Getting Hive?

[spunkmuffin]

Hive sounds like angry bees - kind of like this forum.

[beely]

But the fact is, Hive sounds thin. At least to ME.

Please don't confuse the concept of "fact" with the concept of "subjective opinion"... Two different things.

[Urs]

Look guys, if Hive sounds thin to you that's okay. It's your preference. But please don't justify it with how great synth XY sounds, or some other random synth that can't hold up a candle to Hive in about every respect mentioned. It's not only condescending, it's simply not true. If you think your truth is better, post an audio example - or live with me saying: You're wrong.

It's exactly right that I'm probably the only person who knows why Hive uses less CPU than Diva. It has nothing to do with objective sound quality. It has everything to do with how-can-we-improve-the-status-quo-of-that-market-segment-without-compromising-sound-and-cpu. There is no compromise. There's just a shitload of experience and "hey, if it doesn't have to behave exactly like this or that, we can save a lot of CPU". Thing is, extremely distorting filters are bad for a synth like Hive. If Diva's filters were less distorting, they would use the same CPU as Hive's.

I can certainly make Hive's filters munch CPU like there's no tomorrow, and I betcha, it would improve the perceived sound quality.

[Kumi_27]

How about adding some flip-switch in next version?
I think You like to have some dials and switches hidden under the hood, maybe it's time Hive get some too?
With a big label "CPU hungry"

[journey33]

What the f**k is wrong with people? Hive does not sound "thin" overall, not even a little bit. Maybe your problem is just that you're using the presets (some of which might be a little thin, but that's part of the sound of those presets) and not actually diving in deep into it.

I've been using Hive on quite a few tracks recently and its definitely not "thin". It can sound thin if you want it to, but its not its standard sound.

[wagtunes]

I don't have a horse in this race because I stopped buying synths for personal use a long time ago. Today, they're just a means to an ends...making sound libraries. I bought Hive because it's a U-he synth and U-he synths sell. What I'll be very curious to see is how well Hive sells relative to my other U-he synths. Right now, from best to worst selling, they stack like this out of 44 total libraries.

Zebra 2 - 5th overall
Bazille - - 9th overall
Diva - 12th overall
Ace - 19th overall
Repro-1 - 26th overall

The last one surprised the hell out of me given how great everyone says it sounds. Gotta wonder why it doesn't sell better than it does. Dollars to donuts when I release Hive at the end of this month, it beats out the "better" sounding Repro-1.

Too many of you guys are getting lost in the "tech specs" argument and forgetting that when it comes to buying synths, your average musician doesn't give a crap about specs. They just care about getting a certain sound. And if that certain sound is "thin" or whatever, guess what? That synth is going to sell well.

Personally, I don't care for Sylenth1 at all. I think it's overpriced. There is nothing special about the sound. But hey, for whatever reason, people like it. That's all that matters. How many people like Hive? I'm going to find out next week when I release it. Maybe it will surprise me too. Maybe it will be my worst selling U-he Synth. But you know what? In my last thread over at Soundware, a thread that had nothing to do with any U-he product, know what one member asked me? When am I releasing my Hive library?

How do I feel about Hive? Doesn't matter. To me, it's just another tool like any other synth. It has oscillators and filters and makes sounds. My job is to try to make the best sounds that I can with it. Nothing more, nothing less. Will I ever use it in a song? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But there are lots of synths that I have that I've never used in a song, either because they're CPU hogs or their sound didn't fit what I was doing. For me, a synth is no different than picking up a hammer or a screwdriver. It's a tool.

And that kind of attitude makes buying or not buying synths for me very easy. It all comes down to one question. Can I make a library that will make me money? It's all business.

Point is, if I didn't think Hive could make me money, I wouldn't have bought it. But as I said, U-he synths sell, for whatever reason whether it's quality, fanboism, or whatever. I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. People buy their synths and that's all I care about.

Oh, so why didn't I buy Sylenth1? Simple. There are a gazillion free libraries out there. I don't see any money in making a Sylenth1 library. I don't care how popular the synth is. It would be $189 or whatever it costs totally wasted.

Hive? Not so much. I see a nice money maker there.

