Hive 2.1 public beta 01 revision 10837

[tasmaniandevil]

So I'm guessing there's been some change to LFO triggered envelope behavior

First post, bug fixes:
* Fixed: LFO envelope trigger behaviour inconsistent

[lonnyman]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

[PieBerger]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

Urs has already said many times, in no uncertain terms, that he's not interested in adding sample/granular engines to any existing or future u-he products. Sorry to rain on your parade

[lonnyman]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

Urs has already said many times, in no uncertain terms, that he's not interested in adding sample/granular engines to any existing or future u-he products. Sorry to rain on your parade

I'll respect that and let Urs do his magic

[pdxindy]

and again, guys, Sync/FM and (almost) any feature you can ask for is literally what Zebra3 is for haha

Yup!

[PieBerger]

and again, guys, Sync/FM and (almost) any feature you can ask for is literally what Zebra3 is for haha

Yup!

I would love Sync and PM in Hive but I've resigned myself to the fact that it isn't going to happen, for legitimate technical reasons and I'll just have to wait until Zebra3 and I'm OK with that

[pdxindy]

and again, guys, Sync/FM and (almost) any feature you can ask for is literally what Zebra3 is for haha

Yup!

I would love Sync and PM in Hive but I've resigned myself to the fact that it isn't going to happen, for legitimate technical reasons and I'll just have to wait until Zebra3 and I'm OK with that

Zebra 2 doesn't have Osc Sync... I wonder if Z3 will?

[tasmaniandevil]

Warning:
We discovered one potential issue with this beta version, rev. 10837.
If you save a host project, please make sure that you do not have assigned any mod matrix modulation slots to the scope. This might lead to a crash when trying to reopen the project.

[recursive one]

Osc sync, simple 2-osc FM and a vowel filter would probably make Hive 2 cover about 95% of my synth needs. I'm not the kind of guy who keeps asking for more fetaures just for the sake of having more fetaures, but these are what I use really often (because psytrance). In synths like Serum, Viper, Virus Ti it's just few extra knobs that don't complicate the workflow in any way.

Ofc, if it requires some serious conceptual redesign and is not feasible I pretty much can go without it in Hive, there are wavetables that can approximate all of that to an extent, and I haven't yet tried the new filters - which I understand can offer different approach to noisy/inharmonic FM-esque stuff (and my other synths didn't go anywhere). All in all, I bought Hive for what it was, not for what it might or might not became.

But if one day Urs, being in an exceptionally good mood, would think "what if I do try putting some FM and sync in there", that's one more vote for that.

[PieBerger]

Osc sync, simple 2-osc FM and a vowel filter would probably make Hive 2 cover about 95% of my synth needs. I'm not the kind of guy who keeps asking for more fetaures just for the sake of having more fetaures, but these are what I use really often (because psytrance). In synths like Serum, Viper, Virus Ti it's just few extra knobs that don't complicate the workflow in any way.

Ofc, if it requires some serious conceptual redesign and is not feasible I pretty much can go without it in Hive, there are wavetables that can approximate all of that to an extent, and I haven't yet tried the new filters - which I understand can offer different approach to noisy/inharmonic FM-esque stuff (and my other synths didn't go anywhere). All in all, I bought Hive for what it was, not for what I might or might not became.

But if one day Urs, being in an exceptionally good mood, would think "what if I do try putting some FM and sync in there", that's one more vote for that.

Ditto, because psytrance

[Shiek927]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

Urs has already said many times, in no uncertain terms, that he's not interested in adding sample/granular engines to any existing or future u-he products. Sorry to rain on your parade

I've grown to honestly understand and appreciate that stance, because there's definitely a lot of truth to it. Once sample/granular becomes a feature of the synth, it quickly becomes the focus for many, many users. Multi-samples become a thing, "samples cannot load" error messages start popping up, and sample-libraries to keep the synth relevant eventually happen. The desire to actually synthesize and work with what the synth has becomes second to plopping whatever samples, wavetables, noise and foley sounds the user might have and tweaking them.

In a way, it essentially becomes Kontakt.

VPS Avenger is the epitome of that. A synth that's marketed as "the only one you'll ever need" with regularly sold sample-packs that are extremely expensive. They sound good for sure, but I can imagine many users don't really do any actual synthesis themselves and simply purchase those packs which adds up to an extreme cost. I can't help but wonder how the sales for Avenger would look if expansion packs were no longer a thing or ever.

As before, it's essentially a synth version of Kontakt. Rather than incredible orchestra libraries that are carefully scripted and designed, Avenger has become a giant synth-sample player for it's expansion libraries. I'm sure some users out there actually use it to create something new beyond Manual and the designers for said-packs. But once wavetable import, nevermind sample-import, becomes a thing, it's like opening Pandora's Box.

