Diva vs Analogue - a real world test

[bftucker]

Old man Sunshine hasn't posted yet...

Congratulations to the OP for a very fine soundset

And to Urs and company for a very fine software synth.

[Ogopogo]

I did, and to me it's just the same thing as those gargantuan speakers in the famous engineers' studios - they impress the clients, but in many interviews, most of them (engineers) admitted that they are only there to impress the clients. The real work (95% of it) is done on the nearfields. And walls of synths do look more impressive than some window in your DAW...

No, in "most interviews" people are not saying that it's all to impress. Artists with their own studios don't have client to impress to impress anyway. Trying to claim all analog stuff is just to impress is conspiracy theory territory.

Edit. Nm, you've got it all figured out. I don't feel like getting into another drawn out argument.

[trimph1]

Old man Sunshine hasn't posted yet...

Congratulations to the OP for a very fine soundset

And to Urs and company for a very fine software synth.

sssshhhuuuussh!!!!!

[braj]

Conspiracy theory territory, lol! I definitely do know some would like to impress you with their gear, even their plugins. People will use nearly everything to try and impress others. It seems next someone is gonna compare Diva or an innocent old OB-X to Hitler

[trimph1]

^^^ you also....shuuush!!

[Mutant]

Another side of the OB-8

~2:56
Ujiie-san points at his chorus pedal and the reverb+delay unit.
"Actually i always use these two when playing analog synths."

[EnGee]

Another side of the OB-8

On another thought, I don't need to buy a used car. I mean, walking is good for health after all. Going downtown by buses is also a nice little social activity.

[ShawnG]

not sure why I'm weighing in here, I'm not really a synth guy (although thanks to GAS I own about 50+ soft synths, lol) 80 percent of the sounds in my songs come from my guitars and bass and my own voice, and the majority of the rest is straight multi sampled real instruments. I am an old school Prog and Pink Floyd fan so the vintage analog stuff does have some nostalgia with me. I am a guitarist and am well versed in the "real Tube Amp" vs software modeling argument, and really, when you realize that you are just going to end up with a digital waveform at 16/44.1 at the end of it anyway, as long as the modeling is done well enough it doesn't matter a damn for the recording in terms of sound. Now, If I were rich I would have a wonderful Marshall Stack and a VOX AC30 and a full pedalboard of analog goodies, I would have an ARP 2600 in the corner and a prophet 5. Theres nothing for me like moving air the way a hundred watt Marshall can move air, and no, Amplitube through my M-Audio BX5's is not even remotely the same thing. I imagine that if I were to play a real Analog synth live into a PA I would be similarly blown away. the thing is, the Marshall is not really that much better, once I stick a 57 in front of it and record it into my DAW. When I listen to the playback, I would be hard pressed to tell it from the Amplitube version.

There is a real reason to use the hardware though if you have it. Workflow. If you lay down a track through the Marshall, you aren't going to be forever fiddling around with re-amping the damn thing through every model you have in Amplitube, you are just going to get the best take and mix it. with a hardware synth, not only is it fun to program without staring at a screen and twiddling your mouse the whole time, but you likely are just going to get the best take and commit it to the recording. with the soft synth, you're gonna tweak settings forever, or maybe try the part on 15 other synths, until you've lost all your mojo. One advantage of Diva, I guess is that it's legendary CPU demands are such that you will be forced to render early, and you won't spend so much time tweaking, which is probably a good thing too.

one aspect of bias that is important deals with money. lets face it, If I had the dough, and just spent thousands on a Marshall Rig, you can bet that my opinion might be a little less charitable towards the Amplitube. musos who can't afford a room full of vintage analog synths will probably have the opinion that they don't need them, and musicians who have spent a ton of money on a vintage keyboard collection will probably be keen to defend the uniqueness of their purchases. one thing that is wonderful is that all of us can make good music with the tools we have now. It ALL can sound good, if you know how to work it.

