Diva vs Hive vs Repro vs Ace vs Bazille vs Zebra AGAINST OMNISPHERE

[mertas]

Hi,
I am so far longer time user of Omnisphere and all of my comments below are based on demo U-He synths testing. Can you comment my conclusion below.

Spectrasonics Omnisphere is great for multilayering, multimodulation routing, arpegiating, best UX, scenic and FX sounds and real sample modulation. BUT SOUNDS NOT ORGANIC AS SYNTH.

U-He all synths are analogish and warm, fat sounding to me, which I love.
How do I found each of them, correct me, if I am wrong.

ZEBRA - interface looks flexible, but presets are not sounding that good like Diva presets at first glance. This synts usage looks best as soft warm pulsing arpegiated textural machine

DIVA - bright analog warm sound, overal best sounding presets, which are very usable for playing on keys as musician. On the other hand this machine is offering limited routing, sequencing. This machine is minimalistic, great preset for real playing users.

RETRO - besides Diva sound great Retro 1 for sequencing in mono , Retro 5 for rich, bright sounds. Limited routing and manipulation of great sound.

Hive 2 - modern capable synth with analog roots, sound has modern polish to my ears. Omnisphere is better in multifunctions, Hive sounds better. Rather for modern electronic music.

Ace and Bazille - experimental synths, great sound, for me complicated old-school look and useless sounds. Rather for modern electronic music.

CONCLUSION FOR ME

I am searching those sounds:



As I have Omnisphere allready, but dont find it analog sounding.
I would use it especially for creating sequences with its far best Arpegiator on the market.

Than best starting choice looks for me:
1. DIVA - bright analog sound
2. RETRO - alternative to Diva sounds + mono arpegiator
3. ZEBRA - warm soft analog sound (probably Dark Zebra soundset?)

What do you think? How and when do you use each UHE Synth?

[pdxindy]

Bazille is one of the best synths ever made! That is what I think.

[zvenx]

Hmmm..
I am not sure I agree with you that Omnisphere doesn't sound Organic (lots of the psychoacoustic sounds there) or Analog enough...for instance the Hardware Bank or whatever it is called, have some fantastic analog sounds in there, amongst the best in the world to me. Whilst indeed the Filters aren't as nice as the newer u-he stuff, Eric Persing to me is one of the best sound designers period, especially for analog sounds and he and his team manage to get some great analog sounds from omnisphere especially in that Hardware bank.. And yes I am old enough that I grew up hearing and playing analog synths.

As to u-he stuff, If you want analog sounds you can't go wrong with Diva or Repro which sounds even better but not as many sound banks or not as flexible as Diva..
Do not underrate Zebra for analog sounds though, even though it may not have intentionally sent out to replicate specific analog hardware there are lots of analog elements in its DNA.. No less than Hans Zimmer for instance, often uses it a lot instead of his Yamaha CS-80 for synth sounds.


my two cents..

rsp

[lotus2035]

Will James Cameron be directing this one? Oh I forgot, he's working on 7 Avatar movies at the moment. Maybe Paul W.S. Anderson? He did such a fantastic job with those 20 Resident Evil movies he directed.

[zvenx]

With regards to your other question:"How and when do you use each UHE Synth?"

I never fell in love with ACE, I recently took it out of my template (it is still installed on my computers of course, but it moved from my B team to my not in Essential Template).

Bazille really is great sounding, though for me it is most useful in atmospheric/soundscapes and modern arp/sequence/loop stuff.

Diva, the Analog Dream Synth, recently I don't use it nearly as I use to (been using other synths as my first call for analog stuff, Tal J-8, Softube Model 72 etc)

Hive is somewhat like Bazille for me, that is I use it for more modern arp/sequencing/loop stuff, also things I would expect a modular synth to be doing.

Repro -1, to me the best sounding synth, hardware or software I have ever heard, this still gets used a lot for analog sequencer/arp things...probably my first call for analog sequencer/arp things.

Repro-5, although great sounding too, I don't use this as much, currently not flexible enough for first call duties, and to be fair I was never a huge Prophet 5 fan to begin with.

Zebra - the old work horse, the oldest of my u-he synths, yet still my first call u-he synth, in my first call of all synths too. There is little Zebra can't do. It may not be Master of any but it sure is Jack of all trades and it just easily fits into almost any mix. (I don't use Zebra HZ that much though, primarily cause I went thru the process of favouriting patches on Zebra not HZ, and it is thus easier for me to work in Zebra as the favourites don't show up as favourites automatically in HZ)


my other 2 cents

rsp


p.s., if you don't think Zebra can do great Analog check out EH's Analog Memories Bank, http://www.electric-himalaya.com/zebra2 ... ories.html

rsp

[muki]

RETRO - besides Diva sound great Retro 1 for sequencing in mono , Retro 5 for rich, bright sounds. Limited routing and manipulation of great sound.

is this a typo - reTro instead of rePro ?

reTro is logic's synth
https://support.apple.com/ar-ae/guide/l ... 3c43b3/mac

or do you mean u-he's rePro ?

