KVR Audio

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:45 pm

Diversion probably will run quite well on my new computer, but, I didn't install it when I installed my plugins anyway. It's just not my cup of tea. I like other soft synths better, feature wise, operation wise, sound wise.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:53 pm

chk071 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:45 pm It's just not my cup of tea. I like other soft synths better, feature wise, operation wise, sound wise.

Why did you buy it? I think Diversion kind of sits in the same general sound space as Spire so I would think you'd like it.....nice aggressive sound.

What CPU did you get in your new system?

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:09 pm

Teksonik wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:53 pm Why did you buy it?

IIRC, I got it for $40 used, so it wasn't much money. I was quite fond of it at first, but, digging a bit deeper, and watching it melt my former CPU with very simple patches, my impression changed a bit.

As for the comparison with Spire, I think they sound quite different. Also, Spire is very moderate on CPU, so I can use a lot of instances with a lot of unison voices, which makes it very handy for respective sounds. Apart from sounding excellent.

Teksonik wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:53 pm What CPU did you get in your new system?

I have a i5-11600K now. It's a rather mid tier CPU, but, I'm very impressed by its performance. Especially for audio, as it has a great single core performance, like all the other Intels.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 6:17 pm

chk071 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:09 pm As for the comparison with Spire, I think they sound quite different.

Oh yes they do sound different but for me they fall roughly in the same category. If I'm looking for a nice aggressive sound I can see reaching for either one but Diversion's CPU demand keeps me from reaching for it except on rare occasions.

chk071 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:09 pmI have a i5-11600K now.

Cool, yours has a single core rating of 3370 compared to 2762 for my i7 8700K and does turbo at 4.9GHZ compared to my 4.7 so I think Diversion would run better but still be quite taxing.

It seems to be related to the analog LP filter. Turn it off and the CPU demand drops quite a bit. But again if we have to cripple something just to make it practical it's kind of pointless especially when we have other options at our disposal that can be used at full power without concerns for efficiency.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:59 pm

Teksonik wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:43 pm
zerocrossing wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 5:14 am The thing about Diversion is, it’s like four synths that got stuffed into two synths. So, you have the ability to have four oscillators, 6 filters, four distortion stages and unison happening. So, yeah, it can be a CPU fryer, but also, you can shut things off. You can keep the oversampling down if you don’t have the distortions running and you’re playing down on the lower octaves.
In DUNE 3 we have the ability to have 24 Oscs, 16 Filters, Two forms of Unison etc etc and it's far less demanding that Diversion even when pushed.

I can do the same one Osc patch in DUNE 3 that I posted above for Diversion and it will barely register on the meter while the Diversion patch can completely choke out the buffer of my studio system.

Sure we can "dumb down" Diversion to keep its CPU demand down but that's like driving a sports car and never shifting out of first gear.

I love Diversion but it is one of the most inefficient synths I own. That's the main reason I rarely use it in projects, the other being the fact that it has suffered from GUI shrink as I have increased monitor resolutions over the years.

I had high hopes for Diversion 2 and Dmitry said he was working on a new synth but that was a pretty long time ago so I guess at this point we're left to consider them both abandonware.

I haven't heard a word from Dmitry in quite some time but I always had the impression he has more work to do than time to do it.....

Right. I wonder if it's because Dune is doing something like running layers on multiple threads... I honestly have no idea. I was just doing a test on Diversion and I was able to get all four oscillators and their filters running, with a filter on each bus, with some distortion at each stage. I had it on 8x oversampling, and I could get four voices going... so not great, but for me, I'm rarely doing that much in a patch anyway. I was purposely trying to break it. I think what really does it in is the drive stages, which sound great, and better than Dune's distortion filter effect. That type of thing is per voice, so it's got to be a huge hit, as opposed to putting a good distortion on the effects stage, which just is a blanket on everything.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:35 pm

Did you try this Diversion preset? I just made it to show how demanding Diversion can be. It's only 1 Osc, 2x oversampling (lowest setting), 16 note poly, and no distortion whatsoever.

