Why do you dislike u-he VSTs?

[briefcasemanx]

They sound too clean to be real analog. They sound like an analog synth made with the perfect components, each component cherry picked from a large pile to behave perfectly. Seems like they're missing just a tiny bit of some low level slop or nastyness that makes them sound a little bit cleaner and a little bit less aggressive.

[Introspective]

Jokes aside, his point (re: why wavetables are bad) is absolutely viable.
The nature of sound changes in a wavetable is fixed.

upd: on the other hand, if a synth can control N parameters of a sound, but some super-new way of shaping comes up, it can be plugged into that synth as a linear change of that parameter from 0.0 to 1.0. So we can see each WT osc as a slot for additional pre-calculated wave-shaping option.
Ok, now I see why WT synths can come in handy (as long as I use meaningful tables bringing something new to a synth in a form of linear change through the frames)

No. No, no, no, no, no!

I mean: yes. You are correct, that is what Urs was saying.

But: no, goddammit! This is NOT AT ALL what wavetables are about, and if you think wavetables are inferior for these reasons, you don't get wavetables.

(Apologies: I am a BIG fan of WT synthesis. Have been since I first learned about them.)

Three main points:

• The artifacts of stepping through discrete values in a continuous function SOUNDS GOOD. ...I mean: technically, it sounds "bad," but in a way that is really interesting and--at least to me--VERY appealing. This is the whole charm of the PPG, for example.
• You don't have a SINGLE function that you are beholden to: you can have ONE sounds that cycles through two or three or--hell--64! different functions. These produce really interesting results that you cannot get elsewhere.
• The workflow is consistent across all of those functions you're talking about. You don't have to worry about attenuation or transfer functions to get a result that sounds good, you don't have to rewire a bunch of modules to get where you want to be: you just choose a wavetable and go. It's super convenient, it's super fun, and it makes for a much faster process. ...and, if you're feeling saucy, you can cycle through wavetables as a performance feature. It's really cool and unique. ...Some synths do this intentionally. (Codex comes to mind, and even Hive implented this with their "3D" tables. Very cool!)

I love wavetables. They are bright and interesting and unashamedly digital-sounding (usually), and as a creative tool, they are VERY (!!!) hard to beat. It's my go-to synthesis method.

Don't get me wrong: I love a good VA synth. ...but if I could only have one synth, it would absolutely be a wavetable synth. It offers the most flexibility, the most interesting character, and the fastest results.

There's a reason there's so many of them!

[zerocrossing]

Not U-he per se, but Urs himself: I dislike that he dislikes wavetables. ...his reasons for disliking them are weak, too.

I laud U-he for adding wavetables to Hive despite Urs's personal dislike of them, but ... I can still "sense" that they are tacked on. Most other wavetable synths like to put the tables front-and-center, and Hive makes them part of a pseudo-modal view. (It's better-implemented than Dune, but still.)

<sarcasm>
I demand that Urs make a public apology for disliking wavetables! If he doesn't publicly refute his earlier arguments and explain to us all how amazing wavetables actually are, I'm never buying another U-He synth again!
</s>

Jokes aside, his point is absolutely viable.
The nature of sound changes in a wavetable is fixed.

Let's say that some particular wavetable changes N parameters of a wave, sonically. But usually synth authors leave for instance filter up to the user.
Filter sweeps can be included into a table, adding up to N+1 parameters of a wave, controllable only in one-dimensional way.

