Now Hive is here, is it RIP Sylenth?

[pdxindy]

Some modulations are a bit clumsy to set up in Sylenth1, other than that I find it pretty straightforward.

yeah, we are talking about 2 pretty easy to program synths... Hive is faster though. Setting up modulations is distinctly easier in Hive and at the same time more powerful. Also, in Sylenth, you can only see the parameters of one FX at a time. Hive you can edit all FX without any tabbing. That is also distinctly easier.

On the one hand it is indeed good to have all FX parameters visible at all times, on the other hand the Hive display is terribly crowded and fiddly for someone with poor vision like me.
When I set them both to identical size, Sylenth1's GUI is a lot better for me to use. The layout and controls are more heterogeneous and thus easier to memorize.

Yeah, Hive is easy enough for me to view. The FX parameters are smaller for sure. But I would far rather have that than all the tabbing... especially since most of the FX parameters can be modulated by drag-n-drop.

If I were redesigning Hive, I would make less eye candy and use the space gained to make the Hexabox 10% bigger. Even as is though, it is overall faster than Sylenth while have a bit more functionality.

[chk071]

I can only at people who think that the choice of Sylenth1 vs. Hive will actually matter in the context of a mix like that.

It will. For the person doing the mix... at least with a certain amount of demand for your sound, or music. TBH i can only at people who think you can do any sound with any synth, and it doesn't matter at all what you use, because it's all in the production skill (hi layzer). Well, if you're into turning knobs, and working and working and working until it sounds right, then that may even be true. I'm more a person for tools which give me the sound i need out of the box, instead of hopelessly wasting time on stuff which simply doesn't do it for me. Sorry, been there, don't want to go back.

That said, for some, Hive will work well, for some, Sylenth1 will work well. What are we even discussing here? Taste, nothing else.

That said though, Hive was developed and marketed as a supersaw synth, something like Sylenth1. Well, IMO, and obviously also in a lot of others, Sylenth1 still beats it regarding that. The problem in threads like these is mostly that there are people, who are more into music which doesn't introduce so many supersaw sounds, hence, of course, those will tend to like Hive more for what it does for them. I would say, in terms of analog emulation, Hive is clearly better than Sylenth1. Does that really matter for supersaw leads, or Trance or EDM kind of sounds? No, i don't think so. But, again, if that's not your kind of thing, then that won't matter to you.

[pdxindy]

No at some point you get information overload.

Hive is not even close to information overload... but it could be a bit easier by making the modules slightly different colors to visually differentiate them (took me less than an hour to do)

[pdxindy]

pdxindy, post a representative song so I know how to evaluate your "sylenth1 is more fiddly" comment.

We are talking about workflow... not sound.

[fluffy_little_something]

Just downloaded and tried out Predator. It seems like it's trying to do what I'm talking about, but it goes past the mark. There's too much stuff on the screen that I don't care about, not enough stuff on the screen that I do care about. I don't want to have to paginate for modulators, and there are generally too many choices (128 waveforms and umpteen different effects).

I do like the expanded sonic range of Predator, but I actually would prefer the workflow of Hive. Even so, the fact that e.g. Hive puts all the effects on screen at once isn't really a feature for me, since 90% of the time, when I want a delay, I just want a delay, and I just want to check it off and move on.

I was a bit overwhelmed by Predator's GUI as well at first, before someone mentioned that one can double the size of it. After studying the GUI for a couple of minutes it turned out quite logical with sections and everything.
Yes, modulation sections are tabbed, but I can live with it.

Yes, there are quite a lot of waveforms in there, many useful ones.

I like the effects, the 5-band equalizer for instance is really cool, I use it on every patch as it changes the sound so dramatically.

[aumordia]

pdxindy, post a representative song so I know how to evaluate your "sylenth1 is more fiddly" comment.

We are talking about workflow... not sound.

Exactly the response I expected.

[fluffy_little_something]

The modulation system in Hive is very simple, no doubt about it. A lot easier than searching targets in target menus and sub-menus.

[ariston]

pdxindy, post a representative song so I know how to evaluate your "sylenth1 is more fiddly" comment.

We are talking about workflow... not sound.

Exactly the response I expected.

Post of the decade.

[aumordia]

I'm more a person for tools which give me the sound i need out of the box, instead of hopelessly wasting time on stuff which simply doesn't do it for me. Sorry, been there, don't want to go back.

I have the same priorities you do, but in terms of GET DAT SOUND I think a lot of this is like the hifi audio enthusiast stuff or being a wine sommelier, it only really matters to that select group of people who really, really care about it. Some KVRian can probably pick out Massive in a mix by it's "modern talking" wave table, versus one of the new allophone tables in Serum -- my wife just hears "wub wubs" though.

