Review: Diva Beyond The Illusion by Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Two world-class sound designers join forces to create a beautifully gentle and melancholic preset collection for u-he Diva. There are a range of sound types in Beyond The Illusion, but it’s the deep and mysterious pads and soundscapes that will lure you in.

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Review: Diva Beyond The Illusion by Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Here at SLR one thing we love about the small community of sound designers creating amazing presets for composers, is that even though they are competitors in business there remains a strong solidarity between them. They speak with praise about each other and often add support by writing demo tracks. Some have even teamed up on joint releases and this is the case for Beyond The Illusion, a soundset for Diva released earlier this year. On this occasion we have Jaap Visser from Triple Spiral Audio and Fred Nongat from Subsonic Artz. Both have a long history as working musicians, composers and sound designers and both have plenty of individual preset and sample library releases under their belts. So it should come as no surprise that when they team up we are going to be getting something top quality, combining the best of both worlds. They have chosen the analogy modelling titan that is Diva by u-he for this audio adventure, so without further ado let’s fire it up and take a closer look.

Diva Beyond The Illusion sells for €24.74 from Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Thoughts

This collection is divided in two with 64 presets from each of the duo and then a handful which I assume were joint ventures. They all share the same general feel, so I will be looking at sound categories together, but mention if there are any distinct differences between the two.

The Arps are pretty atmospheric and never get too aggressive, even if some are a bit gritty in texture. My favourites in this section have a soft and lilting quality, such as Inside.

Inside Preset

Like a few of the others it has a droney pad underneath, achieved by a clever combination of long decays on the arp notes, delays and a vast plate reverb. As the modwheel controls both filter cut off and oscillator 1 volume you can ride it and get a pretty immense rising build from this patch too. This arp/pad/pulse thing is a really cool concept and I hope they do more of it in future collections.

The Basses are not a huge focus for this library, but what few there are have a slowly swelling, ominous feel. They are more aimed at gentle low end signature one shots almost, as they are not really designed for playing even a medium tempo bassline. The FX similarly only get scant coverage, but there are some interesting noisy and ghostly atmospheres.

In the Triple Spiral Audio section only there are some lush Keyboards and Leads. I love the more ‘snakey’ patches especially, where you can play short repeated phrases and have it meandering and echoing, with previously played notes decaying gently into each other for a trippy feel. There are ambient lead sounds here that evoke the soft, retro nature of Boards Of Canada. Many evolve in unexpected ways, either with slow attacks and interesting note off releases or via programming for the modwheel and aftertouch.

The deep ambient feel of this preset pack is continued into what are the most numerous sound categories on offer – the Pads. They are simply beautiful sounds that have a little ying and yang in them – the Triple Spiral Audio pads conjure up images of vast misty mountains and dusty epic vistas, whilst the SubsonicArtz versions have a more unstable and more edgy characteristic. All of them are drenched in delay and reverb that helps create extremely organic timbres. It is very hard to pick a favourite, but purely down to the time of year let’s look a bit closer at Late November Mornings.

Late November Mornings Preset

Three stacked Moog sawtooth waves give a bit of edge, but it’s tempered by a bandpass Juno filter. Smooth analogue envelopes create a swell and a gentle filter flutter. The modwheel opens up the filter and there is some subtle noise that can be added with aftertouch – this works especially well after the initial swell has died down. A fully wet ‘stoned’ phaser provides some additional texture and a very slow pan sweep, before the vast and lush Diva plate does its thing. The end result is a very usable and inspiring mid-range pad.

The numerous Soundscapes are definitely the most mystical element of Beyond The Illusion. Many lean heavily on the digital oscillator as it is better equipped to provide those other-worldly textures. Although there are a few atonal, purely atmospheric patches what I really enjoyed about these is that many are very musical and can be played almost like a pad. Playing minor chords on So Lonely literally makes you feel like you are stranded in the howling wind on an icy arctic island!

So Lonely Preset

I love the textures in this patch – dusty organs and ancient, lamenting woodwinds on a bed of grainy wind that echoes away into the tundra. Masterful!

The Pulse sounds mostly do that cool pulse-within-a-pad trick, but use LFOs rather than the arpeggiator to do so. There are also a few more aggressive ones should you need a sound to poke through a bit more. A smattering of Synth sounds appears in both Jaap and Fred’s folders and they very much have the same feel as the leads and keyboards – they inspire you to play slower, more minimal melodies where you can revel in the evolving sound of a longer note and the lush decays.

There is a bonus folder containing just nine presets across a range of categories. It would suggest these are leftover sounds, but for me they fit perfectly with the main collection and I am not sure why they are set aside. Whatever, they sound great anyway!

In short, Beyond The Illusion is one of the best ambient sound sets I have ever heard, with the pads and soundscapes as huge standouts. As musicians we are tasked with giving emotion to a collection of vibrating air molecules and this is done not just by the harmonies, melodies and rhythms that we choose but by the timbre of the actual sounds. This is where this pack truly shines – the nature of the innate timbres is hugely emotional. The presets evoke a soft and mysterious melancholy that is at once both intimate and epic. For emotional underscore, as intros to trailer cues and for artists and producers looking for darkly beautiful ambiences, Beyond The Illusion is very highly recommended. And with promises to combine forces again, the future is exciting for more Subsonic Spiral beauties!

Facts

Beyond The Illusion consists of just over 128 patches for u-he Diva, across nine sound categories. A full license of Diva is required to be able to use this product.

Please note that Triple Spiral Audio is now the exclusive sales point for SubsonicArtz, so although this soundset appears on both websites you will need to visit the former to purchase it

Diva Beyond The Illusion sells for €24.74 from Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Demos of Diva Beyond The Illusion by Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Videos of Diva Beyond The Illusion by Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz

Contributor Sam Burt reviews Diva Beyond The Illusion by Triple Spiral Audio & Subsonic Artz
“Two world-class sound designers join forces to create a beautifully gentle and melancholic preset collection for uhe Diva. There are a range of sound types in Beyond The Illusion, but it’s the deep and mysterious pads and soundscapes that will lure you in.”