Diva vs Analogue - a real world test

[lnikj]

last time I did this I posted the result after 100 votes in the poll on Gearslutz and I think I'll go for that again...shouldnt take too long...

Just tell us the answer or the kitten gets it, OK

[trimph1]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

[hakey]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

Earlier in this thread I posted a couple of "Waldorf Pulse 2" audio clips as examples of the kind of extreme sounds that VA's can't do.

No one spotted that the clips were made using Diva (it's in the track descriptions on soundcloud). When the clips first appeared, GF, a hardware zealot, not only failed to spot the deception, he preferred the fake Pulse demos to the real ones and went and bought a Pulse2 on the strength of them:

I hadn't really heard that "Pulse magic" from any of the leaked demos so far. But as soon as I heard this short demo above I thought, "Ah, there's that deep bass, killer resonance tone, and crazy aggressive/expressive modulated sounds that make the Pulse so special." I'm pre-ordering one right now!

How's that for a real world test?

[trimph1]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

Earlier in this thread I posted a couple of "Waldorf Pulse 2" audio clips as examples of the kind of extreme sounds that VA's can't do.

No one spotted that the clips were done in Diva (it's in the track descriptions on soundcloud). GF, a hardware zealot, not only failed to spot the deception, he preferred the fake Pulse demos to the real ones and went and bought a Pulse2 on the strength of them:

I hadn't really heard that "Pulse magic" from any of the leaked demos so far. But as soon as I heard this short demo above I thought, "Ah, there's that deep bass, killer resonance tone, and crazy aggressive/expressive modulated sounds that make the Pulse so special." I'm pre-ordering one right now!

How's that for a real world test?

Good one!!

[EnGee]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

Earlier in this thread I posted a couple of "Waldorf Pulse 2" audio clips as examples of the kind of extreme sounds that VA's can't do.

No one spotted that the clips were done in Diva (it's in the track descriptions on soundcloud). When the clips first appeared, GF, a hardware zealot, not only failed to spot the deception, he preferred the fake Pulse demos to the real ones and went and bought a Pulse2 on the strength of them:

I hadn't really heard that "Pulse magic" from any of the leaked demos so far. But as soon as I heard this short demo above I thought, "Ah, there's that deep bass, killer resonance tone, and crazy aggressive/expressive modulated sounds that make the Pulse so special." I'm pre-ordering one right now!

How's that for a real world test?

I thought you had a Waldorf Pulse 1 and you wanted to buy Pulse 2 but didn't like it because it didn't sound like the original Pulse 1? Or is it a fake Pulse 1 also?
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p5497275

[kvaca]

listened again with fresh ears today and the differences are more dramatic than I expected, now to me:

A sounds like a real synth
B sounds like a real plugin

I prefer A in any test sample by miles...so theres no doubt that A = hardware /otherwise I will happily eat my ears/

other thing is that analoguesamples /intentionally?/messed with samples in many ways making them harder to compare...

[Ingonator]

The only thing this thread did not have was Gadget Fiend's input.

Earlier in this thread I posted a couple of "Waldorf Pulse 2" audio clips as examples of the kind of extreme sounds that VA's can't do.

No one spotted that the clips were made using Diva (it's in the track descriptions on soundcloud). When the clips first appeared, GF, a hardware zealot, not only failed to spot the deception, he preferred the fake Pulse demos to the real ones and went and bought a Pulse2 on the strength of them:

I hadn't really heard that "Pulse magic" from any of the leaked demos so far. But as soon as I heard this short demo above I thought, "Ah, there's that deep bass, killer resonance tone, and crazy aggressive/expressive modulated sounds that make the Pulse so special." I'm pre-ordering one right now!

How's that for a real world test?

As mentioned in another thread both Diva and the Pulse 2 are great synths on their own but none of the two is a proper replacement for the oher one. Pulse 2 is an own design by Waldorf (with mostly a discrete design of the circuits except some transistor arrays and certain stuff done by the CPU in combination with a D/A converter built-in with that CPU) and there simply is no emulation of it (yet).

Those "tests" you provided are misleading and IMO done for "bashing" the Pulse 2 and/or Waldorf but of course i could be wrong with that. As someone related to Waldorf (and someone who was part of the original Pulse 2 testers) my opinion is indeed biased in that case.
Based on what you had posted in the original Pulse 2 thread in the hardware sub-forum (where the OP of this thread had posted too BTW...) you seemed to be disappointed that the Pulse 2 is not simply a Pulse 1 with new features but a more or less new design (while it could import Pulse 1 patches).

