What Can Hive/Sylenth/Diva Do Uniquely?

[Urs]

Except for the centre screen, which has four different tabs, and the bottom section, which has 7 different tabs. That's a lot of tabs. Compare that to something like Obsession or Legend, which just have a front and a back panel.

Well, compare to synths that have tabs for module groups. Like those where you can't see/edit two LFOs or two envelopes at the same time. Or worse, those where oscillators are tabbed away. Or evil, where modules from one tab can not interact with modules from another; those in which tabulation limits functionality.

If there's one thing I think of as a rather unique achievement with our stuff, it is the way we deploy tabbing in a task driven manner. In by far most sound design or performance situations, people can see and edit everything they need on one screen. There is close to never a moment where two concurrent tabs interact. Even in Zebra, tabbing back and forth is a fringe situation, and more so in Hive. Of how many other designs of similarly complex architectures can we say the same?

[kmonkey]

None. But here Bones (great couch product specialist) is gonna teach you how everything around tabs you did so far is not needed because he don't need it. Grabbing my popcorn bag, boy this is going to be another ridiculous week of nonsense

[PieBerger]

There is close to never a moment where two concurrent tabs interact. Even in Zebra, tabbing back and forth is a fringe situation, and more so in Hive.

It's this nuance, that sets them apart from other synths imo. Tabs aren't inherently bad in a synth,they just need to be well thought out to minimise any clashes that get in the way of efficient and satisfying programming. Hive and Zebra do this well, as do Vital and Rapid (plus others I have no doubt missed). Serum on the other hand is one of the worst offenders, since tabbing to the mod matrix or FX pages locks you out of the entire rest of the synth. Ill-conceived tabs are at fault, not tabs as a general concept.

[Ploki]

Diva hides a lot of things from the main page, like all the little per voice tweaks. The RePros have multiple tabs in their GUI - Synth, Tweaks, Sequencer (RePro 1) and the Preset Browser. The Tweaks page is particularly annoying with its stupid background that obscures what is actually in there. I also dislike browsers that replace the synth interface. Something like Monoment Bass, with a separate browser window, is way better because they allow you load a preset, quickly try a tweak or two and move onto the next. Both RePros also hide the effects behind the keyboard.

Repro voice tweaks is not something that's really a must have when you're making the gist of the sound.
I almost never leave RePro's main tab...
Most synths have either preset browser separate, or the preset browser is a drop-down. so it can either be poor functionality-wise, or small in main GUI. pick one.

re browser:
how it boils down to personal preference, eh? I don't hate Softube's preset browser, but i much prefer u-he's. I find that softube's more often than not gets in the way for me, it's also often much larger than the plugin itself.

Except for the centre screen, which has four different tabs, and the bottom section, which has 7 different tabs. That's a lot of tabs. Compare that to something like Obsession or Legend, which just have a front and a back panel. Much simpler, although even just flicking between those two gets annoying very quickly. Korg does it way better with ARP Odyssey, where you can choose how much of the UI to see and scroll to extra features if you don't want a big window open all the time. For me, that interface paradigm is the gold standard.

Yeah but most of the tabs aren't really part of the same workflow. you don't need to switch back/forth a lot when you're editing or designing a sound.
Legend is a moog. If legend had tabs, that would simply be weird. Hardware didn't have tabs.

And scrolling for me is worse than tabs (personal preference again)

Exactly, synths that sound great and are much easier to work with. Hive and Diva try to appeal to a very broad market and, as a result, contain way too many features that too often get in the way of getting your work done. OTOH, something like bx_oberhausen is only trying to do one thing and is so much easier and more enjoyable to work with, whilst still able to give you high quality sounds. SO those are the synths I like, the ones made for a specific audience, not those trying to be all things to all people.

Except none of the ones i listed are actually synths but romplers.
They are super easy to work with, because there's not much to work with in the first place.

Hive is not -all- to -all people-, hive is a super simple essentially 2-voice synth.

What you apparently want is an "easy view" / "macro screen" for a synth that would act as rompler front-end acts for the samples beneath?
But that's a whole different paradigm.

[telecode]

Except for the centre screen, which has four different tabs, and the bottom section, which has 7 different tabs. That's a lot of tabs. Compare that to something like Obsession or Legend, which just have a front and a back panel.

Well, compare to synths that have tabs for module groups. Like those where you can't see/edit two LFOs or two envelopes at the same time. Or worse, those where oscillators are tabbed away. Or evil, where modules from one tab can not interact with modules from another; those in which tabulation limits functionality.

