Comparing Dune 3.5 With Hive 2

[THE INTRANCER]

A different skin only matters if it improves the workflow and none of them do. They just rearrange the controls that are already there, rather than allowing you to take things that are hidden and expose them on the front panel, etc.

That's not strictly true with Hive 2, there is a hidden EQ that can be enabled in a skin created by Ploki... The skin has its own particular issues but it does re-arrange things is a very different way.

[BONES]

Yeah, I was thinking more about DUNE, Hive doesn't hide much away, by comparison. It's a really hard balance to get right once a synth gets to a certain level of complexity and I'm not sure anyone other that Dimitry Sches has managed to get it right. Thorn is a very complex synth that manages not to feel like one.

Everyone is different though. I started recording my own songs in 1977.

So you've never recorded in a commercial studio, with an engineer and/or a producer? That's where I picked up the basics, the rest has come just from doing.

[Lbdunequest]

I see the pattern of same people derailing the thread (again) to the pointless discussion about nothing.

[BONES]

Well, to be fair, it was a bit pointless from the get-go, wasn't it?

[wagtunes]

Yeah, I was thinking more about DUNE, Hive doesn't hide much away, by comparison. It's a really hard balance to get right once a synth gets to a certain level of complexity and I'm not sure anyone other that Dimitry Sches has managed to get it right. Thorn is a very complex synth that manages not to feel like one.

Everyone is different though. I started recording my own songs in 1977.

So you've never recorded in a commercial studio, with an engineer and/or a producer? That's where I picked up the basics, the rest has come just from doing.

I couldn't afford studio time. I could barely afford to put together what I had at home.

[kenny saunders]

IMO it's apples and oranges. I see myself using them for different things, Dune 3 which I've had for a while and Hive 2 which I just bought.

Sound wise, I don't think they sound anything alike. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I just think that they're not interchangeable as say Arturia's DX 7 and Dexed are. Even FM 8 could be thrown in there. To me, they're all basically the same. Dune 3 and Hive 2 are worlds apart both in architecture and sound.

when you say they dont sound anything alike, could you pick out either of them in a blind test? cause theres a guy on these forums who make tests like that all the time, latest one was Vital vs Serum.
See, whenever people make these sort of claims "they sound nothing alike" it gets me all roused up, since i believe you couldnt tell them apart in a blind test. Or that it would be at the very least; extremely difficult. I even believe this very same guy, made a comparison between Hive2 and JP8000 - and they sounded near identical as far as supersaw goes.

Taking a patch from each that isn't a plain saw or square wave or some basic bass patch, yes, I can absolutely tell the two apart not because I know Hive so well but because I know Dune inside and out. Not only do I know every patch in the factory library like the back of my hand, I have made not one but two of my own libraries. In fact, Dune 3 is probably one of the few synths I can tell from everything else.

This stems from my ability to pick out people's voices blindly. Whenever my wife is watching TV and I'm at the computer not paying attention to the visual but just hearing the dialogue, as soon as someone starts talking, if I'm familiar with the actor (obviously) I know IMMEDIATELY who it is. I am almost never wrong because Jimmy Stewart (It's A Wonderful Life) sounds nothing like Peter Finch (Network) who sounds nothing like Buddy Hackett and so on and so on.

In short, I have an excellent ear.

Sure, some synths I can't tell from a hole in a wall because they're so generic sounding. But Dune 3, to my ears anyway, has a sound that no other synth has.

But by all means, don't take my word for it. Go post a sound from Hive and a sound from Dune 3. If I can't tell the difference it is ONLY because the sounds are non descript and generic. Hell, I can't tell ABL 3's 303 bass from Diva's to save my life. Nor do I care to. To me, a bass is a bass and as long as it has a low end, it works for my music. But Dune 3 is special and that's why I say without any doubt that I can tell it from Hive 2. In fact, as much as I know Dune 3 inside and out, I may be able to tell it from every other synth ever made. I may not be able to tell you what the other synth is, but I can sure tell you which one Dune 3 is.