FWIW i had posted comparisons of a real analog synth (Moog Slim Phatty) and DIVA when DIVA was released but gave up such comparisons long time ago. Both DIVA and real analog synths have their uses and FWIW the Pulse 2 is my only remaining real analog at the moment (had sold my Moog Slim Phatty this year).
I even had some trouble with Urs in the past but that hopefully seems to be over since a while and i have met him and Howard at the Muikmesse more than one time (including the last Musikmesse).

[Mutant]

Reveal the test results!!

From a point of view of someone who uses synths to make music for masses, it is irrelevant how many synth nerds got it right from listening to clip2.
What is relevant is if the synths can be made to sound close enough in a song to possibly save few thousand USD and few cubic feet in the studio room.

[Touch The Universe]

1. diva
2. ob

[Urs]

Do you want a real test?

This one is based upon facts, objective, no subjectivity. Humans are not used to measure anything. Opinion does not enter into this equation.

• Diva does not account for the non-zero impedance of capacitors;
• Diva is incapable of emulating feed-through and leakage;
• Therefore, Diva is not a model of an electronic circuit and is trivially demonstrated to be distinct.

This has bugged me for a few days. You asked me something similar the other day, and I think my answer was misunderstood (also, the thread was closed before I could react). You asked something akin of "do you model the feed-through of the capacitor in the resonance path" and I answered something akin "I don't think so". I did so because I hadn't understood the question in the first place.

I was trying hard to figure out what it would be that you mean. I looked at the circuit schematics and thought "How could we miss that?" and "How would one model that?". However, thinking about it, I realize that we had no need to "model" anything specifically. As our whole filter model is based on Kirchhoff's law with added non-linearities, we implicitely model capacitor impedance. There is no extra code required for this and thus there is no "model" for it. It's there just all by itself, being an integral part of the methods we use.

Therefore I would kindly request you stop assuming the position of an authority to what's happening inside Diva. Unless you reverse engineer Diva's binary code or break into our build servers you'll never know.

[SWAN808]

other thing is that analoguesamples /intentionally?/messed with samples in many ways making them harder to compare...

what do you mean? are you referring to me adding noise to Diva examples around a typical analogue noise floor?

[fluffy_little_something]

So you model the overall output of the component so to speak, not the individual factors that lead to that output? I suppose that would make sense, I mean, one can't go infinitely down in the hierarchy of cause end effect, else one would have to model the flow of every little electron

You have your development stuff on an online computer?! Well, the good thing is that you always have a backup copy in Utah

[SWAN808]

That is why this whole test breaks down to being simply a coin toss that doesn't demonstrate or prove anything at all. It's a complete waste of time.

a coin toss is random. If you think this test is a coin toss that suggests you believe people cannot tell the difference and the result will be 50:50. Also the test can become significant when taken by a large sample.

Finally as Ive said many times now - I provided wavs and a link to ABX software - so if anyone 'is' interested in doing more serious ABX tests - they can do so.

[kmonkey]

I was having a good time on predicting how long it would take for usual KVR partizans to derail and twist thread in the useless complexity of what "should be" important and what should not and what should OP do or what should Devs do. Really it was fun. At some point i was thinking of all developers watching this thread and laugh at the same time on about same thing.

I even knew in advance that one person (won't call names) will jump here asking developer about absolutely crazy theories and some sort of crazy modelling question - just to turn out cool and more gifted. Something which apparently never work for him but idiots will never stop..

It was a good laugh - point is - it's a shame that within every similar thread we have absolutely same pattern of same individuals derailing threads and making wrong assumptions about products of which they don't have even the slightest idea of inner working. You know, this threads as much as they can be boring at a times to usual KVR people - they can contribute with interesting debate - well apparently not at KVR because of same people pissing all over the place...

And probably most intriguing thing of this repeatable nonsense is that these same individuals never contribute to public with anything other then twisting. Not even a single youtube video.

I want to say "thank you" to analoguesamples909 for making time to do this test (people usually don't realize that this takes time) - it was fun and VERY usable for me, not a waste of time of any kind and it does prove me that i can't comprehend difference and that product he is using for comparison is state of the art modelling technology.

If there is anything wasted here then it's a place pissed and posted by people which are repeating that it's a waste of time. Why do they contribute here then - it's a mystery though...

Yes there's slight difference there and when i apply it to real world situation (not the sine sweep cricket sound raping) i wouldn't be able to pick which is which (read in mix scenario).

Good job OP, good job Diva