Even if I turn off the filter and reverb in the Diversion patch it still uses 10 times more CPU than a similar patch in DUNE 3 with 24 note poly, an analog filter, and hall reverb on.

The analog filters in Diversion are particularly demanding.

Boy Wonder · Post by **Boy Wonder** » Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:13 am

NanoHost can resize plugins. Too bad it works outside DAWs. I guess my only option is to use Windows Accessibility tools. I set my increments to 5% and that works well in Cubase. It's a workaround but that's better than nothing.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:23 am

Teksonik wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:35 pm Did you try this Diversion preset? I just made it to show how demanding Diversion can be. It's only 1 Osc, 2x oversampling (lowest setting), 16 note poly, and no distortion whatsoever.

Even if I turn off the filter and reverb in the Diversion patch it still uses 10 times more CPU than a similar patch in DUNE 3 with 24 note poly, an analog filter, and hall reverb on.

The analog filters in Diversion are particularly demanding.

No, I haven’t tried it. I spent a crazy amount of time in an Oculus today trying to build the Metaverse. The kicker is, you have to be in the Horizon Worlds to build something in Horizon Worlds, even if you’re a developer. It’s got to be the stupidest thing anyone could dream up.

twal · Post by **twal** » Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:55 pm

Teksonik wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:53 pm
chk071 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:45 pm It's just not my cup of tea. I like other soft synths better, feature wise, operation wise, sound wise.
Why did you buy it? I think Diversion kind of sits in the same general sound space as Spire so I would think you'd like it.....nice aggressive sound.

What CPU did you get in your new system?

Interesting you've said this, these are my two favorite sounding synths. Funny enough, I am not into "aggressive sounds" per se, but both of them have beautiful sound to them. At least to me. Maybe there are other similarities as well that spur the mind to suggest similarities.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Wed Jul 06, 2022 10:59 pm

Well "aggressive sounds" can mean many different things to many different people. That's just how I categorize their core sounds.

Bottom line is they're both great synths.

Boy Wonder · Post by **Boy Wonder** » Fri Jul 08, 2022 8:37 pm

All this recent talk about Diversion and Thorn made me take a deeper dive into Thorn. After watch a few YT tutorials and reading the user manual, I dived head first into the synth, my main focus being on modulation. After using it, I'm kind of hard-pressed to go back to Diversion as Thorn is very smooth sounding, I can modulate up the yin yang, and it's sequencers/arps are to die for. With Diversion, the declick function actually didn't work well. I had to end up using Soothe on full blast to eradicate transients in sine-based sequences. With Thorn, I don't.

aaron aardvark · Post by **aaron aardvark** » Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:01 am

I put a song in my music website called "I Call You" (it's the song second from the top): it has some Dmitry Sches Diversion synth, and some other brand synths too. Please tell me how you like the song, and how it can be improved, and I can return the favor if you wish (leave me a link). Here is my link:

https://www.soundclick.com/artist/defau ... dID=224436

MattLeschuck · Post by **MattLeschuck** » Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:21 am

Not speaking for Diversion (don't own it), but rather Thorn, I still think Thorn is one of the best synths to come out in a while. The GUI, the harmonic filter and the sound overall is just unique and great. I find it to be one of the easiest synths to patch as well.

Last I heard, DS was working on a new synth, hopefully we will see that soon.

Boy Wonder · Post by **Boy Wonder** » Fri Feb 10, 2023 4:43 am

Despite all the crazy, cataclysmic, racist, negative bullshit that's been going on in the world today, I still believe we're living in good times.

And I'm hoping Brother Sches endows us with Diversion II or Thorn II this year.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Feb 10, 2023 9:25 am

chk071 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:45 pm Diversion probably will run quite well on my new computer, but,

That's the annoying irony - it would probably run great on my M1 Max Studio but it doesn't support Apple silicon and I'd be surprised it even works well in Rosetta considering it uses AVX a lot (and does it even have a VST3 version?) So I finally have a computer that could run it, but it can't run it.

Opinion on Dimitry Sches Diversion