@lfo8
he says he has an excellent ear.

He must have, not many people can tell the who is talking on a tv program you're not looking at, that's special! For most people there's no difference between Sam Jackson, or Dolly Parton.

[wagtunes]

IMO it's apples and oranges. I see myself using them for different things, Dune 3 which I've had for a while and Hive 2 which I just bought.

Sound wise, I don't think they sound anything alike. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I just think that they're not interchangeable as say Arturia's DX 7 and Dexed are. Even FM 8 could be thrown in there. To me, they're all basically the same. Dune 3 and Hive 2 are worlds apart both in architecture and sound.

when you say they dont sound anything alike, could you pick out either of them in a blind test? cause theres a guy on these forums who make tests like that all the time, latest one was Vital vs Serum.
See, whenever people make these sort of claims "they sound nothing alike" it gets me all roused up, since i believe you couldnt tell them apart in a blind test. Or that it would be at the very least; extremely difficult. I even believe this very same guy, made a comparison between Hive2 and JP8000 - and they sounded near identical as far as supersaw goes.

Taking a patch from each that isn't a plain saw or square wave or some basic bass patch, yes, I can absolutely tell the two apart not because I know Hive so well but because I know Dune inside and out. Not only do I know every patch in the factory library like the back of my hand, I have made not one but two of my own libraries. In fact, Dune 3 is probably one of the few synths I can tell from everything else.

This stems from my ability to pick out people's voices blindly. Whenever my wife is watching TV and I'm at the computer not paying attention to the visual but just hearing the dialogue, as soon as someone starts talking, if I'm familiar with the actor (obviously) I know IMMEDIATELY who it is. I am almost never wrong because Jimmy Stewart (It's A Wonderful Life) sounds nothing like Peter Finch (Network) who sounds nothing like Buddy Hackett and so on and so on.

In short, I have an excellent ear.

Sure, some synths I can't tell from a hole in a wall because they're so generic sounding. But Dune 3, to my ears anyway, has a sound that no other synth has.

But by all means, don't take my word for it. Go post a sound from Hive and a sound from Dune 3. If I can't tell the difference it is ONLY because the sounds are non descript and generic. Hell, I can't tell ABL 3's 303 bass from Diva's to save my life. Nor do I care to. To me, a bass is a bass and as long as it has a low end, it works for my music. But Dune 3 is special and that's why I say without any doubt that I can tell it from Hive 2. In fact, as much as I know Dune 3 inside and out, I may be able to tell it from every other synth ever made. I may not be able to tell you what the other synth is, but I can sure tell you which one Dune 3 is.

@lfo8
he says he has an excellent ear.

He must have, not many people can tell the who is talking on a tv program you're not looking at, that's special! For most people there's no difference between Sam Jackson, or Dolly Parton.

It also comes from years of doing impersonations. There are very few voices I haven't been able to conquer. One of them, that I am currently working on, is Wilma Flintstone. I don't think I'm ever going to get her down.

[Teksonik]

On the subject of the pointlessness of these types of threads, I entirely disagree. The interaction between a person and synth is structured around, funnily enough, the person and the synth. The synth has objective properties, and so does the person. The interaction between those things has patterns that unfold over time. When someone talks about their views on synths (or whatever) it's a reflection of the historic interaction that unfolded over time. Hearing those views gives incites that can be conceptualised around the idea of the synth as a discrete entity, and the idiosyncratic usage of it by an individual and indeed the two aren't entirely separable. This gives additional information that can feed into one's own usage: the shared ideas structure one's own attention as one's own interaction continues to unfold over time. That's why casual chat between civilised folk is nice.
That sounds like wank, but that's because reality is wankish.

I hear what you're saying. The problem, though, is very often, someone would pipe in and say "this synth sucks" without giving any good reasons. Or, when pressed, they say ridiculous shite like "it has no character", "it has no soul" and other nonsense.

