As a melodic house producer myself, I’ve been a fan of the Sekora label for quite some time now. Founded by UOAK and housing artists like Banaati, LAR, Fløa, Alex Pich, and Exit Coda, they’ve been consistently putting out some of the scene’s best melodic house and techno over the past few years. So, when they announced they were releasing their first Diva soundbank full of sounds made by those incredible artists (140 in total), I knew I had to get my hands on it. Here are my thoughts.
Along with these quick reviews, I’ve also included some audio samples of the presets. They are placed on top of some simple drums and the only thing that I have added to them (outside of playing with the sound itself in Diva) is some simple sidechain compression. What you’re hearing with all of these is the raw sound with very little processing. I also want to mention that this review is unsponsored, so you are getting my honest opinion.
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Arps
The pack only contains five arp presets, but the five that they provided are all excellent. My personal favorite of this bunch is “Mira” which was made by Alex Pich. It provides a super full, clean saw sound with a touch of reverb. Because Diva is so user-friendly, you can make notes play in whichever order you’d like for all of the arps. For my little demonstration below, I’ve left that alone, and instead lowered the release to make the sound go away a little quicker, as well as opening up the sound by modulating the cutoff.
I also increased the FM knob in the second half, which is connected to LFO2. The result is a clean, beautiful sound with quite a bit of movement.
Basses
The pack includes basses that will fit any house production. The sounds range from simple subs and stabs to more intricate, layered reeses. For my productions, I usually pick simple reeses and bass plucks (like the presets “Atlantis” and “Toro”), but for this article, I’ve showcased “Wider” which was made by melodic house legend LAR.
The sound itself starts with a fairly simple fifth reese, but if you play long, sustained notes with it, it turns into what I can only describe as a rapid-fire bass arp. The only things I’ve changed here is the mode (I changed it to mono from poly), added some glide, and modulated the cutoff.
Leads
Most of the leads in the pack are sustained, as there’s a whole separate section of plucks. There is a good assortment of brass-y leads, longer synth plucks, and even a few screechy sustains. My personal favorite presets from this section are the ones provided by CallumCantSleep, all three of which are noisy plucks with long decays and nostalgic feels.
The preset I’ve highlighted below is “The Lightest”, and all I’ve done to the sound is modulate the cutoff.
Pads
Admittedly, I don’t use Diva for my pads, but this pack might make me change my mind. The presets range from low drones to high, noisy swells. The sound I’ve chosen to highlight is actually one of the essential presets that Sekora provided alongside the artist ones.
It’s essential pad 1, and all I’ve done, once again, is modulate the cutoff.
Plucks
When it comes to melodic house music, I find the pluck to be the make or break element of the track. Luckily, there are so many to choose from here, so much so that it was hard to highlight just one of them. Whether your preference is a light, noisy pluck or a loud and sparkly one or even a simple saw pluck, this pack you covered.
I chose to highlight “The Past” by Fløa, as I love noisy plucks that have a slight pitch bend to it, just like this one. Again, all I’ve done is modulate the cutoff.
Conclusion
What I’ve shown in this article barely even scratches the surface of what is possible with this pack.
Every preset works perfectly if you just want to drag and drop it into your project, and if you want to play with the sounds further, the sky’s the limit for what you can make with it. If you’re looking for a new addition to your preset library that will instantly help you level up your melodic house and techno productions, look no further than this one.
