Synthi modules for Diva?

[Urs]

TB 303 - Transister ladder??? :

Nope, the way the transistors are set up (base and collector cut short) they act like diodes.

In a transistor ladder filter you'd find individual connections of each transistor to the control voltage for the filter frequency. In a diode ladder the filter frequency is set by a bias voltage that's mixed with the audio signal. As you can see in the TB-303 schematic, both inputs of the transistor carry the same signal. Both control voltage and audio signal are mixed. Hence it's a diode ladder

[Urs]

But as always: None of this is happening anytime soon. I have planned a filter kitchen for my fellow developers in Q4 this year, but that doesn't mean it's automatically going to end up in Diva.

Would there be space for certain non-modules requests like:
Better arp, seqencer, realistic individual voices fluctuations and explicit osc gain/overdrive controls?

Better Arp?!? The Arpeggiator in Diva surpasses any of those found on vintage synths… the only thing one could probably miss is a control sequence, which brings us to:

A sequencer is a very probably addition. As you can see in Hive, the combination of an Arpeggiator and a Sequencer as separate modules is often more powerful than those hybrid Arpeggiators we use in Zebra. They're not the same, but overlap is very large. On the plus side, having them separated makes things more predictable.

I think that individual voice fluctuations are covered very well in Diva. People tend to set them to larger than life settings, making Diva sound more analogue than analogue synths actually do

A Gain/Overdrive option is being thought about every now and then, but no final commitment was made, also to not get in the way with future expandability.

[rod_zero]

The Arp is missing something very importat: Hold. That would be my biggest request at the moment for Diva.

[Urs]

The Arp is missing something very importat: Hold. That would be my biggest request at the moment for Diva.

Yeah, a chord hold module is something that is slowly emerging. We want to combine it with some other goodies. One day it'll get added.

[EvilDragon]

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really.

[Urs]

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really.

Uhm... it doesn't do that?!? - I'm sure I fixed it, but if not...

[david.beholder]

Better Arp?!? The Arpeggiator in Diva surpasses any of those found on vintage synths…

If I have time this weekend, I would record video and post to this topic with Mono/Poly Arp and how it's different from Diva Arp.
It might be bias of mine, but right now in my mind they are behaving different.

A sequencer is a very probably addition. As you can see in Hive, the combination of an Arpeggiator and a Sequencer as separate modules is often more powerful than those hybrid Arpeggiators we use in Zebra. They're not the same, but overlap is very large. On the plus side, having them separated makes things more predictable.

Do want !

I think that individual voice fluctuations are covered very well in Diva. People tend to set them to larger than life settings, making Diva sound more analogue than analogue synths actually do

I think you were mentioning here (or on GS) in response to (i think) SWAN808 that fluctuations are not per-voice and there are room for improvements. And there were voices here and there that that big polys are still sound different.

A Gain/Overdrive option is being thought about every now and then, but no final commitment was made, also to not get in the way with future expandability.

Why should it break future expandability?
Feature makes sense on non-moog osc models where it's not possible to control loudness.
It also looks like modern way of achieving certain sound for example Novation Bass Station 2 has gain, od, drive and feedback and sometimes it so close to 70ths mini.

[david.beholder]

TB 303 - Transister ladder??? :

Nope, the way the transistors are set up (base and collector cut short) they act like diodes.

In a transistor ladder filter you'd find individual connections of each transistor to the control voltage for the filter frequency. In a diode ladder the filter frequency is set by a bias voltage that's mixed with the audio signal. As you can see in the TB-303 schematic, both inputs of the transistor carry the same signal. Both control voltage and audio signal are mixed. Hence it's a diode ladder

Thanks. I never found time to see how reactive resistance of diode / diode ladder filter is working and i think i can see next weekend is starting to disappear

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really.

Uhm... it doesn't do that?!? - I'm sure I fixed it, but if not...

Could there also be button. Sustain Pedal is not common thing in modern household.

[Urs]

I think you were mentioning here (or on GS) in response to (i think) SWAN808 that fluctuations are not per-voice and there are room for improvements. And there were voices here and there that that big polys are still sound different.

Hmmm, why would I say that? Unless you mean something else, the things that can be set in the Trimmers page are happening per voice. Slops for Glide, Pulsewidth, Envelope rates and Cutoff can only be randomized, which is pretty much what a hardware unit would be like.

That said, while DIva doesn't sound like every particular hardware conceived, she still sounds pretty much like an analogue hardware synth. I don't see the urge to make her more "believable" just for the sake of "believable". If anything I would like to expand her in ways that makes her more useful to the people who love what she does.

A Gain/Overdrive option is being thought about every now and then, but no final commitment was made, also to not get in the way with future expandability.

Why should it break future expandability?
Feature makes sense on non-moog osc models where it's not possible to control loudness.
It also looks like modern way of achieving certain sound for example Novation Bass Station 2 has gain, od, drive and feedback and sometimes it so close to 70ths mini.

