Hive 2.1 Izmo skin by Plugmon

[exmatproton]

thelizard, you don't need to file bug report - talk/read about it here:

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=559587

Besides this, u-he's UI designer has found out where does the IZMO's GUI heaviness comes from. It'll be improved.

We're quite in awe (that's a good thing) as to how you work, and how you use our concepts in ways we haven't anticipated.

Does that mean there will be an official Plugmon skin coming standard with future u-he products?

Plugmon, I would not mind your take on Filterscape and MFM2

+1 x 1000

[MarulaMusic]

I love this... personally I'd agree its a little on the light side for me. I'm so used to 'dark mode' everywhere... perhaps just a darker shade of grey. Another feature request... not sure if it's an option for a skin but a dedicated pulse width knob would be great for the pulse waveform, much the same as the new wavetable knob in the new skin.

[MarulaMusic]

Also... seems to be a bug on the master volume control. No animation playing at all, seems buggy the shift in volume when you try move it too.

[xybre]

i also agree: i've been using the skin as it currently stands for a good while today, and i'm really getting used to (and liking) the large dark boxes - they make a really nice logical grouping

yes, "logical grouping" is what it is really. Without the dark boxes, all the small icons and selectors feel randomly scattered on the same background. Maybe easier on the eyes, but harder on the brain

p.s. the dark boxes also give it a meaner look, very important when making techno!

Mean looks are important! And yeah the way that visual grouping is lost is a real bummer, that contrast makes a big difference in visual clutter. It looks washed out too.

So despite the fact that the right one is brighter in terms of pure proportion of light/dark, it looks much easier on the eyes.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I see your point in theory, but not in practice!

In a dark mode skin, I would still want some contrast to visually group items.

One of the things I love about u-he plugins is how we are able to customize the UI any way we want to suit our needs and our sense of aesthetic.
Here, I changed the look of Plugmon's Mixcontrol using the same pretty slider elements he used elsewhere in the Izmo design. I also came up with different icons for representing if a sound generator is plugged-in to the signal path or bypassed. (I didn't care too much for the 3D arrows floating on top of the graphic).

Interesting! I wonder why the visual language of only using those sliders in the vibrato section originally? The different sliders are nice in the mixer section I think. I think they'd maybe be too busy used everywhere?

I think this mod is a good upgrade overall, though the lower contrast is not ideal considering that they're also buttons, that would be completely lost in this version.

Also, the triangles match kinda with the triangles in the upper filter mix section, but honestly the ones in the filter section aren't very informative? Is there was a better way to tie the two sections together with more similar icons that would be nice. I think the oscillator routing on the filters could be reworked. This is one area where the new skin is slightly less usable/disoverable than the old one.

[karlfranz]

More experimentation with personalizing the elements of Izmo:
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Screen Shot 61.png

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Oops. Just realized I should prolly slide the lower fader labels a bit to the left.

[karlfranz]

Couple of extra screen shots:
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Screen Shot 65.png

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Screen Shot 66.png

[lonnyman]

Couple of extra screen shots:

Really liking this version. The orange works great! I prefer the original knobs, but not a deal breaker.

[gavinray]

@karlfranz

Really love these tweaks to small elements like the faders/knobs, and I'm keen on colored waveforms! (Though uncertain what color. Orange is definitely nice, would have to experiment to see what some different colors look like.)

By any chance, would you be open to sharing the assets for your tweaks?

---

My missus does digital art stuff for a living (though not this kind).
Asked her a favor to download REAPER and try to learn to tweak U-he themes, so that she could make it darker for me.

Some screenshots of her work over the past week. She says she feels like it's close. (Notice that the step sequencer velocity/mod are messed up, lots of other small things, etc)

If it's allowed, would love to share the theme folder here when done for others.

Huge thank-you to @plugmon and @Urs for responding to me bugging them on social media with theme-dev questions

[EvilDragon]

Now that is kinda lacking contrast. The lighter and darker gray are kinda too close to fully delineate things.

[gavinray]

Now that is kinda lacking contrast. The lighter and darker gray are kinda too close to fully delineate things.

Hey, to each their own. Some people think Ableton is gorgeous and to me it looks like the Adobe Flash art/games you'd see in the late 90's and early 2000's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the spirit of open source -- if you make something for yourself, I just like to put it out there on the chance that someone else finds it appealing and gets use or enjoyment out of it.

Eventually after enough people do this, near everyone will find something they like, or you can cobble together bits and pieces from multiple people to suit your own personal taste.

[EvilDragon]

I, for one, don't think Ableton looks gorgeous.

[Jorgeelalto]

Are you sure plugmon's skin is open source though?

[EvilDragon]

The files are out there in the open for anyone to tweak, and u-he has generally been quite lenient on factory skin mods IIRC. But yeah it's not technically "open source".

[gavinray]

Are you sure plugmon's skin is open source though?

Anyone feel free to correct me but my thought is -- if it's a stock/default plugin skin, if you don't own the plugin having the skin files isn't going to do you much good.

And the PatchLab skins section has a fairly extensive collection of user-contributed U-he themes:
https://u-he.com/PatchLib/skins.html

Though it is a beta, and it's plugmon's creative/intellectual property, so at the end of the day I'd respect whatever restrictions/decisions U-he and plugmon made.

[karlfranz]

@karlfranz

By any chance, would you be open to sharing the assets for your tweaks?

We would need approval from Urs and Plugmon before anyone starts sharing mods. Also, Hive 2.1 and Izmo are still beta, so changes I made to graphic elements and the script aren't guaranteed to work in the final version.