[zerocrossing]

not sure why I'm weighing in here, I'm not really a synth guy (although thanks to GAS I own about 50+ soft synths, lol) 80 percent of the sounds in my songs come from my guitars and bass and my own voice, and the majority of the rest is straight multi sampled real instruments. I am an old school Prog and Pink Floyd fan so the vintage analog stuff does have some nostalgia with me. I am a guitarist and am well versed in the "real Tube Amp" vs software modeling argument, and really, when you realize that you are just going to end up with a digital waveform at 16/44.1 at the end of it anyway, as long as the modeling is done well enough it doesn't matter a damn for the recording in terms of sound. Now, If I were rich I would have a wonderful Marshall Stack and a VOX AC30 and a full pedalboard of analog goodies, I would have an ARP 2600 in the corner and a prophet 5. Theres nothing for me like moving air the way a hundred watt Marshall can move air, and no, Amplitube through my M-Audio BX5's is not even remotely the same thing. I imagine that if I were to play a real Analog synth live into a PA I would be similarly blown away. the thing is, the Marshall is not really that much better, once I stick a 57 in front of it and record it into my DAW. When I listen to the playback, I would be hard pressed to tell it from the Amplitube version.

There is a real reason to use the hardware though if you have it. Workflow. If you lay down a track through the Marshall, you aren't going to be forever fiddling around with re-amping the damn thing through every model you have in Amplitube, you are just going to get the best take and mix it. with a hardware synth, not only is it fun to program without staring at a screen and twiddling your mouse the whole time, but you likely are just going to get the best take and commit it to the recording. with the soft synth, you're gonna tweak settings forever, or maybe try the part on 15 other synths, until you've lost all your mojo. One advantage of Diva, I guess is that it's legendary CPU demands are such that you will be forced to render early, and you won't spend so much time tweaking, which is probably a good thing too.

one aspect of bias that is important deals with money. lets face it, If I had the dough, and just spent thousands on a Marshall Rig, you can bet that my opinion might be a little less charitable towards the Amplitube. musos who can't afford a room full of vintage analog synths will probably have the opinion that they don't need them, and musicians who have spent a ton of money on a vintage keyboard collection will probably be keen to defend the uniqueness of their purchases. one thing that is wonderful is that all of us can make good music with the tools we have now. It ALL can sound good, if you know how to work it.

Well, now we're getting into my territory as well, and I'll say that after exhaustive testing that included blind a/b testing, I'll tell you that all modeling is not created equal. Could software amp modeling be as good as high end hardware amp modelers like the AxeFX or (my favorite) the Kemper? Maybe, but I never found it.

And it's not like the Kemper is some beautiful piece of gear like a boutique amp. (though it should be) It's about as attractive as an ultrasound machine. There is really nothing sexy about it... except for the sound. I was using Amplitube for years before it came out, and had tested the AxeFX (good but not worth the money IMO). I was pretty happy. Then I kept hearing Kemper demos. Again, not exciting to look at, but the sound haunted me. I spent hours trying to get my favorite Amplitube patches to sound as good as the Kemper... and I never could.

I had the same thing happen to me with the KingKORG. It's about as sexy as a Portasound from Radioshack... but the sound. It kept calling to me. My imagination? I don't think so. I was able to totally ditch my Virus TI Snow. I just didn't feel it was giving me anything more than software I already had. There are plenty of hardware synths that I've thought, "Cool, but not as cool as _______" The Ultranova was one of those. Looks cool, sounds cool, interesting interface options, etc... but after listening to dozens of demos and spending some time with one at a Guitar Center I felt no urge to own one. I even (almost) talked myself out of the Modulus .002. Sounds glorious to me. Looks as sexy as I can imagine a synth can look... but when I compare demos of it to some of my favorite software synths (I think I compared it to Oxium, Mpowersynth and Diversion) I think, "Not worth $2500." (for the 8 voice rack)

Anyway, back to the amp modeling, I went to amp modelers because I got heavily into live looping and found traditional guitar amps just didn't work in that way. I love live looping so much that I had to make a compromise, so that was that. Are Amplitube and S-Gear (my favorites) good? Yeah, they are, but I know that as much as using a pure software set up works better for me, and I sure didn't enjoy parting with the money for a hardware solution, the Kemper just sounds significantly better.

