Diva

Even as digital music production tools become more and more advanced, the love for the sounds made by the first electronic instruments never really fades away. The sounds from past eras indeed have are powerful vehicles for those who want to take trips down memory lane, but they also attract younger musicians that may quickly become fascinated with the musical artifacts of old. The brave ones will even try to implement retro sounds into their productions, but you can be sure that only a few of them can afford a Moog or other pieces of ancient equipment.

For those that are fond of analog sounds, there are, fortunately, many helpful software solutions. Today we’re going to take a look at an audio plugin called Diva.

Diva stands for Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analogue synthesizer, so don’t expect this program to have any particular feminine features. In fact, the interface is made to look old, with its borders imitating synth wooden side panels.

Now, just because it’s supposed to sound and feel old, doesn’t mean that Dive suffers from too many limitations. You’ll find many presets that can easily be integrated into contemporary compositions, while the sounds themselves can be modified through a wide array of parameters.

In the upper half of the interface, you’ll find five oscillators and five filters models, as well as other parameters that are based on classic synth designs. You can easily switch between these parameters; by now, I should mention that the interface is surprisingly intuitive, something that, as far as I know, isn’t characteristic of the old synths.

In the bottom half, you’ll find two LFOs, two effect units, and four interchangeable sections in the middle. While Main, Modifications, and Trimmers contain numerous other parameters, I was fascinated with the design of the Scope which visualizes the waveforms as you play music.

I can easily conclude that Diva is a very well-designed virtual instrument that will be most appealing to all who love quality analog sounds.