Comparing Dune 3.5 With Hive 2

[DNnX]

Dune 3 has much lower CPU footprint.

Not in my experience. It's biased though.

(I used Dune 3 as reference for our 2.1 performance update because it was the most CPU friendly synth out of the popular competiton, and I have not stopped optimising Hive until it beat Dune 3 on my computer in almost every setting)

This story really attracts me Is Hive 2.1 AVX ready like DUNE3?
I love to spend my money to developer who cares performance / resource optimization

I also want to know if I can enjoy the benefit by running Hive at 192kHz than 96kHz.
I asked because some synths run at fixed sample rate internally.

AVX isn't such a great thing - it has a lot of performance penalties when using SIMD like we do. Real benefits happen from AVX2, which at the moment isn't really common enough. However, Hive is aggressively optimised using SSE (4.2 is minimum) and Neon.

Like Diva, at 192 kHz Hive will run at 192 kHz. From our synths only Repro runs at 352/384kHz fixed sample rate internally (the Jaws effect runs at 1MHz+), regardless of host sample rate.

Thank you very much for clarifying
Someone told me that Diva runs at 96kHz internally when the rate is larger than 96kHz, but that was wrong
I need to try the demo of all of your synths again on my current setup!

Can't remember when I demoed last time, but the last version I tested should be SSE2 compatible.
Didn't know that they are now SSE4 ready

[Lbdunequest]

Dune 3 has much lower CPU footprint.

Not in my experience. It's biased though.

(I used Dune 3 as reference for our 2.1 performance update because it was the most CPU friendly synth out of the popular competiton, and I have not stopped optimising Hive until it beat Dune 3 on my computer in almost every setting)

This is strange, i tried same unison settings and Dune 3 beats Hive 2.1 by a mile.

That only happened to me when Dune had multithreading switched on, which it has by default (this hides actual CPU usage from the host). Also possibly when its modulation system is in draft mode. Other than that, they're pretty much on par, with a little advantage of Dune with low osc unison and single filters used, maybe a few effects (which I have not benchmarked at all). But similar settings with high osc unison, high voice count, decent modulation (aka "real world examples") might change the picture.

In any case "much lower" or "by a mile" feels exaggerated when the difference is between 0.4% CPU for a sawtooth on one and 0.5% on the other. If it's vastly different, I'd love to know which CPU/OS you have and if you have a preset that actually shows such a vast difference.

17% difference is quite a mile

I played each instrument 16 notes at the same time, on both i set oscillator Unison at 16, 2 oscillators each. Im using 4790k intel processor, with 32gigs of ram.

[SteinyFritz]

Dune 3 does not support MPE. Where did you get this information?

You listed UI/UX differences. How do they differ in sound, can you get the same character out of both? Is there something the one can do that the other can‘t?
I only know that Dune support the full MPE spec, and Hive does just voice per channel…

[Teksonik]

But I imagine this thread is more about promoting someone's skins and not about the synths themselves.

No, it isn't. I, not being the threadstarter, just mentioned a different GUI i use because it helps me personally with Dune, which i love sound-wise, but the original GUI... not so much. So, an input in the conversation, not the reason of this thread.

I was referring to Intrancer who likes to promote his skins at every chance. Had nothing to do with you.

[Teksonik]

At any rate, once again we see how utterly useless these "this versus that" threads are as all they do is lead to pointless arguments and misconceptions by people who either don't own the synths or don't fully understand them if they do.

Both synths have free demos so try them for yourself and don't rely on the opinions of others to sway you one way or the other.

We all make different music and we like different sounds so if you're basing any decision on what others like then you're simply not thinking things through properly.

So the next time anyone feels like starting yet another pointless "this versus that" thread just.....don't.

[chk071]

At any rate, once again we see how utterly useless these "this versus that" threads are

If you want a hint on what this is really about, check the image in the original post, which the OP sneaked in after a few replies...

"Oh, by the way, I made a few skins for both of these synths, check my website with lots of useful information by me, and a lot of work by me."

[Teksonik]

At any rate, once again we see how utterly useless these "this versus that" threads are

If you want a hint on what this is really about, check the image in the original post, which the OP sneaked in after a few replies...

"Oh, by the way, I made a few skins for both of these synths, check my website with lots of useful information by me, and a lot of work by me."

Yes I agree. That's why I wrote:

But I imagine this thread is more about promoting someone's skins and not about the synths themselves.

