Hive preview (April 1 update)

[carrieres]

Comparing the Hive presets so far with the Sylenth presets, Sylenth has a slightly juicier, more organic, more forward kind of sound whereas Hive has a clearer and cleaner sound. Both good, just different.

Also, to me, Hive doesn't look obvious to program. I have a rough idea of Sylenth programming basics, but I'm a bit lost when I look at Hive. So yes, I need videos.

Three quirks so far:

1. Arrow keys on the computer keyboard should work to progress through presets. ATM, you have to use the mouse to click on the arrows in Hive.

2. When I rename a track in ableton as just "Hive" it puts a track number in front of the name.

3. Presets don't show in the Select VST Preset area of the devices at the bottom of the screen in ableton.

point 2 is normal ableton behavior
point 3 is normal u-he behavior

[Caine123]

ok my comparisons have to wait ;D, but i tested a bit more deep played and harsh sounds and i hate to say it atm but im not convinced yet of Hive beating sylenth1 in those gritty sounds

[Urs]

OK, now that I know how to access the mod targets, and hence how to set the pulse width, I noticed that Hive shows the blip same attack noises as Dune 2 when using Pulse...

hehehe, might be related to saving CPU. I had ideas to work around it but didn't yet get to it.

[Breeze]

Hive's filters are more like Bazilles, and the oscillators are like, hmm, ACE LFO2 with tap map option plus unison. The envelopes are coded from ground up. In "Dirty" mode you get classical exponential ones, in "Clean" you get the same with linear attack and in "Normal" you get a trick I saw elsewhere to avoid clicks and get more punch. Even the ModMatrix is new, and unlike Zebra's it can exceed parameter ranges when possible. So you can often "stack up" in Hive, which isn't possible in Zeebs.

Also, Hive breaks with a lot of things I do by habit, such as panning laws, detune laws, when to use knobs rather than drop downs.

This was a priceless post that took me some time to track down. Repeating it here for myself and others... I still think at least ConstX2 would be useful. Thanks Urs!

[Tricky-Loops]

The envelopes are coded from ground up. In "Dirty" mode you get classical exponential ones, in "Clean" you get the same with linear attack and in "Normal" you get a trick I saw elsewhere to avoid clicks and get more punch.

What about making drawable envelopes, then people could decide themselves whether they want it to be linear, exponential, concave, convex, negative or whatever...

[Urs]

1) OSC trigger mode flow?

Osc phase of a new note picks up where the last one is/was. This allows mono-patches to have continuous beating between oscillators throughout a melody or something. In poly patches one can use this to start chords with the same beating/phasing for all notes.

It's a matter of taste. It's less important than random or reset, but in some cases desirable.

2) Explain engine modes Normal, Dirty, Clean.

Normal: exponential detune, s-shaped attack, short, punchy decays, oversampled ladder filter with non-linear resonance, self oscillating

Dirty: Even space detune, exponential envelopes, oversampled, highly non-linear Steiner-Parker filter, self oscillating, unpredictable. Bit like the MS-20 filters, but built with an unbuffered diode ring (it's a bit like everyone does Sallen-Key nowadays, so I wanted to go that extra mile for something unusual).

Clean: Wide detune, linear attack, exponential decay/release, not oversampled and absolutely linear State Variable Filter

All filters are based on nodal analysis of ideal parts. I used the same trick as in Bazille to make Normal and Dirty non-linear. It's all about a hell of a lot of tweaking until it sounds almost as good as the real deal, at a fraction of the CPU.

- Urs

[Urs]

The envelopes are coded from ground up. In "Dirty" mode you get classical exponential ones, in "Clean" you get the same with linear attack and in "Normal" you get a trick I saw elsewhere to avoid clicks and get more punch.

What about making drawable envelopes, then people could decide themselves whether they want it to be linear, exponential, concave, convex, negative or whatever...

Envelopes can modulate themselves… that's how different slopes are done in the Virus. The "snappy" feature in ACE and Bazille is nothing but an envelope modulating its own rate.

I was going to experiment with this a bit, also get Howie involved. And then we'll decide how we handle it, either with a dedicated "env rate" parameter, or with slope parameter (which is the same, but different angle), or simple with a tutorial and a few presets.

Thing is, if you look at Sylenth, Virus and what not, they all have their limitations and people have happily worked around them. It was never a big deal that Sylenth had no PWM because everybody knows how to do it. So we think that only because it isn't immediately obvious, we might not need to add each and every feature.

[fluffy_little_something]

Element has several flaws, but I like the way they did the envelopes.
I still like the conventional ADSR-style envelopes, MSEG's already seem too much for normal patch programming. Maybe they are interesting for professional sound designers, but for musicians proven conventional stuff is usually enough. Makes you wonder who Hive is intended for. Although a lot of people on KVR seem to be into EDM, Hive is pretty good for 80's sounds

[Aiynzahev]

Thing is, if you look at Sylenth, Virus and what not, they all have their limitations and people have happily worked around them. It was never a big deal that Sylenth had no PWM because everybody knows how to do it. So we think that only because it isn't immediately obvious, we might not need to add each and every feature.

''

I agree. The key is knowledge. Which you can put in a tips & tricks section of presets and or the manual.

[VitaminD]

Thing is, if you look at Sylenth, Virus and what not, they all have their limitations and people have happily worked around them. It was never a big deal that Sylenth had no PWM because everybody knows how to do it. So we think that only because it isn't immediately obvious, we might not need to add each and every feature.

''

I agree. The key is knowledge. Which you can put in a tips & tricks section of presets and or the manual.

A nice bank of your presets are coming stock with this synth right?

[tedlogan]

I think a great thing about u-he synths in general is that you don't have to second-guess the VST/quality. If something does not work out, you know it's either your music, your patch or your arrangement. Incredibly thoughtful synths seemingly made with lots of passion.

Hat tip and respect to you guys

[zvenx]

in love with Hive

https://soundcloud.com/exmatproton/exm-jour2

I really like that one!

thnx.

+1.
Love it..
rsp

[zvenx]

.............2) Explain engine modes Normal, Dirty, Clean.

Normal: exponential detune, s-shaped attack, short, punchy decays, oversampled ladder filter with non-linear resonance, self oscillating

Dirty: Even space detune, exponential envelopes, oversampled, highly non-linear Steiner-Parker filter, self oscillating, unpredictable. Bit like the MS-20 filters, but built with an unbuffered diode ring (it's a bit like everyone does Sallen-Key nowadays, so I wanted to go that extra mile for something unusual).

Clean: Wide detune, linear attack, exponential decay/release, not oversampled and absolutely linear State Variable Filter

All filters are based on nodal analysis of ideal parts. I used the same trick as in Bazille to make Normal and Dirty non-linear. It's all about a hell of a lot of tweaking until it sounds almost as good as the real deal, at a fraction of the CPU.

- Urs

Urs, you may want to include this in the first post....I am sure many others will ask over the course of this thread
thanks
rsp

[JKVisFX]

=This is just based on watching the preview video:

I love how you assign modulation to destinations. However, there should be some visual indication that modulation has been assigned to a parameter - something like changing the color of a parameter or have a color ring or outline around the parameter that shows it is being modulated. Something like this:
https://flic.kr/p/px2QZe

[Aiynzahev]

=This is just based on watching the preview video:

I love how you assign modulation to destinations. However, there should be some visual indication that modulation has been assigned to a parameter - something like changing the color of a parameter or have a color ring or outline around the parameter that shows it is being modulated. Something like this:
https://flic.kr/p/px2QZe

Agreed, that looks great. Even better if we can have a choice to see the modulation movement at the destination.