Unsatisfied with Trilian for synth basses - is Diva the best?

[jancivil]

I've found that, in particular Sonic Couture is doing very fine things with Kontakt 5's filters. I saw it argued more than once how it makes a difference and I was really trying not to upgrade the thing and resisting it. But there are these things, Glass Instruments eg., where there is definitely a wow factor for me and I never saw Kontakt as a synthesizer much.

But Monark is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I would like to check out Diva as I am finding the remarks about it to make some sense. That said, Monark FTW.

I like Trilian for what it is. There was one thing that was one of the most inspiring instrument designs, that led to such a result in one session, ever for me. It takes an upright bass sample and does 'minimoog' with it basically, and the whole thing is about velocity; so soft notes were this kind of funky quasi-stand up bass, but a synth patch; and harder hit notes bring in the classic old-school synth portamento, and there are these things in between with nice transitions. Somehow it sit in my mix just so, which Trilian may not tend to do with me. I don't recall properly, I do go to the FX page at once with a jaded eye.
And there is a 'Jaco fretless' which saved my bacon one day, just popped that sucker in there and it was golden, exactly the cliché it's supposed to be. Exactly this greasy, compressed old hoary show I had to have. When I had about killed myself trying to pull it out of something else.

[ghettosynth]

I've found that, in particular Sonic Couture is doing very fine things with Kontakt 5's filters. I saw it argued more than once how it makes a difference and I was really trying not to upgrade the thing and resisting it. But there are these things, Glass Instruments eg., where there is definitely a wow factor for me and I never saw Kontakt as a synthesizer much.

Kontakt 5 added the daft and pro53 filters along with a whole slew of other more pedestrian filters. I upgraded for the daft filter.

But Monark is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I would like to check out Diva as I am finding the remarks about it to make some sense. That said, Monark FTW.

Yes, it is the next step, so to speak.

[Uncle E]

Exactly. The filters in Kontakt are definitely a generation behind NI's best work. They are not at the level of those in Monark. I'm not sure that putting them there would be appropriate yet as it could impact the product negatively. When you hear complaints about Diva it's often about the CPU usage and I expect that for most users/uses of Kontakt there's little advantage to a killer filter that kills CPU.

I'm sure you're right about what most Kontakt users are looking for. Kontakt with Monark filters sounds like it'd be amazing, though. Imagine Monark filters being integrated into every NI product, from FM8 to Maschine.

[alligatorlizard]

Well as was probably obvious, I ended up buying Diva. After a few days of demo-ing I had so many instances of Diva on the go in several projects the intermittent demo-crackling was driving me crazy!

Many thanks or all the info and advice and links, all really helped make a decision. I didn't get round to demo-ing all the suggestions, but did have a look at some of the most interesting sounding ones. Massive I'd never tried before, so was curious about that - however I didn't feel it'd do anything I couldn't do in Zebra. Diva however sounded unique, nailed the analogue sound that I felt I wasn't getting with Trilian - plus, I really like the interface, a more traditional set of controls than most soft synths - as someone who never really grew up using synthesizers (ie a guitarist!) this seems a great plugin to learn a bit of the history on. I'm still learning all the controls, but already it's a slightly easier and more intuitive process creating a new sound in Diva - though it also makes me appreciate how deep Zebra is.

Anyway, with Zebra, Diva, Omni/Trilian and Absynth, I'm probably pretty much sorted for synths for a while! Just to be clear, it's not that one is better than another other, but Diva definitely has filled a gap.

[MarlaPodolski]

Just some thoughts based on my personal experiences and testing:

Monark is indeed the best for (especially) bass synth sounds of all softsynths; it is spot-on with some Model Ds I've compared to it (but, in part due to age of some, much variance in the Ds you will encounter).

I refuse to use NI stuff anymore, but if they ever cut Monark loose I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

I have been one of Diva's biggest critics since it's start, find some (but not all) of the CPU usage inexcusable. Latest revision fixed two minor issues I had had with Diva. But forget all that -- I must confess that Diva does have that weird certain magic in its sound that some are talking about here yet others can't seem to hear. It's not in every sound and preset but it is a slight and audible 'edge', and I for one clearly hear it and know exactly what this claim is about.