If there's one thing I think of as a rather unique achievement with our stuff, it is the way we deploy tabbing in a task driven manner. In by far most sound design or performance situations, people can see and edit everything they need on one screen. There is close to never a moment where two concurrent tabs interact. Even in Zebra, tabbing back and forth is a fringe situation, and more so in Hive. Of how many other designs of similarly complex architectures can we say the same?

I think these are all great points but you are thinking like a software developer/UX designer and not like a musician. The U-he software synth products are highly flexible and advanced synths meant really for people that want to spend a lot of time making particular sounds that are "supposedly" unique in the market place. If you buy them and don't spend the time to RTFM and learn how to fully utilize them -- well, that's your money and your problem.

But at the same token, a product such as, for example, the Waves One Knob[1] series is a great product for the audience it's meant for. It appeals to musicians/engineers that charge by the hour -- do not have or want to spend many hours and to work on something that they can't charge for, and working through and tinkering away at parameters, settings and what not for personal enjoyment is not their thing -- they want a tool that achieves results fast and is easy to use -- hence the "one knob" concept. It's not an inferior product. It's a product for a particular audience. Both concepts and products are valid and both have a place in the market space.

[1] https://www.waves.com/bundles/oneknob-series

[Urs]

I think these are all great points but you are thinking like a software developer/UX designer and not like a musician.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[uselessmind]

The Tweaks page is particularly annoying with its stupid background that obscures what is actually in there.

While overall i like the ui choices u-he makes more than from any other dev this one is so true and makes no sense to me aside from showing something that looks cool.

[uselessmind]

double post

[Urs]

The Tweaks page is particularly annoying with its stupid background that obscures what is actually in there.

While overall i like the ui choices u-he makes more than from any other dev this one is so true and makes no sense to me aside from showing something that looks cool.

I guess we were thinking more like a musician who has synth nostalgia back then when we did this, not like a software developer/UX designer

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[PieBerger]

The Tweaks page is particularly annoying with its stupid background that obscures what is actually in there.

While overall i like the ui choices u-he makes more than from any other dev this one is so true and makes no sense to me aside from showing something that looks cool.

I guess we were thinking more like a musician who has synth nostalgia back then when we did this, not like a software developer/UX designer

Touché

[Urs]

It's not an inferior product.

Oh, f'ing yes it is.

[telecode]

It's not an inferior product.

Oh, f'ing yes it is.

[Ploki]

I think these are all great points but you are thinking like a software developer/UX designer and not like a musician. The U-he software synth products are highly flexible and advanced synths meant really for people that want to spend a lot of time making particular sounds that are "supposedly" unique in the market place. If you buy them and don't spend the time to RTFM and learn how to fully utilize them -- well, that's your money and your problem.

But at the same token, a product such as, for example, the Waves One Knob[1] series is a great product for the audience it's meant for. It appeals to musicians/engineers that charge by the hour -- do not have or want to spend many hours and to work on something that they can't charge for, and working through and tinkering away at parameters, settings and what not for personal enjoyment is not their thing -- they want a tool that achieves results fast and is easy to use -- hence the "one knob" concept. It's not an inferior product. It's a product for a particular audience. Both concepts and products are valid and both have a place in the market space.

[1] https://www.waves.com/bundles/oneknob-series

sure it isn't

ever heard of presets?

[rafa1981]

There are days that I'm tired and only have one hour or so to do something after the kids sleep. Those days usually I would do no music, and if I do I get garbage quality boring output.

Instead of lying in the couch I just program patches, usually complex pads, experiment with sounds, etc. which has way lower cognitive load and requires less inspiration than making music. It can be relaxing sometimes to play random chords on pads.

Then on good days I already have ready and curated patches that I know exactly where they lie, so I minimize preset browsing and move as fast as I can before the inspiration leaves (I use Reaper ).

Having some synths with depth for toying is paramount for me. I guess that there is more people like me that enjoys the journey as much as the result. Not every synth has to be immediate.

I think that on U-he's most complex synths; Bazille and Zebra, there is a good compromise between features and complexity. I have the others but I still have to put some time in programming them.

I'm not a fanboy. My first and only U-he product before the sale was Bazille. I have Dune3 and I find it rewarding too.

Good point with Repro5 though. The little I programmed I did it on the tweaks page, as all knobs and switches are there anyways. That page has bad contrast and is tiring. A
one page (factory) no-nonsense skin for people that doesn't care about emulations wouldn't hurt.

[ariston]

I think these are all great points but you are thinking like a software developer/UX designer and not like a musician.

One time, the Ducks were lost in a wasteland. Uncle Scrooge asks Donald: "which way would you go?" Donald thinks for a while, then points and says "this way".

"Then we'll go in the opposite direction!" replied Uncle Scrooge.


Don't know why I thought of this just now.