Time will tell.

[Dasheesh]

Hives low end is gorgeous and it's envelopes are the most satisfying I've used. Those are Hives strong points so I have no idea what anyone is talking about there. It's just that Hive is more organic and analog then the perceived alternative and that will mush out on you if you shove 25 instances through 3 limiters.

[twolegstoneworks]

Oh, so why didn't I buy Sylenth1? Simple. There are a gazillion free libraries out there. I don't see any money in making a Sylenth1 library. I don't care how popular the synth is. It would be $189 or whatever it costs totally wasted.

Hive? Not so much. I see a nice money maker there.

Time will tell.

From my experience.. Zebra is the bestseller for me. Diva did okay and Hive was a disaster. The easy-to-program interface in Hive might have something to do with it, as people find it easier to program the sound they want with it...

On the other hand I had the same doubts as you about creating a soundset for Sylenth1 where the market is completely oversaturated, but it actually sold better than expected...

Finally, I took the plunge into the even more saturated market for Massive soundsets.. another complete disaster with the most miserable sales to date..

Customers can be difficult to get the head around.

But Hive is still a killer synth that I use in my own productions, alongside Sylenth1 and ZEBRA!

[ghettosynth]

Look guys, if Hive sounds thin to you that's okay. It's your preference. But please don't justify it with how great synth XY sounds, or some other random synth that can't hold up a candle to Hive in about every respect mentioned. It's not only condescending, it's simply not true. If you think your truth is better, post an audio example - or live with me saying: You're wrong.

And you have to live with people saying "we don't care. " We're having a conversation about synth value and perception. This is a conversation, not a conference paper.

It's exactly right that I'm probably the only person who knows why Hive uses less CPU than Diva.

But that isn't what I said. You certainly do know, naturally, but I think that it's a bit too much of a claim to assert that other people aren't aware of both the history of your synths as discussed here and where the technology costs in filters are in a general sense.

It has nothing to do with objective sound quality. It has everything to do with how-can-we-improve-the-status-quo-of-that-market-segment-without-compromising-sound-and-cpu. There is no compromise. There's just a shitload of experience and "hey, if it doesn't have to behave exactly like this or that, we can save a lot of CPU".

This is convenient language that is circular with respect to what some of us are talking about. You made product choices, and that's fine, but I think that you're overrating what those choices mean to the subset of people who don't care for Hive both within that market segment and without. For those within, they don't care, Hive isn't Sylenth. For those without, given the way the raw synth sounds, it isn't sufficiently more interesting than other choices to justify the difference in cost.

Thing is, extremely distorting filters are bad for a synth like Hive.

In your opinion, I disagree, and you can't really argue otherwise because you didn't give your customers that choice, right? To be clear, I'm not even saying that you should, I'm not even arguing that it would make a better product, I'm just saying that it makes Hive less interesting to some segment of the market. You can argue that Hive's filters are clean and that is where the CPU consumption is saved, and you can argue that for the sounds that the Sylenth market wants that dirty filters don't add much, but you can't argue that your subjective opinion on what sounds good or bad is objective, or, that those clean filters are in demand by people who like Diva and Repro-1, or practically any other real analog synth ever built.

In fact, you can't even argue that SuperSaws have never been used with such filters, they go all the way back to the Saw Animator with Bernie Hutchins and Electronotes.

If Diva's filters were less distorting, they would use the same CPU as Hive's.

But they're not, right? So that's not optimization, that's something that's in Diva, in Repro-1, in virtually every real analog synth in existence, but not in Hive. So there's your answer for those of us who don't use Sylenth as a benchmark. Again, I'm not even suggesting that Hive should have been something different, that segment of the market is CPU conscious, but you can't have it both ways. Once you make that choice to use clean, easier to implement filters, then you have more competition and for people not interested in those synths in the first place, that competition is really more than adequate and a LOT cheaper.

So, when someone asks, what does Hive add to the mix over Omnisphere and Diva, I think that it's perfectly valid to say, not much really. If you're looking for interesting sound design that will take you in different directions then I think that there are much better ways to spend $150.

