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rosschehayeb · Post by **rosschehayeb** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:23 pm

Hi all,

Having a freak out here because I'm down a direct comparison between my Diva and my Prophet 08. I'm trying to make my favorite kinds of brassy sounds in the Jupiter 8 modules and Juno 60 modules and they seem to consistently sound better than my P08! It's making me sad because I love my P08 but if I can get just as good sounds out of Diva, it seems harder to justify having a $1000 midi controller. Surely there are benefits to having both hardware and software right? It seems wasteful to have a $1000 instrument that I won't use but I'm thinking maybe I would regret it down the line. Maybe it's just bad to do direct comparisons because your ears can fool you? I don't know. What do you guys think?

Ross

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:42 pm

I'll check if we have a vacant spot in our marketing department

Cyoon · Post by **Cyoon** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:46 pm

Sold my Ti for Zebra once.

onathanj · Post by **onathanj** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:13 pm

Diva is my favorite software plugin, and I use it on every song. But I recently purchased Prophet 08, and I can say that I have not spent much time with it. But one thing is sure, with a small amount of reverb or delay, it can sound more beautiful than any other synth I´we tried. People say that you should give the prophet a year to learn it to get the best of it.
That said, Diva has a much more broader capabilities. I think, so far, they work very good together, and I would not want to live without neither.

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:23 pm

Your Prophet will always be the real analog among the two.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:41 pm

I've talked about this at length before and people read me the riot act for spouting blasphemy. So take it as one man's opinion.

The prophet 08 use the PA397 which is nothing more than a CEM3396 in a surface mount package. Extensive comparison of the pinouts and surrounding circuitry along with some measurements were made by a number of people, not here, and the general consensus is that there is no material difference in sound between the two chips. Some people like to believe that Dave Smith infused some magic mojo into the updated version, but that claim has not stood up to scrutiny. So, you can believe this or not, I don't care, and I'm not going to give you any references or do any homework for anyone, as far as I'm concerned the PA397 chip sounds exactly the same as the CEM3396.

So, what does that mean. Well, it means that the Prophet 08 has pretty much the same filter as the Matrix 6. There's very little that you can do to the filter other than change its caps and maybe fiddle with how you load/drive it. It also means that the DCOs use roughly the same design. Again, I'm not going into depth, and I'm not going to argue with people. Yes, DSI incorporates some variation in order to try to emulate instability, YMMV.

The bottom line is that the P08 is not a model of a top end synth from the 80s. Most of the synth tone comes from a chip that was designed to meet mass consumption needs. One well known synth designer hypothesized that the built in gain compensation of the late model CEM filters is to blame for the harsh sound. I'm not going to speculate further on that, I've just never liked the sound very much. I've kept a few synths with late model CEM chips, but I don't expect them to live up to the sound of better filters.

So, if you like that late model CEM sound, I don't, then you might enjoy sounds that you can get from a P08. However, to me, the P08 is very similar in sound to low end synths from the late 80s and since it still uses DCOs, in many cases, you're just better off with good software than weak hardware. I've owned a number of these, I sold the Matrix 6 long ago but I still have a matrix 1000 (uses the same chip). I never really use it, I should sell it as well.

So, to me, the design matters, just analog isn't enough anymore. I agree with you that Diva outdoes weak analog, and there is a LOT of weak analog out there. I think that the new Prophet 6 is great, mind you, and I think that Dave went in the right direction with his new designs. If you want to compete with Diva, buy a better synth.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:57 pm

murnau wrote:Your Prophet will always be the real analog among the two.

Yes and that's the Prophet's weakness. I played one in a music store and came away laughing. It is a joke

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 11:02 pm

Teksonik wrote:
murnau wrote:Your Prophet will always be the real analog among the two.
Yes and that's the Prophet's weakness. I played one in a music store and came away laughing. It is a joke

Sure, i just wanted that the guy feel better somehow..

rosschehayeb · Post by **rosschehayeb** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 1:17 am

Urs wrote:I'll check if we have a vacant spot in our marketing department

Ha, nice. So I guess after thinking about it more, I've realized that yes, the P08 is definitely harsher than the Rolands Diva emulates, probably because of the CEM chip. However, I really do like that sound. Doing a basic sawtooth patch with the filter turned down is one of my favorites to play like a real keyboard player on. Check out James Blake's self-titled album. He primarily uses a P08 and it is great to have that really near sounding metallic sheen when the filter gets turned up. When I was doing testing earlier, I was going for softer, richer sounds. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Diva's Rolands sounded better.