Never cared much for Zebra but do respect its abilities.

No, I'm afraid I never cared for Trillian much either, and it never 'did it' for me.

I think Minimoog V is often unfairly dissed for no good reason. I think any faliure to get adequate bass out of it is a user error. This, along with these others, I have locked myself away for a weekend now and then and compared and tested that any non-musician witnessing this would want to lock me up somewhere else. Short answer: put Minimoog V on a scope along with a couple of well-working model Ds (that is, if you sincerely can't hear the quality). Ears can fall short and fail, but you can't argue with a waveform on a scope.

Desrving of honourable mention: most fun and surely great-sounding bass synth I still sometimes use is the humble TwinBass by The INTERRUPTOR. Love the twin filter affair and ease and fun of use. I know, not really the same category, particularly in complexity, but what a darling bass synth. It's the skill of the player that really matters most in creating the best sounds anyway. TwinBass is every bit as special as his Night Flight string synth player thing.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I have been one of Diva's biggest critics since it's start, find some (but not all) of the CPU usage inexcusable.

You're critical of Diva's CPU usage but not Monark? Monark uses much more for a mono sound. Although I have found that if I cut the sample rate to 44.1 in Monark rather than the default 88.2 it lowers cpu by about half and still sounds good.

[Uncle E]

Well as was probably obvious, I ended up buying Diva.

The MS-20 bits (Dual VCO Eco, HPF Bite, and VCF Bite) will get you those early Human League sounds. Try mixing those with other synth oscillators and filters, too. MS-20 oscillators into the Moog filter or Jupiter oscillators through the MS-20 filters are all excellent and very distinct sounds.

Enjoy!

[Kaboom75]

I prefair u-he synths for synth bass and use Trilian for the real bass samples. Far more choice of sounds with a real synthesizer. Multi core CPUs make DIVA easy to run. For bass arps I'm preferring Bazille with a layer of DIVA for that big fat bottom end.

[fluffy_little_something]

I prefair u-he synths for synth bass and use Trilian for the real bass samples. Far more choice of sounds with a real synthesizer. Multi core CPUs make DIVA easy to run. For bass arps I'm preferring Bazille with a layer of DIVA for that big fat bottom end.

Not everyone has a Cray...

[foosnark]

I like Razor -- I kind of think of it as the modern digital sound, where FM8 feels more retro.

Massive I think is decent all-around, as is Ultra Analog.

Monark is a bass monster though.

[thecontrolcentre]

I just picked up Cyclop ... it does bass really well. Plenty of "weight" behind it.

[V0RT3X]

Synthsquad can handle lots of bass creating tasks when used right.

Of course to get the best out of synthsquad you need to take the time to learn how to program each of the synthesizers in it.

For effortless analog style sounds Diva is great. My second runner up for analog style bass sounds would be the Togu stuff then D16

[fluffy_little_something]

Can you even hear that additional weight or punch or whatever in the mix? When I program bass sounds I also hear certain differences between various synths, but in songs usually not anymore. Most people don't even have stereos that can reproduce such powerful bass sounds. I am certainly far from perfect when it comes to mixing, but it seems to me that "higher" frequencies of a bass patch are more important and characteristic.

[MarlaPodolski]

I have been one of Diva's biggest critics since it's start, find some (but not all) of the CPU usage inexcusable.

You're critical of Diva's CPU usage but not Monark? Monark uses much more for a mono sound. Although I have found that if I cut the sample rate to 44.1 in Monark rather than the default 88.2 it lowers cpu by about half and still sounds good.

Well, if I did the polyphonic mod to Monark AND was using it, I might have something to say about its CPU use as well. But I don't use it now and if I did again I might just leave it as mono, so CPU would never really become a problem for me. Yes, with that mod Monark is every bit as hungry as Diva can be, which I find sort of interesting.

There's a thread about that somewhere -- they are about the same.

[V0RT3X]

This is a good demo of what Monark can do.
https://soundcloud.com/sendysynthdemos/ni-monark-basses