I can certainly make Hive's filters munch CPU like there's no tomorrow, and I betcha, it would improve the perceived sound quality.

It most certainly would in the sense that it would mitigate that bias. However, I think that you're overrating that bias in terms of evaluation. I don't know how other people do it but I always evaluate synths in isolation so I've yet to encounter a commercial synth that demands more CPU than my studio system can deliver. I wouldn't even know until I started using it in a project because, by default, Reaper doesn't display CPU usage.

[wagtunes]

Oh, so why didn't I buy Sylenth1? Simple. There are a gazillion free libraries out there. I don't see any money in making a Sylenth1 library. I don't care how popular the synth is. It would be $189 or whatever it costs totally wasted.

Hive? Not so much. I see a nice money maker there.

Time will tell.

From my experience.. Zebra is the bestseller for me. Diva did okay and Hive was a disaster. The easy-to-program interface in Hive might have something to do with it, as people find it easier to program the sound they want with it...

On the other hand I had the same doubts as you about creating a soundset for Sylenth1 where the market is completely oversaturated, but it actually sold better than expected...

Finally, I took the plunge into the even more saturated market for Massive soundsets.. another complete disaster with the most miserable sales to date..

Customers can be difficult to get the head around.

But Hive is still a killer synth that I use in my own productions, alongside Sylenth1 and ZEBRA!

Massive? Yes, 36th out of 44 libraries. But I wasn't surprised. I expected it. So you're saying I can expect the same out of Hive? Oh well, whatever.

Know what really surprises me? Softube Modular. Busted preset saving system, red letter warning on my sales page, and it's my 2nd best selling library next to Serum and closing in fast.

Totally boggles my mind.

[Dasheesh]

What that crowd wants is to be able shove 60 instances through 2 compressors and 3 limiters and have it hold it's perceived saw.

[pdxindy]

Sylenth just sound more snappy. The attack of sound and filters. Its fast and powerful. It makes it perfect synth for fat chords with nice filter cut off's. Fast leads and basses.

I like the high end on Sylenth... but the lows are weak. Hive has a distinctly better low end.

[Soarer]

OK folks enough about Sylenth and Hive being thin PLEASE! I don't care at all for that synth and I do not find Hive thin so let's go on with other aspects of the topic at hand.

[wagtunes]

OK folks enough about Sylenth and Hive being thin PLEASE! I don't care at all for that synth and I do not find Hive thin so let's go on with other aspects of the topic at hand.

Well there aren't really a lot of aspects. The OP wants to know if Hive will add anything to the synths he already has. This is all subjective. Personally, I think it does if for no other reason than it sounds different than the synths he already has. Whether or not that's enough for the OP, who knows? That's up to him. Nobody can make that decision for him.

Aside from buying synths to simply make libraries, when I buy a synth for a personal reason, I listen to it. If I like the way it sounds, I get it. If I don't like the way it sounds, I don't get it. Why can't people just do that? We'd have a lot less of these threads running rampant in this forum.

[chk071]

TBH, i started to write a comment on the topic a couple of times now. But, don't think i really do. It's pointless. Everyone should use what he/she prefers. You know, i like Urs. But, considering the endless praise he gets in forums like these, he seems a bit immune against criticism of any kind. "It sounds good because we felt like it does". Thing is, u-he exclusively done analog emus so far, and Hive is a bit of a weird child, because it was supposed to do something else. And i'm sure it hits all the marks in some people's books. It's just that, IMO, it sounds much too metallic and harsh to really be a competitor for Sylenth1 specific EDM sounds. And, for me, it's once again a good example that it's not all about ZDF filters, oversampling, or any other kind of "sound improving" technologies, but, rather about character. Otherwise synths like the JP-8k, or the Virus wouldn't have been such evergreens in the hardware world. Or, Sylenth1 in the software world.

But, again, everyone should use what he prefers. And, actually, i didn't even want to write as much to the topic, as i just did. Damn. Just thinking sometimes that u-he might have done good to not develop this so close to the Sylenth1 specs as they did. If they just would have done a unison VA synths, with a slightly different architecture, and let the Sylenth1 name out of the game, then people probably wouldn't compare to it the whole time.