Diva VS Strobe2

[sacer]

On first comparison I didn't wan't to upgrade to strobe2, because every sound I like, was able in diva. But on direct comparison between strobe2 and Diva on similar bass sounds, I think I have found the first synth sounding a bit bether, more agressive for the style of Techno, electro and acid.
Will the sound engine of diva get future development ? Or maybe new emulation parts (OSC/Filter) like prophet and sh-101.

[zerocrossing]

I've not tried Strobe 2 that much, but I know from owning v1 that FXpansion plug ins are very well suited for hard aggressive sounds. I remember when I first demoed them that I was surprised to find out that you had to turn the gain way down to get a kind of "round" sound out of it.

Still, Diva is no slouch on aggressive sounds. Make sure you play with filter FM and feedback. I do wish there was more of a gain range with the feedback though, so one could get really screaming sounds. Here's a tutorial I found a while ago that has a bunch of good, but not obvious, tricks that can squeeze out some pretty aggressive tones out of Diva.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-PO84tYA6mA

[david.beholder]

I've not tried Strobe 2 that much, but I know from owning v1 that FXpansion plug ins are very well suited for hard aggressive sounds. I remember when I first demoed them that I was surprised to find out that you had to turn the gain way down to get a kind of "round" sound out of it.

I've tried demo and I have original SS.

* ARP+SEQ / UI is good. There are way of doing poly-rhythmic stuff except you cant have separated notes sequence and mod sequence. Still better than what is Diva offering.
* New Effects / UI is good. You can build better chains and have more controls over them. Effects UI in Diva is far from pleasing.
* Modulation system is still horrible - it's requires alot of movements to understand what is modulating what. Diva UI is cleaner therefore better, altho modulations are so limited in Diva.
* Sound is quite the same as V1. There are few cool features for trance guys like common sub osc over stacked main osc. But as sh101-like one osc emu it hasn't improved at all. And I find Diva sound less fake overdrive/digital in comparison to Strobe.

Still, Diva is no slouch on aggressive sounds.

ZC, have you tried Massive? It's really aggressive uhlike S or DV

Or maybe new emulation parts (OSC/Filter) like prophet and sh-101.

Have you ever tried SH-101 yourself? It sound sterile even on high resonance unlike say moog, that actually overdrives.

[sacer]

Or maybe new emulation parts (OSC/Filter) like prophet and sh-101.

Have you ever tried SH-101 yourself? It sound sterile even on high resonance unlike say moog, that actually overdrives.[/quote]

I tried the demo of rolands plugout sh-101 and there are some cool sounds I can't do with other synths, so I would welcome some new features in my fav. synth diva.

Strobe2 is for me a good addition, in some kind of sounds I get bether results, like the S2 presets: ba-bazz or ar-buzzer

[david.beholder]

I tried the demo of rolands plugout sh-101 and there are some cool sounds I can't do with other synths, so I would welcome some new features in my fav. synth diva.

haha.
Try Tal Bassline 101 it's perfect emulation of SH 101

[4damind]

Strobe goes more in the direction of a Juno 60. I never liked Diva for bass sounds, not the Moog and not the Jupiter emulation. Strobe works very well for such sounds but also for pluck sounds and can also make great pads (but needs a bit more FX). Diva can do this typically Supersaw sound of the JP 8080 very well, the same with pads and of course this typical Moog lead stuff. Diva is so different compared to Strobe 2 it cannot be compared. I use both synth very often for different sounds.

Btw. Strobe 2 sounds a bit different to Strobe 1. Angus answered to my question about this behavior somewhere in the Strobe 2 thread.

[sacer]

I tried the demo of rolands plugout sh-101 and there are some cool sounds I can't do with other synths, so I would welcome some new features in my fav. synth diva.

haha.
Try Tal Bassline 101 it's perfect emulation of SH 101

I have Tal bassline but the roland plugout sounds bether, but it is not worth for me the 110€

I used Diva also for basses, it is an outstanding synth used in almost any project, but now i'll use more and more strobe2 for bass and diva for leads and pads

[david.beholder]

I have Tal bassline but the roland plugout sounds bether, but it is not worth foor me the 110€

In case of emulation 'better' doesn't exist. Tal's 101 sounds closer to original than plugout.

I mean i like the idea of separate osc gain control in diva but sh 101 is totally wrong example of such things.

[zerocrossing]

I've not tried Strobe 2 that much, but I know from owning v1 that FXpansion plug ins are very well suited for hard aggressive sounds. I remember when I first demoed them that I was surprised to find out that you had to turn the gain way down to get a kind of "round" sound out of it.

I've tried demo and I have original SS.

* ARP+SEQ / UI is good. There are way of doing poly-rhythmic stuff except you cant have separated notes sequence and mod sequence. Still better than what is Diva offering.
* New Effects / UI is good. You can build better chains and have more controls over them. Effects UI in Diva is far from pleasing.
* Modulation system is still horrible - it's requires alot of movements to understand what is modulating what. Diva UI is cleaner therefore better, altho modulations are so limited in Diva.
* Sound is quite the same as V1. There are few cool features for trance guys like common sub osc over stacked main osc. But as sh101-like one osc emu it hasn't improved at all. And I find Diva sound less fake overdrive/digital in comparison to Strobe.

Still, Diva is no slouch on aggressive sounds.

ZC, have you tried Massive? It's really aggressive uhlike S or DV

Or maybe new emulation parts (OSC/Filter) like prophet and sh-101.

Have you ever tried SH-101 yourself? It sound sterile even on high resonance unlike say moog, that actually overdrives.