Firstly, what's usually requested is a simple filter input gain control. While that solves a few issues where the DCO and Dual VCO seem a little too unflexible, it's also not a be all end all solution. Once implemented someone will say "Hmmm, I expected more from this, it's not as good as the Load parameter in Monark", and more people will chime in. But then we alraedy have that knob there and someone will already have made presets with it and so we need to keep it, no matter what. We might be able to add another option to it, such as "with drive / without drive". And then maybe also "with a lot of drive", and so on. So why not preempt all of this by letting the concpet grow and do something that works from the get go, i.e. isn't half-assed.

Let's for instance take a concept like the Sub37's MultiDrive. If what's been posted about it is correct, it adds 2 distortion stages, one before and one after the filter. If we wanted to do that, say, as an option for all filters, we would have to add 2 more distortion stages to every filter, *inside* the filter. That's because we had to model the VCA and the feedback input mixer into the filter section (hence no feedback with highpass filter), and we naturally need to place those distortions after the feedback (I presume) and before the VCA.

By doing so, we add another degree of complexity. That is, each filter and each mode (1 x Ladder, 2 x Cascade, 4 x Multimode, 2 x Bite, 1 x Uhbie) of that filter already comes in 3 flavours for quality - Great and Divine are usually the same code, with different accuracy setting. So, IIRC we already have about 3 x 10 = 30 lowpass filter algorithms inside Diva. Adding another option makes that 60. Adding any other future option will double it again, and slowly we will convolute Diva with megabytes of code.

This is why I remain reluctant to do things prematurely. Doing too much is sometimes worse than doing things slowly. If Diva turns into a knobfest with more options than people can comprehend, she'll lose her immediacy - we could as well bury her.

[Urs]

Could there also be button. Sustain Pedal is not common thing in modern household.

There will be a button. But not just a button. It'll be a well thought out concept (see previous post)

I don't have a pedal either. A hold feature will be most welcome.

[Howard]

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really

Uhm... it doesn't do that?!? - I'm sure I fixed it, but if not...

Does that here (Mac, latest beta). Fixed ages ago.

[Urs]

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really

Uhm... it doesn't do that?!? - I'm sure I fixed it, but if not...

Does that here (Mac, latest beta). Fixed ages ago.

[WolfKay]

Could there also be button. Sustain Pedal is not common thing in modern household.

There will be a button. But not just a button. It'll be a well thought out concept (see previous post)

I don't have a pedal either. A hold feature will be most welcome.

Sure, it will be most welcome for Diva, and for your other synths as well!
While a hold mode is great for arps, it's quite useful also when you're working on textures, on long, evolving sounds or on rhythmic sustained sounds.

[david.beholder]

Hmmm, why would I say that? Unless you mean something else, the things that can be set in the Trimmers page are happening per voice. Slops for Glide, Pulsewidth, Envelope rates and Cutoff can only be randomized, which is pretty much what a hardware unit would be like.

Gonna find you conversation in the evening. Just have no time for it now.

Firstly, what's usually requested is a simple filter input gain control. While that solves a few issues where the DCO and Dual VCO seem a little too unflexible, it's also not a be all end all solution. Once implemented someone will say "Hmmm, I expected more from this, it's not as good as the Load parameter in Monark", and more people will chime in. But then we alraedy have that knob there and someone will already have made presets with it and so we need to keep it, no matter what. We might be able to add another option to it, such as "with drive / without drive". And then maybe also "with a lot of drive", and so on. So why not preempt all of this by letting the concpet grow and do something that works from the get go, i.e. isn't half-assed.

Could it be one knob (and od-led indicator): 0 - behaves like today, 1-X% simple gain, (X+1)%-100% -- gain+overdrive (od-led turns proportionally brighter)

Let's for instance take a concept like the Sub37's MultiDrive. If what's been posted about it is correct, it adds 2 distortion stages, one before and one after the filter. If we wanted to do that, say, as an option for all filters, we would have to add 2 more distortion stages to every filter, *inside* the filter. That's because we had to model the VCA and the feedback input mixer into the filter section (hence no feedback with highpass filter), and we naturally need to place those distortions after the feedback (I presume) and before the VCA.

Well I don't know about others but I was only thinking of pre-filter gain/drive. Post filter is easy to distort with effects in daw chain. The only thing that falls off is postgain-od -> feedback, but I'm not sure if it's important.

[EvilDragon]

It should just respond to sustain pedal. Instead of holding the Sustain envelope stage, when arp is enabled, it should latch the played notes down. Simple solution really

Uhm... it doesn't do that?!? - I'm sure I fixed it, but if not...

Does that here (Mac, latest beta). Fixed ages ago.

Oops, sorry for causing commotion. I just threw that as a suggestion without even trying if it already works in Diva. LOL!