Anyway, that's why I feel I don't have the bias that a lot of people talk about. I own software because I like what it is, and I own hardware because of what it is and I think there is a difference. You'll hit me, but I think the biggest differences (still even after this test) are in analog synths, and in those the biggest differences seem to be where things get a bit overdriven, like in filter overdrive, or even analog distortion. If someone can show me a synth that sounds like a DSI using it's feedback, I'd love to hear about it. Monark sounds great, but it's very simple. I like the way things sound when they're breaking.

[Locus M]

Another side of the OB-8

Geez. Have no idea why anyone would want a synth that ugly. This blue pyjamas look would never make it into my collection no matter how magical the sound. You'd have to give it to me for free and a few minutes after it would be on sale at Ebay.

[Gamma-UT]

Geez. Have no idea why anyone would want a synth that ugly. This blue pyjamas look would never make it into my collection no matter how magical the sound. You'd have to give it to me for free and a few minutes after it would be on sale at Ebay.

It comes from the era of the piano tie. What did you expect?

[Z1202]

Anyway, that's why I feel I don't have the bias that a lot of people talk about. I own software because I like what it is, and I own hardware because of what it is and I think there is a difference. You'll hit me, but I think the biggest differences (still even after this test) are in analog synths, and in those the biggest differences seem to be where things get a bit overdriven, like in filter overdrive, or even analog distortion. If someone can show me a synth that sounds like a DSI using it's feedback, I'd love to hear about it. Monark sounds great, but it's very simple. I like the way things sound when they're breaking.

Any reference recording of what you're talking about, like the mentioned DSI feedback?

[Urs]

So I think we've done a lot, but I admit, there's probably room for more. We've got an option planned for all our plug-ins where the internal sample rate does not scale with host sample rate. We just haven't gotten around to implementing it, also because it wasn't requested often. Diva would still run at 176,4khz internally though.

Such option would be nice. But why don't you provide an "advanced" access to the quality (oversampling and iteration convergence separately?)

Because it's done using C++ templates so the compiler can drop code that's never touched. Also, each filter has to be individually tuned for any combination of samplerate and oversampling factor if self oscillation is supposed to track perfectly. It would be a tedious job to set up all possible combinations. It's a tedious job to do what we do anyway

[Lotuzia]

Another side of the OB-8

On another thought, I don't need to buy a used car. I mean, walking is good for health after all. Going downtown by buses is also a nice little social activity.

Thanks for watching anyway. Sure, I'm just providing some exemples of a guy who makes *something else* with an OB-8, just in case someone on the sw forum could be interested in such a thing. Here's another one with track making. The guy uses some fx when wanted, and dry when fx are not required. He also shows a way to escape this annoying hw synths polyphony/multiple instances problem ( I think it's called *a recorder*, not sure )



People can find more examples of the sound of the OB-8, this time dry, in the excellent Synthmania vids also. Well, it's the Ob-8, not my fav old lady, but still, with a beautiful and enchanting character -imho-. For the record, I'm not a zealot of the hw only/sw only, solutions. I just like some musical instruments, sw, or hw. And think they compliment well, though obviously you can make great music with either only ones or the others.

Then sometimes on this forum, I get the feeling that a guy making music with an hw analog synth older than 5 years is someone just inbetween the dinosaur and the alien. With added snobbery of course. This is wrong. In my book, it's simply ..... a musician.

[EnGee]

Then sometimes on this forum, I get the feeling that a guy making music with an hw analog synth older than 5 years is someone just inbetween the dinosaur and the alien. With added snobbery of course. This is wrong. In my book, it's simply ..... a musician.

This is an amazing video. I enjoyed it so much really "Kore!" as he said!

Today I had little bit a play with both keys into the mini mixer that I received today. I was trying to test the audio setup. I realised how fantastic this workflow can be (something the same like in the video above), which retriggered old memories when recording with a friend into his 4-track recorder many years ago

Anyway, the point of using hardware synths is not really because of the superior sound but the superior workflow for some genres of music (especially the old styles that require playing freely without being concerned of the cpu usage mainly).
On the other hand, some dance or EDM genres it's better doing them with a mouse and a piano roll, not even playing any keys or a controller. In that workflow, it is very convenient to consider a soft synth to load in the laptop.

So the lesson I learnt today is "Choose your music genre first, then have the workflow that suits that genre of music because not every workflow is suitable for this genre IMO" Ok, school time finished. I'm going home
Sayonara