So Urs is one of those people with mathematical reasons like "If filtering is provided independently, why other N aspects of a sound should be rigidly printed into a set of waves, instead of finding N ways of independent sound shaping".
Ugh, I hope more people will see the mathematical reasons despite the way I put it on html-paper.

upd: on the other hand, if a synth can control N parameters of a sound, but some super-new way of shaping comes up, it can be plugged into that synth as a linear change of that parameter from 0.0 to 1.0. So we can see each WT osc as a slot for additional pre-calculated wave-shaping option.
Ok, now I see why WT synths can come in handy (as long as I use meaningful tables bringing something new to a synth in a form of linear change through the frames)

I get his point, but I feel like it’s similar to describing human sexual organs in a textbook, which would sound terrible and boring, but in actual use, pretty good. (I remember coming across a Christian sex handbook my parents had and man, was it the least sexiest thing you could imagine, and that was coming from a 14 year old who got excited when the barometer changed. )

It’s weird to call it “two dimensional,” though, as most oscillator sections before wavetables only produced a static waveform at a time, maybe with PWM, or at best give you Moog style moving from triangle to pulse. I remember the OSCar and thinking how amazing it was to be able to define the oscillator. Of course, it was static too, but it’s two dimensional nature gets bumped up with the filter being another vector for change. Of course, now synths like Serum, Icarus, Massive X, Vital, etc, give you a “third dimension” right inside the oscillator module. Coupled with a way of defining every wave in a wavetable and how they interpolate, it makes those modern wavetable synths some of my favorites.

[zerocrossing]

Jokes aside, his point (re: why wavetables are bad) is absolutely viable.
The nature of sound changes in a wavetable is fixed.

upd: on the other hand, if a synth can control N parameters of a sound, but some super-new way of shaping comes up, it can be plugged into that synth as a linear change of that parameter from 0.0 to 1.0. So we can see each WT osc as a slot for additional pre-calculated wave-shaping option.
Ok, now I see why WT synths can come in handy (as long as I use meaningful tables bringing something new to a synth in a form of linear change through the frames)

No. No, no, no, no, no!

I mean: yes. You are correct, that is what Urs was saying.

But: no, goddammit! This is NOT AT ALL what wavetables are about, and if you think wavetables are inferior for these reasons, you don't get wavetables.

(Apologies: I am a BIG fan of WT synthesis. Have been since I first learned about them.)

Three main points:

• The artifacts of stepping through discrete values in a continuous function SOUNDS GOOD. ...I mean: technically, it sounds "bad," but in a way that is really interesting and--at least to me--VERY appealing. This is the whole charm of the PPG, for example.
• You don't have a SINGLE function that you are beholden to: you can have ONE sounds that cycles through two or three or--hell--64! different functions. These produce really interesting results that you cannot get elsewhere.
• The workflow is consistent across all of those functions you're talking about. You don't have to worry about attenuation or transfer functions to get a result that sounds good, you don't have to rewire a bunch of modules to get where you want to be: you just choose a wavetable and go. It's super convenient, it's super fun, and it makes for a much faster process. ...and, if you're feeling saucy, you can cycle through wavetables as a performance feature. It's really cool and unique. ...Some synths do this intentionally. (Codex comes to mind, and even Hive implented this with their "3D" tables. Very cool!)

I love wavetables. They are bright and interesting and unashamedly digital-sounding (usually), and as a creative tool, they are VERY (!!!) hard to beat. It's my go-to synthesis method.

Don't get me wrong: I love a good VA synth. ...but if I could only have one synth, it would absolutely be a wavetable synth. It offers the most flexibility, the most interesting character, and the fastest results.

There's a reason there's so many of them!

I’m totally with you. Lack of wavetables was one of the reason I passed on Hive 1. You can make all the proclamations you want about how inflexible they can be, but it’s not less flexible than a single waveform at a time.

[machinesworking]

They sound too clean to be real analog. They sound like an analog synth made with the perfect components, each component cherry picked from a large pile to behave perfectly. Seems like they're missing just a tiny bit of some low level slop or nastyness that makes them sound a little bit cleaner and a little bit less aggressive.

In Nearly every analog modeling synth from U-He you can dial that in on your own. A lot of the "sound" of analog synths comes from unstable oscillators across voices, but hardly any developer wants to force that on you.

I'm more curious as to what you think sounds more analog in the digital world? because owning a Memorymoog and an Xpander I find the U-He stuff usually is the closest.

