Classic OB

Swan Audio presents the first Swan Audio Diva pack – 80 presets and a great looking GUI ‘skin’ to give an Oberheim style experience ‘in the box’ using u-he Diva. NOTE now updated skin as depicted below – which works with the latest Diva version, and NKS files!

The presets were carefully selected and tirelessly modeled from my Oberheim OB8 creating what I believe is the most ‘analogue-like’ plugin polysynth experience to date. The 80 sounds are classic analogue style and intended to be playable, musical and inspiring – what analogue does best.

When first using Diva in truth I did not find the sound to be ‘that’ authentic analogue. It was only in tests with my analogue hardware that I realized it needs to be set carefully within certain parameters, then it can in fact sound very close to the real thing. This is what sets this soundpack apart – the sounds are modeled directly from an analogue synth by someone with a great deal of experience with them – not from a memory or idea of what one sounds like. Check out this blind A/B test against my OB8. Can you tell which is which?

But how does it stack up in a layered scenario in a track? Here is a blind A/B test ‘synth disco’ track… The ‘top line’ track is a Moog Source which is matched by the Diva Moog modules in the other example. I threw the Moog in there as I had it and so does Diva.

 

…And so for the answers…In the blind tests – Diva with ‘Classic OB’ presets was Synth A in both tests. On Gearslutz producer forum and KVR plugin forum – more users thought Diva Classic OB presets was the original OB8 or said they preferred them in a blind, unbiased test. I genuinely had no idea how the results would turn out but it demonstrated to me that Diva in fact can match analogue. These tests were the start of Swan Audio…