Nothing wrong with someone promoting their work but if over done at some point it starts to get spammy and quite frankly just looks a like a desperate attempt to get attention.

[Tj Shredder]

Dune 3 does not support MPE. Where did you get this information?

You listed UI/UX differences. How do they differ in sound, can you get the same character out of both? Is there something the one can do that the other can‘t?
I only know that Dune support the full MPE spec, and Hive does just voice per channel…

Oh, you are right, must have mixed it up with Serum… Well, then who cares about Dune at all?

[DJErmac]

I own both. I love both.
Who is the winner ? We NEED to know. The world has to know.

[Teksonik]

Well, then who cares about Dune at all?

People who love a great sounding synth and don't own or care about MPE devices?

I own both. I love both.
Who is the winner ? We NEED to know. The world has to know.

The winner? The one you or I or anyone else likes best.

DUNE 3 and Hive 2 really do complement each other very well. They're sufficiently different enough to justify owning both in my opinion.

I wouldn't want to be without either one......

[petedako]

What's not making sense is your misunderstanding of how HIVE works. Try HIVE the synth itself and you'll see you can select any pair or single instance of the several available filter types regardless of which waveform(s) or wavetable(s) you choose for the OSC and SUB OSCs — UNISON is independent of these.

I was just giving the Hive demo a spin (I was never quite drawn to it enough previously) partly because I like the idea of prioritising tools that I'm confident will have long-term support. First reaction is where are the filter types, as in types of regular lp filter? Looking at the manual I see the filters change depending on the synth engine selection, and this determines unison style also. Seems like quite a novel approach. Does this make sense, or would it make more sense to be able to select filter and unison modes independently of each other?

[carrieres]

Dune 3 does not support MPE. Where did you get this information?

You listed UI/UX differences. How do they differ in sound, can you get the same character out of both? Is there something the one can do that the other can‘t?
I only know that Dune support the full MPE spec, and Hive does just voice per channel…

The 3.5 update add support for polyphonic aftertouch via the mod matrix.

[DJErmac]

I own both. I love both.
Who is the winner ? We NEED to know. The world has to know.

The winner? The one you or I or anyone else likes best.

DUNE 3 and Hive 2 really do complement each other very well. They're sufficiently different enough to justify owning both in my opinion.

I wouldn't want to be without either one......

Yes, my conclusion also.

[chagzuki]

What's not making sense is your misunderstanding of how HIVE works. Try HIVE the synth itself and you'll see you can select any pair or single instance of the several available filter types regardless of which waveform(s) or wavetable(s) you choose for the OSC and SUB OSCs — UNISON is independent of these.

The distinction is a bit tricky, I suppose I meant filter models as opposed to types. The manual says of the synth engine:

CLEAN...............Wide oscillator detune, linear attack, exponential decay and release, perfectly linear i.e. non-distorting State Variable filter without oversampling. In filter modes Comb, Dissonant and Reverb, a dynamic limiter prevents build-up.
NORMAL..........Exponential oscillator detune law, s-curve envelope attack, short punchy decays, oversampled, self-oscillating Ladder filter with non-linear resonance. In filter modes Comb, Dissonant and Reverb, a dynamic limiter prevents build-up.
DIRTY.................Evenly-spaced oscillator detuning, exponential envelopes, oversampled self-oscillat- ing Steiner-Parker (Sallen-Key diode ring) filter... This filter is similar to the classic KorgTM MS-20, but unbuffered so that current from the second pole leaks back into the first pole. Very smooth when tamed, but can get very screamy and erratic! Adds distortion to filter modes Comb, Dissonant, Reverb and Sideband.

[zerocrossing]

What's not making sense is your misunderstanding of how HIVE works. Try HIVE the synth itself and you'll see you can select any pair or single instance of the several available filter types regardless of which waveform(s) or wavetable(s) you choose for the OSC and SUB OSCs — UNISON is independent of these.

I was just giving the Hive demo a spin (I was never quite drawn to it enough previously) partly because I like the idea of prioritising tools that I'm confident will have long-term support. First reaction is where are the filter types, as in types of regular lp filter? Looking at the manual I see the filters change depending on the synth engine selection, and this determines unison style also. Seems like quite a novel approach. Does this make sense, or would it make more sense to be able to select filter and unison modes independently of each other?

Sadly, neither is MPE capable, which is a bit surprising to me, especially for U-He. I always think of them as being on the forefront of things like that. Dune is m go-to software wavetable synth, but when I’m using my Rise, I’m in Equator 2 or Vital.