Recording - September 2012 - 58

RECORDING'S

SHOWCASE OF SOUNDS

features to bring more authenticity to the analog emulation. For example, per-voice tuning, envelope, cutoff, pulse width, and glide “slop” (variability/randomness) control, transient mode emulation, drift, and more are all at your disposal. Mix ‘n match What I believe makes Diva special is its semimodular design of several brands of synthesizers; along the top of the interface, one can mix and match the following: ~ Four oscillator types—Triple VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator), Dual VCO, DCO (Digital Controlled Oscillator), and Dual DCO Eco ~ Eight filter types—four High Pass Filter/Feedback options of Feedback, HPF (High Pass Filter) I Post, HPF I Pre, and HPF I Bite, with two different “revision” options, and four main filters of VCF I Ladder, VCF Cascade, VCF Multimode, and VCF Bite, also with two revisions ~ Three envelope types—ADS (Attack Decay Sustain), Analog and Digital You can mix and match from among these, in various configurations, to bring results you couldn’t do in the past with these synthesizers. While the manual doesn’t specify which synthesizers Diva is emulating, there are enough “hints” throughout the interface and the overall sound to show the modules are based on the Moog Minimoog Model D, the Roland JP-6, JP-8, Juno-60 and alphaJuno, along with the Korg MS-20 Revision 1 and 2. Along the bottom of Diva’s interface are the two LFOs (for vibrato and modulation), two effects processors (offering a chorus, phaser, plate reverb, delay, and a rotary effect), the preset browser, an oscilloscope, the trimmers (offering lots of options for fine tuning the behavior of the sound at a per-voice level as stated above) and modification (with several common and not so common modulation options). Also included in the right-click menu is the MIDI learn feature to control Diva with your MIDI hardware. Of special note to me was the preset browser. Not only can you mark presets as your favorites, you can mark ones you don’t like as “junk” so they disappear from the list. Those who still enjoy the hardware paradigm will also enjoy the MIDI Program folder. 128 programs can be placed in up to 128 folders and be accessed by MIDI Program and Bank change control respectively.

U-He Diva

By Devon Brent

U-He (shorthand for the main coder’s name, Urs Heckmann) should be no stranger to the readers of Recording. We’ve previously reviewed the MFM2 and Uhbik effects processors and the mighty Zebra 2 synth, and now the UHe synthesizer line has expanded once again with Diva.

Who was that Diva? Music to my ears Diva (short for Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analog) is a semi-modular virtual analog synthesizer in VSTi and AU format that emulates the various When I fired up Diva for the first time, it didn’t components of some great classic analogs from yesteryear. But before you take long for my ears to perk up and the big dismiss it as “just another VA”, do yourself a favor and keep reading. smile to light up my face. While there have been This Diva is put together a bit differently under the hood than your cona few hardware analog emulations in virtual ventional VSTi. U-He has coded its own electronics modeling environment to form that have sounded pretty darn good, Diva, “better” emulate the behavior of the components of the old analog syntheto my ears, sounds even closer to its analog sizers. The overhead of these calculations certainly takes its toll even on the most modern of CPUs, but Delivery: Digital download only the emulation, to my ears, sounds more convincing Format: VST for Windows XP/Vista/7, VST and AU for Mac OS X 10.5+ than most other VAs. Playing with Diva is a bit like playing with a vintage Copy Protection: serial number dress-up doll; put on a Moog Oscillator shirt, a pair of License: Single user/multiple computers Roland Envelope shorts and some Korg Filter shoes, Documentation: PDF manual with download and voilà, you have Diva. Diva’s feature set is all of Price: $179 what you would expect from a classic subtractive anaMore from: U-He, www.u-he.com log synthesizer: oscillators, filters, envelopes, and modulation. Diva also provides a plethora of esoteric
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RECORDING September 2012
http://www.u-he.com
Recording - September 2012

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