Minimoog Softsynth Shootout: Diva MiniV3 Monark Legend Minimonsta vs Model D

[EvilDragon]

I'm thinking the Minimoog that NI had on hand when they were doing Monark was a particularly harsh specimen. Their 1:1 comparison certainly shows that. And... they NAILED it.

[Ingonator]

In The Legend i had just created a Bell like sound based on 3 Square waveforms (at 3 octaves) and using 50% Filter FM. Sounds graet as it is and could also use it polyphonic in The Legend.

Just for fun i tried to replicate it in Monark and beside the fact i could only playit monophonic there after some time i gave up. I just could not get the Filter FM sound similar to the patch in The Legend. The result in Monark did sound quite harsh and not very pleasing in comparison besides also having differences in the overall sound/timbre.
At the moment using Monark for doing my own patches in Monark seems to be a kind of waste of time when i could mostly get better results in The Legend.

I feel that with "real world" use (= doing your own patches) you might find even bigger differences than with "scientific" tests like in that video.

Another differnce is the envelopes where is used the ADSR in The Legend which is hard to replicate with the ADS envelopes in Monark and also the real thing. This is one of the features which is a big improvement in The Legend compared to the real thing and where it did not make too much sense to replicate it 100% properly like in the real thing (while you could easily emulat the ADS enveloeps with ADSR).

Apparently, MiniMonsta is rather good with the FM stuff [See video @ 25:50] according to Starsky Carr. They all do FM okay, apparently, at least analog modelled FM.

What I will do in future, is simply try and replicate patches on the other models (that I own) and then choose whichever sounds the best, rather than focus on any one emulation. But I'll probably use my low CPU Mini V as my first goto emulation, unless The Legend goes on sale soon.

In the final patch there si more than just the filter FM so using Minimonsta just because it maybe has betetr filter FM would be quite pointless. If teh Fm is REALLY better there in practical use another question...

At the moment i am a bit tired of those comparisons (the video in this thread is not the first of that kind) and prefer doing patches with The Legend instead of discussion this topic further...

I also like Diva but mostly for other purposes than as a proper Minimoog Model D emulation wher IMO The Legend is a better choice.

Mini V3 might be interesting for it's advanced features but not if you really want to nail specific Minimoog patches.

Concerning Minimonsta i had owned just a few years (2-3 years) after having owned a real Minimoog and after a while of using it i found i did not really like Minimonsta very much.

[Ingonator]

I'm thinking the Minimoog that NI had on hand when they were doing Monark was a particularly harsh specimen. Their 1:1 comparison certainly shows that. And... they NAILED it.

Well if this would be the case and if both are proper emulations of the Minimoog units that were used for the model (where in The Legend two Model D units/revisions were used...) i would still prefer The Legend.

[Aliens]

prefer doing patches with The Legend instead of discussion this topic further

Before you stop discussing the subject further, which we both know you probably won't, please, for context, state your relationship to synapse.

[ENV1]

The envelopes are utterly different, the infamous "attack accumulation" happening in the VCA env in one, but only in the VCF env in the other.

Thanks for confirming this.

Ive heard that once before and always wondered if it was actually true or if they misinterpreted something.

If i may ask, is it the newer one or the older one that does it on the VCA EG as well?

[Urs]

The envelopes are utterly different, the infamous "attack accumulation" happening in the VCA env in one, but only in the VCF env in the other.

Thanks for confirming this.

Ive heard that once before and always wondered if it was actually true or if they misinterpreted something.

If i may ask, is it the newer one or the older one that does it on the VCA EG as well?

The younger does it on VCA, the older on VCF (or maybe both, to a degree).

I'm actually not sure if this is a bug in the hardware design, whether it was intended or not. I don't recall reading about this in any official documentation. My understanding is that this effect is pretty random, with each unit exhibiting this quite differently.

However, I haven't given this enough thought that I would start hunting the information down. (I wasn't directly involved with the ASR envelopes in Diva, I was doing other stuff back then).

[Ingonator]

prefer doing patches with The Legend instead of discussion this topic further

Before you stop discussing the subject further, which we both know you probably won't, please, for context, state your relationship to synapse.

