch modulation, snappy sequences with lots of resonance... i wouldn't at all call it non-real world.

Then by all means, somebody show me where Diva falls apart on these sounds. I have an open mind. Let me hear the difference. Why is it that nobody can do that?

I don't see that anyone claimed that. All that was in question was the validity of this kind of comparison, when the sounds are simple, have no extreme settings, and therefor will be possible to replicate more easily than sounds with extreme settings.

Which implies that Diva, on extreme sounds, is not as good as hardware.

Let's say different. Better or worse is pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

[SWAN808]

I suppose this thread is only so narrow because that person wants to advertise their Diva sound and skin set.
I would find it interesting to evaluate more synths not just Diva. GForce and Xils stuff for instance.

no its narrow because Diva is simply by far the best polyphonic analogue emulation - and I started comparing it last year to my OB8 just for investigation last year:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... -test.html

...but yes it began to make sense as I put so much time in just for a test comparing and looping sounds for hours on end...to put together a preset pack...I hope people will like it!

Im not interested in comparing the others to be honest...Ive only found Diva and Monark to be the really accurate models in my experience.

[wagtunes]

Or maybe as a first demo, some Diva fan could dial in something similar to this:
http://www.native-instruments.com/filea ... _knobs.wav
It doesn't have to be exactly this (especially since we don't know which knob positions were used), just the similar type of sounds. We won't compare the precision of the emulation, just the general ability to produces such sounds.

@Urs: I hope it's okay with you. I'm feeling a little as if I'm trying to bash Diva. Believe me, I am not. My apologies, if this is causing hard feelings, was not intended.

Except this isn't at all relevant to this thread. Read the title. This isn't real analog. It's Monark. So what? Who cares? It's another soft synth. If you think Monark is better than Diva, fine. Let's put Monark up against "real analog" and have it out.

That is the whole point that soft synths are not as good as hardware. Anything else is pointless.

Unfortunately, I don't have a respective Minimoog recording, but I guess it would sound pretty similar. But the point of the suggestion is simply to test how well Diva runs in the extreme settings range. Monark is used just as a reference which works "sufficiently well". Let's not be nitpicking and stay practical. The same as the real point of this thread is whether Diva can do as good as real analog, not so much whether it can do exactly (although some people might insist on the latter).

It's still pointless. Even if you prove that Monark is better than Diva, somebody is going to say the same thing I just did, that it doesn't prove that a $200 soft synth can replace a $3,000 hardware synth.

I don't know one way or the other but I've yet to be shown that if I want a $3,000 sound I have to spend 3 grand to get it.

That's all I'm saying.

[SWAN808]

a lot of the difference between Monark and Diva Moog emulation is the different era Minimoogs modelled...

[zerocrossing]

yes the sound is close (with some small differences IMO) but the experience of owning an analogue synth is great as a bespoke instrument with control surface and a little bit of character. However Diva is good at replicating the sounds - honestly its great to have both.

SOme people its worth the money because they love that small difference, or they make a lot of synth driven music...others they like more modern VA sound - and dont need very authentic analogue sound very often...its really horses for courses...its nice to have Diva available for $200...and its nice to have the hardware

Now buy my presets and have Diva sounding REALLY analogue

While I respect your opinion that the difference is small, I feel the difference can be pretty big... sometimes enormous. I think the differences in the posted tests are pretty big. Big enough to hear on my sh!tty Motorola bluetooth headphones. I think what you may mean to say is that you think the differences are in consequential. That's fair and purely subjective.

Here's the thing though, I didn't always think so. You can probably search the archives for a thread I started where I probably sound like Wagtunes (ouch). I put out a challange to be proven wrong by the analog aficionados and they did. In the end of that thread I found what they were going on about. There used to be a memember here... livingsounds. He was the one who stepped up and posted a track he did with all his analog synths. To me, it was undeniably better sounding than anything I was getting in software... though this was pre-Diva I think. Things have gotten better since.

Also, we keep getting derailed by the imbecilic cry of "Why buy a $3000 synth when a $200 will do!?" I can buy an analog Korg Volca Keys for $159. Want vintage? There's a guy selling his Korg Poly-800 for $175 in the SF Bay Area. Microbrutes go used on eBay for $200 all the time. Probably get a Bass Station 2 for a bit more.

Of course, none of those synths is a Oberheim OB-X, but I had a Poly-800. It was actually given to me and I loved the hell out of that thing even though it gets critisized a lot. Let's just say it's not a highly saught after analog instrument, but you can get a real analog vibe from it.

So, let me recap. There is a difference between virtual analog and actual analog. You do not have to spend $3000 to get that difference. Diva is a cool synth plug in. Any questions?

[Z1202]

It's still pointless. Even if you prove that Monark is better than Diva, somebody is going to say the same thing I just did, that it doesn't prove that a $200 soft synth can replace a $3,000 hardware synth.

I don't know one way or the other but I've yet to be shown that if I want a $3,000 sound I have to spend 3 grand to get it.

That's all I'm saying.

That's not my point or my goal at all. I'm just trying to stimulate the awareness of a certain range of analog sounds which are not too much covered by the software, helping people (and myself) to get more informed. Whether the software does the job for one or not is one's personal decision.