Yes and that's the problem. Often times comments are made by people who have only spent a few minutes with the demo or have something against the synth because they're from a certain developer or are simply looking at things from their own myopic perspective.

That type of input is not only pointless it's dangerous because it could cause someone to pass on a synth that they would love or on the other side buy a synth they won't like because someone praised it loudly.

Here's the salient point:

The interaction between a person and synth is structured around, funnily enough, the person and the synth.

Exactly.....interaction between the person and the synth. That's why everyone needs their own interaction to see how the synth fits their workflow, their personal taste in sound etc.

As Wags said, giving tips and tricks on any synth (gained through experience) can be useful but these "this versus that" threads are simply incubators for arguments and misinformation.

If KVR was my website any "this versus that thread" would be deleted before the ink was dry on the OP.

So if anyone wants to start a "tips and tricks" thread for any synth I'll be willing to help if I have knowledge of that synth to share (gained from experience) but start another pointless "this versus that thread" and you'll get the same push back.

[Teksonik]

There is no substitute for putting in the time and effort to learn a synth and that goes for both the demo and after a purchase.

You clearly misconstrued the point of this thread

No, the point of this thread is crystal clear.....

For reference, I've only created GUIs for synths
In case anyone doesn't know, the Dune 3 skins are freely available to find on KVR

The point is to once again pimp your skins and get attention like so many of the other threads you've started. I have sympathy for you but you really need to stop.

Anyways I'm done talking about these synths. I'm going to go and actually use them now beucase that is how we learn.....

[chagzuki]

As Wags said, giving tips and tricks on any synth (gained through experience) can be useful but these "this versus that" threads are simply incubators for arguments and misinformation.

No, not simply, like any thread there's a range of views, both information and misinformation, and the reader has to be the judge.

Someone should do a Dune vs Icarus thread focussing on the filters. Actually, the Icarus demo implementation is a pain in the arse, almost too awkward to persevere with on a Mac, and I'm hoping that the Dune filters are the apex and that I don't feel I have to spend more money. But at some point I do want a decent sustained session with Icarus... because I need to know.

[fisherKing]

all these 'this vs that' threads are ridiculous. everyone has their favorite. some like both. some use neither one.

threads which look for the 'facts' on which plugin is better can only get 'opinions'... and those are endless. (and some people, sadly, are convinced that their opinion is the 'right' one).

i had both, deleted hive. i like dune3 better. but that's just me, it's not right or wrong.

am assuming we're all out of grade school, so kvr remains the playground battlefield for music-making adults (that includes me)

[rezoneight]

I still don't think it is something you can necessarily learn, beyond some basic things, I believe it is something that you develop naturally, over time, by doing it time and again.

Uh thats what learning *is*. Learning is not studying. Different things.

[rezoneight]

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.

That processor is 8 years old and was discontinued like 5 years ago. I'd expect Urs probably isn't using something quite so old.

[pdxindy]

Someone should do a Dune vs Icarus thread focussing on the filters. Actually, the Icarus demo implementation is a pain in the arse, almost too awkward to persevere with on a Mac, and I'm hoping that the Dune filters are the apex and that I don't feel I have to spend more money. But at some point I do want a decent sustained session with Icarus... because I need to know.

If you are looking for analog emulation and doing Filter FM, Dune filters are a better choice. But if you want a wide sonic palette, then Icarus is the obvious choice. The Icarus filters have a far far greater diversity and sonic range. Icarus has a huge palette in the filters and its fun because it is easy to make use of them. Between the filters and the wavetable morph modes plus resynthesis, Icarus is far more diverse than Dune (one layer of Dune is relatively limited).

[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.

That processor is 8 years old and was discontinued like 5 years ago. I'd expect Urs probably isn't using something quite so old.

It makes no difference when comparing 2 different synths.