Dune 3 vs. Hive 2

[zerocrossing]

Really, noone has to feel insulted when someone says "his" synth isn't warm.

That's only if you can prove that "warm" is a compliment and "not warm" is an insult. Since warm has no real definition you can't really do that.

I don't know who said Dune 3 is the warmest synth but since it's subjective maybe to that person it is the warmest synth for the types of sounds they do.

It's "warm" enough for me or to be more precise I like the sound. Just as I like the sound of many synths.

Warm did have a definition, but it’s been eroded over time due to misuse. Originally it referred to the dynamic filtering that happens between a speaker (load) and a tube power amp’s output. It’s something that can totally be faked on any synth with a controllable filter, so it sort of translates. I think what it often ends up meaning in transistor based synths and their emulations is a filter that doesn’t open up all the way, or a sawtooth that’s not quite a sawtooth.

An example is the Prophet 5/RePro. When you open up the filter on the Prophet 5, it’s not all the way open. To get it to open up all the way you need to apply modulation. People complain the Prophet 6 is colder, but the truth is, the filter just opens all the way (way way way) up. With some experience, it’s easy to get a very warm sound from it. I just bought Super 8 as the demos sounded very warm... but when I started from an init patch I was surprised at how bright the sawtooth sounded. Of course, a small tweak to the oscillator shape and that sawtooth warmed right up and sounded more like the demo tracks. Of course, with a wavetable oscillator, one could get very cold, hot, warm, buzzy, dull, shrill, etc, and alter that tone with a filter (or two). Not to mention Dune’s FM oscillator modes. Cold as cold can be, if you want it.

I initially passed on Dune 1. It was fine, but the CM version was enough of that for me. It wasn’t until someone mentioned that I should check out Dune 2 that I got hooked. It’s got one of the better Filter FM emulations in polyphonic software. Really nice to have with the wavetable oscillators. Dune 3 is even better. Those new filters sound great to me. My only small criticism is that I wish there was an oversample mode for the distortions, as they can alias pretty bad in high notes.

I passed on Hive v1 as well. The demo did nothing for me. I mean, it was fine, but just not my style. Maybe Hive 2 is? Not sure. I’m listening to the demo now and it sounds very good to me, but how many synths like that does one need? I’ll eventually probably pick it up, but I’m not tripping over myself to get it.

[SiliconDeath]

I've been demoing Hive, and comparing its unison engine to my versions of SM 1 and 2.x , and Dune 3 trial. Hive unison engine sounds significantly better than my SMs, I can't get the SMs unison to sound good, no matter how much I try to tweak with the "unison envelope" that they have, whilst Hive "simply works" out of the gate. Dune 3 is a major step-up from SM when it comes to unison, yet I still prefer Hive's unison over this too. I'm so impressed by Hive's unison engine, that it alone might be very big reason I'm going to buy this synth.

Following this revelation of sorts that I've had, I wish some my other synths had easier way to get "wide and quick". I recognize that both my Diva and Repro5 can get good "wide-ish" unison sounds, but the process to get there requires more tweaking, as both synths require the user to adjust the panning for each individual osc voice, to get a wide unison sound. I've found to be having moderately good success with Zebra in this regard, as it too is "dial once and it's ready" unison, but Hive's still sounds better

[Zenda13]

Thanks Urs and his team, I enjoy Hive 2 a lot!

I did some Ambient music, please watch...

Ableton Project (Hive 2 only)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM-4P_59W9c

[GrandVelocity]

Back to the original subject (see the title), it appears that Hive 2.0 has become a formidable competitor to Dune 3.0, Serum, Spire, Massive X and other top tier synths. I can’t wait to see what u-he does with Zebra 3!

Don't mean to derail, but is there any ETA on the Zebra 3 release? Is it to come this year? Was just wondering, as I might pick up Zebra2 but if 3 is around the corner I'll probably wait and see how the 2 differ.

[chk071]

An example is the Prophet 5/RePro. When you open up the filter on the Prophet 5, it’s not all the way open. To get it to open up all the way you need to apply modulation. People complain the Prophet 6 is colder, but the truth is, the filter just opens all the way (way way way) up.

