u-he

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:28 am

It is very much to personal preference, if you feel like Diva sounds better than Sylenth or not, for example. IMO, people relate the CPU consumption to sound quality too much. If you produce music with lots of pads, supersaw heavy sounds, and what not, synths or plugins emulating analog mono synths won't be your first choice sound wise, so horses for courses, and you can't say this sounds better than that, just because it simulates every little aspect of the sound. If you don't need to simulate every aspect of the sound, and you're rather aiming on creating thick, complex sounds, you're much better off using a synth or plugin with low CPU consumption, but loads of voices. And it probably also will sound better for these kind of sounds, as Minimoog emulations for example have so rich sounding oscillators that stacking those will result in a pretty messy sound. At least that's my experience.

martingifford · Post by **martingifford** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:30 am

But I desperately want Hive to sound at least as good as Sylenth so that I can enjoy the other benefits - better looks, workflow, sound manipulation, and filing.

Please, Hive, save me from the frustrations of Sylenth!

Don't tease me by being better in every other way except sound quality!

Nearly every sound in Sylenth is good and usable. And it has a great overall sound. It just has an amazing immediacy to it. I don't know how Lennar did it. Magic skills. So maybe low CPU doesn't mean low quality sounds. But prioritising anything over sound quality is risky. Sound quality should always remain number one priority.

eXode · Post by **eXode** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:37 am

Urs wrote:
eXode wrote:
Urs wrote:Well… if we take aliasing as an objective measure for sound quality, Sylenth beats Dune in oscillators. If we take bandwidth as a measure, Dune beats Sylenth. It's all about compromise, and I think we found our own.
Are you speaking of DUNE now, and not DUNE2?
Errm, I've only ever tried Dune2. Why?

First, because DUNE and DUNE2 are very different from each other. Secondly, I was surprised about the comment regarding aliasing, and that the oscillators in Sylenth1 beats DUNE2. Hence my question.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:57 am

martingifford wrote: Nearly every sound in Sylenth is good and usable. And it has a great overall sound. It just has an amazing immediacy to it.

I watched a Sylenth video yesterday on Youtube, and i must say, i have to agree. It really sounds pretty damn awesome considering it's been quite a few years since it has been released now. You also hear that it produces 90% of the sounds heard in nowadays trance productions too, it's quite easy to recognize.

Not that i think The Hive should imitate that sound 100%, it's good that it's different, and it would be disapointing if it wasn't. But as a point of orientation, when creating a plugin with a simliar approach, it can't be that bad.

I remember Urs wrote here once that he considers Sylenth is pretty good at what it does, so i guess that has happened anyway.

Cyoon · Post by **Cyoon** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:05 pm

so funny that you guys consider sound quality as risky or smth that might not be the main focus next to cpu consumption..

Do you really expect that u-he brings out smth that doesn`t sound good?

martingifford · Post by **martingifford** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:19 pm

chk071 wrote:I watched a Sylenth video yesterday on Youtube, and i must say, i have to agree. It really sounds pretty damn awesome considering it's been quite a few years since it has been released now. You also hear that it produces 90% of the sounds heard in nowadays trance productions too, it's quite easy to recognize. Not that i think The Hive should imitate that sound 100%, it's good that it's different, and it would be disapointing if it wasn't.

Exactly. Sylenth is the go-to synth because you know it will sound good. But it is too common and starting to sound a bit dated. If Hive sounded as good but different, and had more sound design capabilities (i.e. more variety), and also looked better and had better file management (which it will), then it could easily become the new go-to synth. I'll be over the moon if it does all that.

2ZrgE · Post by **2ZrgE** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:40 pm

martingifford wrote:
chk071 wrote:
Exactly. Sylenth is the go-to synth because you know it will sound good. But it is too common and starting to sound a bit dated. If Hive sounded as good but different, and had more sound design capabilities (i.e. more variety), and also looked better and had better file management (which it will), then it could easily become the new go-to synth. I'll be over the moon if it does all that.

Sylenth is my to-go-synth because of this unique combination of sound quality, low CPU and preset variety.

Normally I always choose Zebra or Diva, but in a crowded project I cannot use the latter for obvious reasons (so instead of a Diva Moog Bass I use a Sylenth (or Zebra) Moog), and there are some Sylenth sounds I still cannot reproduce with Zebra.

2ZrgE · Post by **2ZrgE** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:42 pm

chk071 wrote:You also hear that it produces 90% of the sounds heard in nowadays trance productions too, it's quite easy to recognize.

For my ears there's more Virus than Sylenth, maybe I'm wrong.

Stollmeister · Post by **Stollmeister** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 1:29 pm

Urs wrote:But we won't model any part of the synth exactly after something else, as this IMHO would mean a step backwards.

It's kinda funny how this can be true when the synth that is allegedly modeled is a modern software synthesizer. But when DIVA manages to closely model an ancient hardware synth we call it progress!

zvenx · Post by **zvenx** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 1:52 pm

maybe the key words are 'exactly after'.

rsp

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 5:14 pm

Stollmeister wrote:
Urs wrote:But we won't model any part of the synth exactly after something else, as this IMHO would mean a step backwards.
It's kinda funny how this can be true when the synth that is allegedly modeled is a modern software synthesizer. But when DIVA manages to closely model an ancient hardware synth we call it progress!

Hehe, DIVA's objective was modeling analogue synths. Hive's objective is "getting super saw right".

There are many good alternatives for that, but Hive will add more to it than being "just another".

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 5:37 pm

Ah, and finally something to listen to. Careful, this is extreme kitsch, but since Hive doesn't have audio rate modulation I'm working on something entirely different to create dissonant and bell-type sounds.

http://www.u-he.com/downloads/Hive/HiveBell.mp3

Not sure if it's worth investing time into this though...

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 5:43 pm

I love it!

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 5:48 pm

Urs wrote:http://www.u-he.com/downloads/Hive/HiveBell.mp3

Not sure if it's worth investing time into this though...

Are you kidding?? Of course it's worth investing time in any form of audio rate modulation! (even any form of CPU friendly "oscfx" )
They are one of the secrets (besides having a mod matrix) of getting "new" sounds and EDM (the old term and not that synth cheesy stuff) for example was always about trying that.

The bells sound clean and soothing, I can picture the large meditation hives near the honey and waterfall pool!

The reverb is a bit washy tho.. but it's no -poor- quality that's for sure.

hakey · Post by **hakey** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:15 pm

Urs wrote:Not sure if it's worth investing time into this though...

If it's about ways to harmonically bend the sines within a supersine oscillator, you should.

u-he

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