[mertas]

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RETRO - besides Diva sound great Retro 1 for sequencing in mono , Retro 5 for rich, bright sounds. Limited routing and manipulation of great sound.

is this a typo - reTro instead of rePro ?

reTro is logic's synth
https://support.apple.com/ar-ae/guide/l ... 3c43b3/mac (https://support.apple.com/ar-ae/guide/logicpro/lgsi213c43b3/mac)

or do you mean u-he's rePro ?

sorry, Repro is meant

[Bulbizarre]

IIRC you can demo all the commercial u-he synths to make your mind
If you want to synthesize saxophone and such, or acoustic sounding drums, only Zebra can do it

[pdxindy]

IIRC you can demo all the commercial u-he synths to make your mind
If you want to synthesize saxophone and such, or acoustic sounding drums, only Zebra can do it

Hive can also do acoustic drums... especially since the 2.1 update added the new filters (Comb, Dissonant, Reverb)

[dune_rave]

u-he and spectrasonics are both the best of the best, and quite different. the synth engine in u-he synth are more detailed then the one in omnisphere. the best case if you have both - if you can afford

[FAS122]

I find myself using hive 2 over a lot of other, more complex synths. Only if I need to do deep editing do I go to (in my case) HALion. Hive is great on the basis that you can be up and away really fast, given that you don’t need those extra bells and whistles all the time.

[zerocrossing]

Hi,
I am so far longer time user of Omnisphere and all of my comments below are based on demo U-He synths testing. Can you comment my conclusion below.

Spectrasonics Omnisphere is great for multilayering, multimodulation routing, arpegiating, best UX, scenic and FX sounds and real sample modulation. BUT SOUNDS NOT ORGANIC AS SYNTH.

U-He all synths are analogish and warm, fat sounding to me, which I love.
How do I found each of them, correct me, if I am wrong.

ZEBRA - interface looks flexible, but presets are not sounding that good like Diva presets at first glance. This synts usage looks best as soft warm pulsing arpegiated textural machine

DIVA - bright analog warm sound, overal best sounding presets, which are very usable for playing on keys as musician. On the other hand this machine is offering limited routing, sequencing. This machine is minimalistic, great preset for real playing users.

RETRO - besides Diva sound great Retro 1 for sequencing in mono , Retro 5 for rich, bright sounds. Limited routing and manipulation of great sound.

Hive 2 - modern capable synth with analog roots, sound has modern polish to my ears. Omnisphere is better in multifunctions, Hive sounds better. Rather for modern electronic music.

Ace and Bazille - experimental synths, great sound, for me complicated old-school look and useless sounds. Rather for modern electronic music.

CONCLUSION FOR ME

I am searching those sounds:



As I have Omnisphere allready, but dont find it analog sounding.
I would use it especially for creating sequences with its far best Arpegiator on the market.

Than best starting choice looks for me:
1. DIVA - bright analog sound
2. RETRO - alternative to Diva sounds + mono arpegiator
3. ZEBRA - warm soft analog sound (probably Dark Zebra soundset?)

What do you think? How and when do you use each UHE Synth?

I own all of those synths, and here’s my take. First off, as has been mentioned, Omnisphere is a synth. I don’t know why this has to explained so many times, over and over, but Omnisphere is a synth. Does it have a large sample library as well? Yes, but to ignore the synthesis features is foolish. Does Omnisphere sound “analog?” Yes… but it doesn’t act like an analog, which is a big difference, and if you listen to a lot of it’s pure synthesis types, they do sound very digital, and frankly not even the best example of each synthesis type. That’s not the point, though. The point of Omnisphere is to be a sort of Swiss Army knife, so if you’re trying to use it like a chef’s knife, you will be disappointed. But when you combine it’s synthesis, samples, effects and all the many ways they can be layered and modulated, and you have something that’s still pretty special.

Anyway, if I were to recommend one of the other U-He synths, I’d definitely recommend RePro. It’s the simplest and most analog sounding. It’s the most like an actual analog synth and a bunch of pedals. Easy to use, not so simple that it’ll get boring quickly. When you master that, then we’ll talk about your next synth.