Interestingly, the same applies to the Waldorf synths. I found out that a lot of the character that their newer hardware and software synths have comes from the frequency range. Their older synth simply had a hard cut at 16 kHz or something. Which contributed to a "warm", airy sound, i guess. Largo or Blofeld are pretty bright, in comparison, which makes them sound colder by default for many, it seems.

[Urs]

Back to the original subject (see the title), it appears that Hive 2.0 has become a formidable competitor to Dune 3.0, Serum, Spire, Massive X and other top tier synths. I can’t wait to see what u-he does with Zebra 3!

Don't mean to derail, but is there any ETA on the Zebra 3 release? Is it to come this year? Was just wondering, as I might pick up Zebra2 but if 3 is around the corner I'll probably wait and see how the 2 differ.

We announced the pricing so that buying Z2 today + expecting an upgrade would be cheaper than waiting for Z3. Because back then we knew it would take a lot of time. And it's still quite some time ahead. We're relatively confident though that we can tentatively target next year for tangible results.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

"Tentatively target next year for tangible results?" As in, "probably before December 31st 2020, but maybe not?"

[Urs]

"Tentatively target next year for tangible results?" As in, "probably before December 31st 2020, but maybe not?"

Hehehe, as in: If all goes well, everything will be fine. But if, for instance, Apple decides to throw ARM processors at us, or, another example, if Steinberg decides to require some sort of certification process for VST3 which for whatever reason we fail - maybe just because we have presets with variable size - then there's no gurantee that we'll have enough time to spend on Z3. This is how it's been quite often throughout the past 8 years.

We did however remove the necessity to release a new product on the way. While we have a few potential candidates (and we do want to do a few other updates in-between, Bazille, ACE, Uhbik, mostly for maintenance), our recent sale with NI has given us the resources to keep going for a year or two.

[Urs]

And also, as mentioned elsewhere, we do not know yet what it takes to process our UI on the GPU. Which is something I think we need to do, it's the essence of criticism of Hive 2.0. I hope it's a fix for a few weeks of work, but if it's months or quarters, this is time we can't spend on Z3.

[greedy.mf]

Back to the original subject (see the title), it appears that Hive 2.0 has become a formidable competitor to Dune 3.0, Serum, Spire, Massive X and other top tier synths. I can’t wait to see what u-he does with Zebra 3!

Even though I love Hive's new UI along with clever mods and WT addition, I don't see at as competitor to Serum.

And it's fine - the philosophy is different.
Most of Serum's magic happens in the oscillator - custom WT, warping and resampling.
Hive 2 OSCs in turn are quite simple in terms of wave shaping, but it's benefitting from modular style modulations, which for me require some time to get the hang of.

Probably gonna get it in some time.

[EvilDragon]

And also, as mentioned elsewhere, we do not know yet what it takes to process our UI on the GPU. Which is something I think we need to do, it's the essence of criticism of Hive 2.0. I hope it's a fix for a few weeks of work, but if it's months or quarters, this is time we can't spend on Z3.

OpenGL is all that's needed, but Apple in their infinite "wisdom" decided to deprecate that on their machines, which will probably complicate what you need to do. Heh.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

And also, as mentioned elsewhere, we do not know yet what it takes to process our UI on the GPU. Which is something I think we need to do, it's the essence of criticism of Hive 2.0. I hope it's a fix for a few weeks of work, but if it's months or quarters, this is time we can't spend on Z3.

I feel for you. Implementing functional OpenGL has been a nightmare for some developers (I think Juice recently put out some updates that resolved some of these issues), and the plugins that do implement it seem to require the ability to turn it off if you're experiencing problems. And on the Mac side, you know whatever you do, Apple will break it in another two years or so.

I mean me personally, I'd rather declare the GUI performance "good enough for now" and start working on something fun like Zebra3. Or maybe try to wrap up the boring GUI work with the more fun Z3 work. But hey, if you don't like doing things that are fun, that's ok too.

[zvenx]

......

I mean me personally, I'd rather declare the GUI performance "good enough for now" and start working on something fun like Zebra3. Or maybe try to wrap up the boring GUI work with the more fun Z3 work. But hey, if you don't like doing things that are fun, that's ok too.

+1
rsp

[gael_]

@Urs I hope The Cat will be released soon though and I would love some cpu improvements for diva/repro

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

@Urs I hope The Cat will be released soon though

Prepare yourself for some bad news.