As mentioned several times in the past (especially in the "big" The Legend thread) I have done beta testing and factory presets for The Legend (including the whole "Classic" patches collection and a bunch of my own patches done from scratch) and i did never "hide" this. Does this mean i do not know what i am talking about?

For the records i owned a real Mionimoog Model D back in 2004/2005, bought Minimonsta around 2007 (which i sold later) and currently also own Monark, Diva and Mini V3.

I also published a bunch of new free patches in my thread in the Soundware forum:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2#p6695162

Overall i did not earn a single Cent from The Legend yet besides a free NFR copy of the plugin and maybe i wil aslo not earn something from it in the future.

Not to forget some years ago i also replicated the Minimoog patch sheets in Monark that are still available for download (with permision of the original author of the patch sheets, same with the patches replicateed for The Legend):
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2#p5954222

Back then Monark was indeed great but now The Legend is just better IMO.

[Aliens]

Defensive as it is, what you say about the subject at hand may or may not be accurate, but with conflicts of interest and perceived conflicts of interests, for those observing, impartiality is always worth questioning.

For fairness sake, maybe you should post with a disclaimer on subjects you are clearly conflicted.

But I don't want a debate. What you do is up to you, of course, though readers may wish to take your observations at face value knowing all the facts at hand. I know I do.

Enjoy your programming

[Ingonator]

The point of one of my posts today was taht i created apatch in The Legend taht sounded graet form me there but that i was not able to replicatze in Monark with a similar sound.
Independent of which is better or not this shows that they are not identical...

What i also mentioned is why in the future i should further waste my time doing patches in Monark when i know i would get better results with The Legend (and a lot of patches i created in The Legend using advanced features are not possible with Monark anyway... ).

When i do patches with the Legend i do not think and/or care about if the same patch is also possible with a real Minimoog or with other plugins like e.g. Monark. If i want to use The legend for patches that only use features of a real Minimoog Model D i could easily do that.

[Ingonator]

For fairness sake, maybe you should post with a disclaimer on subjects you are clearly conflicted.

But I don't want a debate. What you do is up to you, of course, though readers may wish to take your observations at face value knowing all the facts at hand. I know I do.

Funny that you say that because this was the last sentence of my first post at the first page of this thread (this sentence was added at April 1st less than 10 minutes after the post was done):

Anyway as i was involved with the beta testing and Factry presets design for The Legend you could call me "biased" if you like.

Besides that i did never hide that i was involved with beta testing and factory presets, especially in the dedicated thread about The Legend. Anyway i will not add a comment about that with every post that i make here...

[ENV1]

The younger does it on VCA, the older on VCF (or maybe both, to a degree).

I see.

Would be interesting to know whether the ones that have it on the VCA have it merely due to a mixup in the factory (as far as i know they hand-assembled everything back then) or if they actually wanted it to be that way.

Anyway, thanks again for confirming.

[Urs]

The younger does it on VCA, the older on VCF (or maybe both, to a degree).

I see.

Would be interesting to know whether the ones that have it on the VCA have it merely due to a mixup in the factory (as far as i know they hand-assembled everything back then) or if they actually wanted it to be that way.

Anyway, thanks again for confirming.

I think it was never a desired effect. You have to have super short Attacks and you have to play fast for it to happen. If it was desired, they could have made it more easy to use.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Dumb question, but I'd rather ask than not know: what's the attack build-up effect actually sound like? So I have short attacks, and I play quickly: what will I hear? Will the attack slow down (i.e. the attack time builds up/increases) or will I get volume build-ups on the attack portion of the envelope?

[Ingonator]

Dumb question, but I'd rather ask than not know: what's the attack build-up effect actually sound like? So I have short attacks, and I play quickly: what will I hear? Will the attack slow down (i.e. the attack time builds up/increases) or will I get volume build-ups on the attack portion of the envelope?

You also will need some envelope release.As the envelope will not fully re-rigger this way due to the Cutoff adding up the sound could get brighter when playing multiple notes.
How far you could notice this or not also depends on the filter and envelope settings in the patch.

[waltercruz]

How is CPU usage in The Legend, in comparison with Monark?