Omnisphere is the same as well with it's hundreds of gigabytes of exotic samples that it uses and a synth engine that, while isn't bad, doesn't have the depth of any of u-he's offerings. Were all those burning piano and ice-cave samples trimmed, the whole plugin would suddenly become much, much smaller. Funny enough, it also tries to tout the title of being the only synth you'll ever need.

Neither of the actual synth engines, while certainly not bad, carry the same sort of depth and character as u-he's products. Hive2, a CPU-friendly 'dance' synth that's shy of $200, sounds better than Omnisphere -- a product sold at $500, recommended to use with a SSD, and has a hefty 100gb storage space before including Trillian and additional libraries.

I'm a broken record but, yet again -- Kontakt.

u-he is one of the extremely few companies genuinely trying to push synthesis innovation and they are arguably leading the way. Zebra2 is the perfect example of it considering how long in the tooth it is and yet it's still so heavily regarded by composers in a domain -- software -- where value runs extremely thin, there's no real resale value, and plugins are tossed quickly. It doesn't seem to stop Hans Zimmer and some of the best composers around from regularly or even exclusively using it.

I say to the team: continue what you're doing and pay no mind to ever trying to create a "do it all" super-synth. That's a death sentence and no classic hardware synth in history, analog or digital, ever claimed to be "the only one you'll ever need". It didn't stop them from becoming classics all the same.

[pdxindy]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

Urs has already said many times, in no uncertain terms, that he's not interested in adding sample/granular engines to any existing or future u-he products. Sorry to rain on your parade

I've grown to honestly understand appreciate that stance, because there's definitely a lot of truth to it. Once sample/granular becomes a feature of the synth, it quickly becomes the focus for many, many users. Multi-samples become a thing, "samples cannot load" error messages start popping up, and sample-libraries to keep the synth relevant eventually happen. The desire to actually synthesize and work with what the synth has becomes second to plopping whatever samples, wavetables, noise and foley sounds the user might have and tweaking them.

In a way, it essentially becomes Kontakt.

+100

I love synthesis... One of the reasons that I so frequently use u-he synths is exactly because they continue to develop synthesis and not cater to samples... which as you point out, begins to dominate.

I am very happy with where Hive is at. Because I can resynthesize audio into wavetables, I can create realistic attack transients, vocal sounds etc. Wavetables is as far as u-he should go into samples. I think the Uhm scripts are brilliant! The new filters are an excellent addition. There is plenty of exploration still to do with synthesis and I have more than enough ways to do whatever with samples.

[anoise]

Osc sync, simple 2-osc FM and a vowel filter would probably make Hive 2 cover about 95% of my synth needs.

+1 Just like in the Nord Lead. One knob for FM and Sync/Ring mod. Looks simple, don't know how hard it is to implement.Then in Hive you could do FM between 2 wavetables, and/or between main osc and sub osc.

[MitchK1989]

- which isn't to say that i wouldn't probably die of happiness of u-He created a focussed FM synth, but just that it doesn't have to be Hive?

At the risk of going off-topic, you should really check out bazille - it's basically a modular version of a 4 op FM synth melded with a casio CZ series.

[Shiek927]

Ok since we're mentioning dream features.... I'll add my own
I'd really love Hive to also included a sample mode, with granular function. Something like what Pigments has. I don't know how feasible it is, and how many resources it would require to implement it, but that would make it a beast, even more than it already is!

Urs has already said many times, in no uncertain terms, that he's not interested in adding sample/granular engines to any existing or future u-he products. Sorry to rain on your parade

I've grown to honestly understand appreciate that stance, because there's definitely a lot of truth to it. Once sample/granular becomes a feature of the synth, it quickly becomes the focus for many, many users. Multi-samples become a thing, "samples cannot load" error messages start popping up, and sample-libraries to keep the synth relevant eventually happen. The desire to actually synthesize and work with what the synth has becomes second to plopping whatever samples, wavetables, noise and foley sounds the user might have and tweaking them.

In a way, it essentially becomes Kontakt.

+100

I love synthesis... One of the reasons that I so frequently use u-he synths is exactly because they continue to develop synthesis and not cater to samples... which as you point out, begins to dominate.

It's funny. I look at one of my favorite old-school digital synths, the Roland V-Synth, which has some awesome granular like abilities. It's like an early hardware version of Omnisphere with it's ability to load in samples. The VA engine, while not bad, has often been called weak by many people and they aren't necessarily wrong since I wouldn't call it as good as the other synths that were strictly VA at the time.

I don't want to generalize, but it IS almost like the synth-engine and synthesis side of things tend to lose some of it's edge and depth once sample-loading becomes a feature. It may not be necessarily true, but the best engines I've heard don't have that feature. Ymmv?

But yeah. I'm completely cool with no sample-import of sort and pushing the user-base to practice their sound-design skills and make do with the given material. Limitations are the best thing for creativity, not absolute freedom