aaron aardvark · Post by **aaron aardvark** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 5:36 am

I bought a Roland Juno 106 in 1984, and it quit working in 1991. I could have fixed it for about $200, but I got a Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas instead (it cost a lot more than $200). People are probably laughing at this, though reasonably inexpensive digital sample synths were coming about then, and they seemed new and exciting at the time. And I was getting a little bored with the Juno 106 by then anyway (I still own it for sentimental reasons even though it still doesn't work; maybe I'll get it fixed some day or sell it). I'm not sure how, but when I heard some of the Diva Juno sounds (I know it's not based on a Juno 106, but still!), I thought my Juno 106 never sounded that good! Really makes me curious how the future u-he Pro-One emulation will sound since I've owned a real Pro-One since 1981 (my Pro-One could use some work, but I don't want to put a bunch of money into it, and it still works kind of OK).

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 8:46 am

Hehe, interesting bit about the OnChip PA397 Dave is using these days. We got the DSI filter for Eurorack, I'm going to compare it to CEM 3320s. We also have a few 3396 around, but they don't get much attention.

For me the biggest weakness of the P08 are the digital envelopes. I cringe when a short release time is met with a chirpy sound. If it wasn't for digital envelopes and the annoying chirp, the Jupiter 6 would be my most favourite poly synth of all times. Set Q to on in Diva's digital envelopes to hear what I mean.

However, other people have a completely different view on this and in general I'm sure it's a good start into the analogue world. It covers a lot of analogue ground for a reasonable price.

Elektronisch · Post by **Elektronisch** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 9:10 am

Urs wrote:However, other people have a completely different view on this and in general I'm sure it's a good start into the analogue world. It covers a lot of analogue ground for a reasonable price.

What about Korg Minilogue?

rosschehayeb · Post by **rosschehayeb** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 11:17 am

Urs wrote:However, other people have a completely different view on this and in general I'm sure it's a good start into the analogue world. It covers a lot of analogue ground for a reasonable price.

The P08 does have a place and a unique sound. I've never seemed to have a problem with the envelopes, but I have noticed chirpy, or clicky envelopes before. With the quality of Diva however, I'm starting to wonder if I can justify having an analog poly synth. That's why I'm thinking about selling my P08 and replacing it with an analog mono and just use Diva and Zebra for my poly needs. It seems that mono analog synths can have a more unique character to them than most polys can. For example, I produced an industrial hip-hop album recently using primarily my Arturia Microbrute and it did amazing things for me. I don't think the uniqueness of that instrument can be replicated so that's why it's a keeper for me. I'm thinking the P08 is a good synth, but it seems I can do most things it does in Diva and Diva would sound better.

Anybody have any tips on how I can get replicate that sawtooth harshness of the P08 on Diva?

P.S. I love how the P08 sounds in this James Blake song and the near, harshness of it suits the song. He turns the filter up around 1:30.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 11:36 am

Elektronisch wrote:
Urs wrote:However, other people have a completely different view on this and in general I'm sure it's a good start into the analogue world. It covers a lot of analogue ground for a reasonable price.
What about Korg Minilogue?

I haven't had it under my fingers yet. I think 4 voices may be a bit limiting, not sure.

chilly7 · Post by **chilly7** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 11:38 pm

rosschehayeb wrote:
Urs wrote:I'll check if we have a vacant spot in our marketing department
Ha, nice. So I guess after thinking about it more, I've realized that yes, the P08 is definitely harsher than the Rolands Diva emulates, probably because of the CEM chip. However, I really do like that sound. Doing a basic sawtooth patch with the filter turned down is one of my favorites to play like a real keyboard player on. Check out James Blake's self-titled album. He primarily uses a P08 and it is great to have that really near sounding metallic sheen when the filter gets turned up. When I was doing testing earlier, I was going for softer, richer sounds. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Diva's Rolands sounded better.

I remember there was a video on YouTube for comparison a real synth vs Diva. Do not remember what synth was but it was blue color.
They where similarly sounding with some subjective difference but i do not know how explain that but the real one had something megical in sound which Diva lucked. And that was noticed by me on YouTube video. So i guess more higher quality audio system you have more noticable it will be. Also i heared the same result with NI Monark vs real Moog. So Uhe must not relax and continue to improve.

u-he

KVR Audio

Diva Sounds Consistently Better Than my Prophet 08. HELP!