u-he synths buying recommendation?

[zvenx]

This is a bit off-topic, I apologize

..............

It's your thread

Whilst indeed some of the later additions to Zebra tend to be more cpu intensive than earlier modules in it, Zebra is actually known for its light cpu usage (in comparison to Bazille, Diva, Repro and Ace), but indeed Hive may be lighter in cpu generally.
rsp

[whyterabbyt]

This is a bit off-topic, I apologize

@spacepluk I am wondering what's your need to run bitwig AND renoise

they're two rather different 'types' of tool. Renoise is a 'tracker', which work in a very specific UI/composition style. more than a few people switch DAWs for different kinds of work, different ways of working.

[Teksonik]

I am a linux fan. Since 1995.

That's a long time to be a masochist......

Just kidding I really love my Linux Mint installs (yes I know not the geek's first choice). But I just don't have the patience to use Linux for Audio Production.

As for what U-He synths to buy ? That's easy....all of them....

[spacepluk]

I just can't decide which one I like best

[Teksonik]

I just can't decide which one I like best

I have that same problem with women....

[lunardigs]

Lately I seem to favor Hive. It's just a lot of fun. I think it really hits the mark where complexity and usability meet. I think Repro-1 might be my second favorite ... when I wanna strike a buffalo stance

[xx JPRacer xx]

The laptop I am currently using for music making is a couple of years old. I do have 8GB of RAM.
With Zebra2, some sounds did cross my CPU limit, resulting in awful crackling, noises and Xruns (I use jack, 96 kHz, with an external PresSounds StudioLive AR12 USB mixer).

If you have an old computer there's no need to run at 96 KHz. Use 44.1/48 and the CPU usage will be less.

[dlarseninclusive]

I asked this on the Facebook group as a survey.

"It comes up often enough... "What U-he Synth is best to get stared with?" The free and CM plugins are clear choices but the commercial products.
- I think HIVE is the most approachable and was my first one.
- I think Ace was built for just that but the patching has a learning curve.
- I personally recommend Zebra as it does a large share of what U-he can do in general and warn about the learning curve. It's worth the effort to get to know, it can do anything, sounds great etc... I find patching it very rewarding.
Thoughts?"

FirstSynthSurvey.jpg

Also, you might qualify for $50 off, if you have an older keyboard synth and can take a pic to send in.

Zebra Crossgrade Info

The synth is pretty famous for low CPU, a few of the filters are harder than others. (the MS20's for instance) It's possible to tune for CPU and still get the sounds you want.

I use it with Bitwig more or less daily, and find it to be a blast to work with. Zebrify is also very useful, and I use it generally quite a bit, it adds value. When building out complex effects chains with Uhbik for instance you can reduce the number of devices by moving those functions to Zebrify.

Paraphrasing Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) - "U-he sounds the most analog, and you will be happy with any of their synths, they all sound fantastic. I know Hans Zimmer uses a custom version of Zebra for special projects..."

The truth is you can't go wrong.

[dlarseninclusive]

This is the real truth.

That's easy....all of them....

[aaron aardvark]

Try them all for free, and decide for yourself which one to buy first.

[glokraw]

https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=52

This link is the official Linux Reaper forum, some pretty amazing
work is being done...

The mag with Bazille CM has 20+ videos available
to help learn it's modular synthesis.
Cheers

[holoniverse]

Risking of being too rhetorical here....

You guys rock.
This is an amazing forum, so many responses.

I am currently favoring hive. Mainly due to my CPU case.
BUT - I will try tomorrow to reduce the sampling rate and see if that helps on CPU
(note: sampling rate was that high because it allowed me to reduce latency without having to reduce buffer size, which did result in undesired Xruns...)

Thank you all

[spacepluk]

I only got rid of all the xruns after disabling the cpu's frequency scaling. I'm using this gnome extension to put the cpu in high-performance mode while I'm doing audio stuff and it makes a big difference.

[holoniverse]

I thought I owe the community my final decision.

I just happen to buy the Hive license.

Although I really liked Zebra2 (and thinking towards the, well expected, upcoming Zebra3 update...),
I finally haven't been able to get it to run without Xruns, dropouts and crackling on my machine.

I did try the recommendations:
* Lowering sample rate
* Disable CPU scaling

All of these actually DID result in tangible improvements. But I still would get occasional Xruns. Even if very rarely, but they still happened - an unacceptable issue for music recording.

BTW, I took the time to try on a fairly recent Dell XPS 13, 7th gen i5 with 16GB RAM running manjaro - same results. I didn't have a Windows machine, but I also tried on a virtualbox with Win10 in ableton live lite - I also would get occasional crackling and dropouts. Of course a virtual environment isn't really a reference, but this finally gave me the backing of going for Hive.

If none of my environments were able to get Zebra2 to run nicely, notably after some fiddling and tweaking, then I was safer with Hive. I accept I still may be blamed, but apart from buying a totally new machine (expensive) and investing much more time with uncertain outcome, I believe I took the right decision.

Thanks again for all collaboration here.

[pdxindy]

You will be pleased to know that Hive will soon have additional capability... ))