I do have Massive, and I like it, but it has that very kind of artificial kind of sheen to it. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it's a very different character than an analog being aggressive via something like filter FM or overdrive. I like Monark for such things, but I've not gotten around to modifying it to respond to velocity and aftertouch, which are really important to me. I just got Reaktor 6 yesterday and I can see that becoming my go to for really aggressive analogish stuff. I do also like Diva for that, but the feedback is very tame and as you mentioned, the modulation, while clear(ish) is very limited. I hope Urs implements a more straight forward modulation set up for Diva like the one in Hive.

I've never really played an SH-101. I'm just going by recordings. I've never thought of Strobe as an emulation of that single osc set up, no more than I thought the Minibrute was. I do know what you mean about Strobe's overdrive as sounding "fake" but sometimes I like it. It's a very wooden kind of sound, as opposed to Diva which can be more "fluid."

[chk071]

I have Tal bassline but the roland plugout sounds bether, but it is not worth foor me the 110€

In case of emulation 'better' doesn't exist. Tal's 101 sounds closer to original than plugout.

Really? That's surprising... thought the Roland one should be closer.

[david.beholder]

I just got Reaktor 6 yesterday and I can see that becoming my go to for really aggressive analogish stuff. I do also like Diva for that, but the feedback is very tame and as you mentioned, the modulation, while clear(ish) is very limited. I hope Urs implements a more straight forward modulation set up for Diva like the one in Hive.

That's good idea, you could also simple add some saturator after diva to get aggressiveness. N.I. have amazing Driver and it has really analog character. It's also available as R6 block, so you may create really aggressive things with no digital saturation.

I've never really played an SH-101. I'm just going by recordings. I've never thought of Strobe as an emulation of that single osc set up, no more than I thought the Minibrute was. I do know what you mean about Strobe's overdrive as sounding "fake" but sometimes I like it. It's a very wooden kind of sound, as opposed to Diva which can be more "fluid."

There are tons of tubes/clips of 101 worth take a look. Even before I've touched SH101 for the first time I was quite aware about actual sound. Early 80ths Roland is sterile and precise people almost always have od/fuzz/disto pedals after 101/202/303 and/or record them really hot to tape.

From the FXpansion website:
"Strobe's design is motivated by the immediacy and simplicity of classic performance synths like the Roland SH101 and SH-09, Oberheim OB-1 and Yamaha CS-10."

Really? That's surprising... thought the Roland one should be closer.

Basing on on something or just brand-name superstition?

[chk071]

Well, TAL is kind of a one man show, Roland is a reasonably big company, with the respective capabilities of analyzing and modelling the hardware, and they actually even developed the original hardware. All reasons why their model should be closer and sound better. If it doesn't, then that's a surprise for me.

Not that i think particularly high of Roland anyway...

[david.beholder]

Well, TAL is kind of a one man show, Roland is a reasonably big company

That's exactly what I mean by "brand name superstition".

with the respective capabilities of analyzing and modelling the hardware, and they actually even developed the original hardware. All reasons why their model should be closer and sound better. If it doesn't, then that's a surprise for me.

Except it doesn't. It's not that hard to do arbitrary emulation of SH101, but when you simple compare it to hw original you'd see that it would be further. And Roland is more relying on marketing instead. I don't trust to marketing i trust to ears.

BTW, do you know how big is U-he? Do you know how good their products?

[chk071]

Well, TAL is kind of a one man show, Roland is a reasonably big company

That's exactly what I mean by "brand name superstition".

Has nothing to do with superstition to believe that a company with more possibilities, which even manufactured the original unit, should have the capability to do a better job. But then, we're solely arguing on a hypothetical base here anyway. Someone said the TAL one is the better emulation. I read Roland pretty much nailed the SH-2. So i figure the SH-101 can't be all that bad either.

with the respective capabilities of analyzing and modelling the hardware, and they actually even developed the original hardware. All reasons why their model should be closer and sound better. If it doesn't, then that's a surprise for me.

Except it doesn't. It's not that hard to do arbitrary emulation of SH101

Maybe, but considering the first (freeware) emulation of TAL, the TAL-BassLine, isn't considered all that close, i guess it takes at least a reasonable amount of research, experience, and DSP skills to get it pretty close.

BTW, do you know how big is U-he? Do you know how good their products?

Well, for Beat-/Bazille, the list of involved people read about 10 people i believe, 3 of those involved in the coding. If i had to guess, then i'd think the amount of people working for Roland on their software synths can't be many more. Yes. u-he is not big, but which company in this business apart from the big names is really?

Anyway, just as a recap, all that i said is, considering Roland have more ressources then TAL, plus they developed the original unit, they should do the better job emulating it. If that isn't so, fair enough, although that's just 1 opinion, but it'd be surprising for me, because i think, considering all that, they should do the better job. That's all i want to say. Has nothing to do with superstition or voodoo, just considering the facts.

[Urs]

just considering the facts.

Fact is also, TAL has been doing this for a while, guys at Roland are literally newbees in analogue modeling on x86 hardware.

Also, I overheard someone saying that all people at Roland involved with creating analogue synthesizers are retired / have passed away by now and thus Roland has a big problem understanding "analogue". They may still have schematics, parts and circuit boards, but without that knowledge of those engineers they have pretty much the same starting point as anybody else, with maybe the advantage of great resources and the disadvantage of being new to the game. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

While also their latest VST plug-ins are pretty good sound-wise, I don't think they "nail" the sound fully, and I don't think they're done as well as they should have been, in terms of CPU, features and usability. I think they still have some way to go before they excel at doing VST plug-ins of their own legacy.

Hence my bet is on TAL.