"Industrial Design"

[Grizzellda]

...yeah, so recently I watched a couple of older interviews with Urs on the web, and he mentioned studying something called "industrial design" when he was younger.

I thought to myself, "this is pretty interesting", because when I work with a u-he plug-in, I really appreciate the usability, and the layout, and the colour combinations...it all makes good, clean sense, and I get the feeling that "industrial design" concepts may be influencing some stuff here...

or am I just bonkers over here?

[Chris-S]

Yeah, that's true, although they have a dedicated graphics designer as far as I know.

[DuX]

It's not just the pretty graphics that looks great in all u-he products, it is also the functionality of the interface where its products really shine. u-he synths are the best overall synths I've ever had a pleasure using in every way IMHO. The only drawback with them being high CPU consumption. But hey, they sound golden...

I'm not a fanboy. Just saying it like it is.

And I know I can always get away with praise on KvR , but god forbid if you criticise something or somebody... Fanboys without a pinch of ability for critical thinking will piss all over you.

Praise gooood. Criticising baaaad.

[Howard]

I'd say that Zebra2 and Hive both have "low CPU consumption" - especially compared with our "high CPU consumption" synths

[DuX]

I'd say that Zebra2 and Hive both have "low CPU consumption" - especially compared with our "high CPU consumption" synths

Absolutely! However, they don't sound as good as Repro, Diva and Bazille and therefore not "golden". Maybe "silvery"? Still probably amongst some of the best VST synths out there, though. I haven't tried them... and have no intention to.

And I actually rather appreciate that somebody made synths without too much compromises in sound quality. It definitely shows. There are some synths who sound bad despite high CPU consumption, but those are just badly programmed. Before I tried u-he synths I thought its synths were also just some average sounding VSTis with a pretty GUI and CPU killers just because they're badly programmed. It certainly didn't appear so after I've heard them.

If Industrial Design helped with u-he's design philosophy then I say all developers should get an Industrial Design degree, as well.

[re23071998]

"just some average sounding VSTis with a pretty GUI and CPU killers"

wut??

[DuX]

"just some average sounding VSTis with a pretty GUI and CPU killers"

wut??

Some people fall for a nice looking GUI, some people fall for plugin's size [lots of MB=must be good], some people fall for CPU usage [more CPU=must be better] and some even fall for what it sounds like. Some people fall for any combination of these. As someone very smart once said "everything is relative".

I usually first listen to what it sounds like, then consider the GUI functionality and resources usage. If it sounds good to my ears, nothing else matters, though.