I mean, I'm being pretty judgmental here and saying that lots of the things in genre X that super duper fanboy wannabe star producer Y really cares about -- well, it just doesn't matter. And with 100 years time it will look really, really silly to have obsessed so much over these things. On the other hand, good tonal music -- notes on paper -- is eternal, hence the immortality of the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

As it happens, the Sylenth1 supersaw sound is exceptionally pleasing to me. When I picked up Cubase Pro and got a free copy of Retrologue 2, I considered switching to it and selling off Sylenth1, just so that I had less stuff to maintain. It's more fiddly than Sylenth1, but only marginally so, so I thought it would be worth it. Well, I just liked the Sylenth1 supersaw sound so much that I decided to stick with it. But I have no delusions that it actually matters in the grand scheme of things.

[chk071]

You're right. Still, why do studio engineers buy $3.000 speakers, and turn their studio into a quietened bunker? Because they're looking for those 3, 4, 5 % better sound that they can achieve. I was always sad when i used freeware, or older payware like Synth1, Dune BE/CM, or Z3TA 1, because it just didn't give me that little bit of extra pleasant sound, mojo, or character i was after. It took a long, long time of demoing, watching Youtube vids, or sound demos, to determine what i like, and what would be tools which really make me enjoy making sounds. I guess that's something everyone has to go through, and i'm also sure that the demands will vary big time. I can surely imagine that for some, most tools will do. But, frankly, the popularity of some synths make me think that most people can judge pretty well what sounds good, and what not. Yes, popular stuff isn't always the best, yet there's gotta be something to it, when a soft synth, which is almost 10 years old, has still such a popularity.

Oh, and regarding Retrologue and Sylenth1. Well, Sylenth1's unison sound wipes the floor with Retrologue's. Retrologue is quite a simple synth. Sounds okay, but, it simply lacks character for me. The oscillators don't sound particularly special, the filters don't sound partciularly special, and the envelopes aren't exactly fast too. It's a good example for a synth, which is just average, vs. a synth which is above average. I'm sure you can make music with Retrologue, but it wouldn't be fun for me.

[pdxindy]

pdxindy, post a representative song so I know how to evaluate your "sylenth1 is more fiddly" comment.

We are talking about workflow... not sound.

Exactly the response I expected.

Sweet... now we are agreed that the subject is workflow... and regarding workflow, Hive is faster and less fiddly.

[wagtunes]

I'm more a person for tools which give me the sound i need out of the box, instead of hopelessly wasting time on stuff which simply doesn't do it for me. Sorry, been there, don't want to go back.

I have the same priorities you do, but in terms of GET DAT SOUND I think a lot of this is like the hifi audio enthusiast stuff or being a wine sommelier, it only really matters to that select group of people who really, really care about it. Some KVRian can probably pick out Massive in a mix by it's "modern talking" wave table, versus one of the new allophone tables in Serum -- my wife just hears "wub wubs" though.

I mean, I'm being pretty judgmental here and saying that lots of the things in genre X that super duper fanboy wannabe star producer Y really cares about -- well, it just doesn't matter. And with 100 years time it will look really, really silly to have obsessed so much over these things. On the other hand, good tonal music -- notes on paper -- is eternal, hence the immortality of the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

As it happens, the Sylenth1 supersaw sound is exceptionally pleasing to me. When I picked up Cubase Pro and got a free copy of Retrologue 2, I considered switching to it and selling off Sylenth1, just so that I had less stuff to maintain. It's more fiddly than Sylenth1, but only marginally so, so I thought it would be worth it. Well, I just liked the Sylenth1 supersaw sound so much that I decided to stick with it. But I have no delusions that it actually matters in the grand scheme of things.

All of this really depends on what it is you're trying to accomplish.

I know I have a lot of songs that I've done that used a particular sound that would have sounded very different had I used another sound. Would the song have sounded as good? No way to know as it was done with the sound chosen. But I do know that, in many cases where I was totally pleased with the sound I chose, I wouldn't want to mess with that "success" and try something else.

Take this Vocaloid track I did recently. Every single sound was carefully chosen to create the vibe that I wanted. I can't even imagine what choosing different sounds would have done to this song.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ead-vocals

So yes, in the long run, it actually does matter depending on what your vision is and how much that vision depends on a certain sound.

[EnGee]

It's Saturday morning here, and what's better than a license of Hive waiting in the email box to spend the weekend with?

I haven't delve into the sound yet so I won't comment yet, but I liked the GUI design a lot, except the colours and contrast in the main cell. I believe just a smart skin of a better contrast can do it.

Dune 2 has a fantastic sound. The problem it didn't inspire me to do my own sounds. I tried to but the GUI design didn't do it for me. On the other hand, although Sylenth1 has a great sound and easy workflow, the problem is I didn't like its sound character that much. I mean for pads I prefer Retrologue and LuSH, for bass as well and for bread and butter sounds I prefer Predator.

[chk071]

It's Saturday morning here, and what's better than a license of Hive waiting in the email box to spend the weekend with?

Happy music'ing. I wished i had a demo version of The Legend to spend the weekend with.

[fluffy_little_something]

Don't you people have girlfriends or wives to spend the weekend with?