[machinesworking]

It can be a lot of work to update GUIs you've made for them when they have been updated to a new version. U-HE's GUI's can look bland and on occasions lack attention to detail in design.

I don't think that's true at all, it's just a sort of flat/skeuomorphic crossbreed that doesn't try too hard to be either. You will either like it, or think it's plain. Except for the mentioned tweak settings in Repro, it's a sort of non offensive to both parties approach that won't please everyone but for a few folks who aren't pleased with that halfway point.

Don't get me wrong, I would love it if pretty much everyone took a long hard look at Pigments for instance for a modern approach, but U-He are far from the worst offenders when it comes to GUI's. I got a complimentary copy of S-Gear from Scuffman amps with the RME I bought recently, and it's easily one of the best sounding guitar amp sims I've used, but the GUI is a total mess. This is pretty much how big the GUI is.

On a laptop this is, fun....

It's resizable, but it's not much better larger, just doesn't fit on screen then...

[Tj Shredder]

This thread is totally derailed. Wasn’t it about disliking? But I cannot add to it either…

[machinesworking]

This thread is totally derailed. Wasn’t it about disliking? But I cannot add to it either…

That's the whole joke of it. All of these thread are just dumb. U-He isn't dislikable. Even the people who don't use or own their synths aren't really saying it's anything major. IMO realistically that's true of most developers, their actual products aren't bad or they wouldn't exist, it's mostly public relations that makes people dislike a developer, not the product itself, maybe the discontinuation of the plug in or copy protection scheme? I don't hate any of the companies I've complained about on these forums. I don't get people who hate developers of the products we use?

[briefcasemanx]

They sound too clean to be real analog. They sound like an analog synth made with the perfect components, each component cherry picked from a large pile to behave perfectly. Seems like they're missing just a tiny bit of some low level slop or nastyness that makes them sound a little bit cleaner and a little bit less aggressive.

In Nearly every analog modeling synth from U-He you can dial that in on your own. A lot of the "sound" of analog synths comes from unstable oscillators across voices, but hardly any developer wants to force that on you.

I'm more curious as to what you think sounds more analog in the digital world? because owning a Memorymoog and an Xpander I find the U-He stuff usually is the closest.

Nothing. Ive owned analog synths (currently only a Juno 106) and got rid of hardware for softsynths. Repro is maybe my favorite softsynth.

I realize you can dial in drift in U-He stuff, still sounds too clean to me though in some way.

[Ghost Dog]

TBH, I like the (aforementioned) "cleanliness" in U-He synths (especially Hive), because it sounds good and right (otherwise, it would just be a lack of character).

[Tj Shredder]

This thread is totally derailed. Wasn’t it about disliking? But I cannot add to it either…

That's the whole joke of it.

I had the feeling the thread derailed into a too serious discussion…
(I like dis joke…; - )

[Polomo123]

Dislike mehh maybe a too much . (Zebra User here, If I really dislike It, I had sold it)

There are some points
- lack of Visual Feedback ( with something like Zebra with 1000+ of parameters it's hard to keep track )
- slow development because felt like a million side projects (not all of them are bad (PM Drum synth, Hardware, Clap, Mac support ...), but I wait for Zebra 3 since ... I don't know )
-See my name on start makes it uncomfortable to use on live events , stream , etc.
-high Price , few sales, on the other had given them free away for Bitwig 1 Year updates . (Maybe the biggest mehhh on my list.)
Even Steinberg with Hallion don't give you a discount when you have Cubase . It feels a lot like "USE THIS DAW" which I don't like.

[kobal]

i don t find them clean but kinda dirty like vintage stuff, i have analog that is more clean, uhe diva is more vintage, modern high quality analog can sound almost like digital ,just it doesn t break bad in extreme settings to me and it s maybe more organic but it dosen t have the charm and imperfection of vintage synth like you can find on diva

or maybe you find the filters too clean and not dirty enought

[Samiver]

Only thing I dislike about u-he is that they have a synth called triple cheese but no synth called crackers. What is cheese without crackers?

[Synthack]

.......