What Can Hive/Sylenth/Diva Do Uniquely?

[AnX]

save your money and get Vital

[Bulbizarre]

If you want pure analog I would first try emulations like Diva or Arturia's, then maybe grab some situational hardware to fill the blanks and get a physical experience. I you have Repro and Diva already, you should think to what you really need depending on what you currently miss in your tracks

[ghostwhistler]

save your money and get Vital

I did get that, iirc (they all have similar names, like energy drinks or something), but it was really hard on my system. My cpu got to about 80 degrees. I wasn't having that even though it's very impressive

[ghostwhistler]

Regards Hive 2: how is it for CPU, compared to Diva?

[BONES]

I don't see what's so hard to understand about what he said. He said it sounds more like the virtual analogs of the mid-00's (which have their own character, not so vintage) as opposed to synths that are trying to accurately model vintage analog s from the 70's.

So AN1x wasn't trying to do what classic synths from the 70s and 80s did? Neither was Prophecy or MS2000? You guys love over-categorising things that really aren't all that different from each other. You think that if you want to do this, you need that and if you want to do that you need this other, specific thing but that's mostly bullshit. It's stupid and limiting, you need to broaden your horizons and realise you can mostly achieve whatever you need to achieve with whatever tools you have in front of you. Putting things in little boxes undersells their capabilities and, most likely, restricts you from doing the best that you might be capable of.

It's great for the companies that sell this stuff because it makes it easy to convince you that you absolutely need all these products to do all the stuff you want to do. But that's just marketing and it's mostly bullshit. Use what inspires you, don't worry about the list of features or who else is using it. If it works for you, you'll achieve great things with it, regardless. That's why if I had a choice between DUNE, Hive or JP6K, I'd take JP6K every time because, even though DUNE and Hive are vastly more capable synths in their own right, neither are capable of inspiring me the way JP6K does, so neither of them will help me to do my best work. Yes, they may let me make an average song sound better but they won't inspire me to produce a better song. You have to ask yourself, do you want to make average music with great sounds or great music?

Of course, finding what inspires you can be a daunting task. I've spent a lot of money over the years trying to find that elusive thing that will inspire the next batch of songs. So I own a lot of VSTi and way too many hardware synths. It's expensive but you eventually work out what works for you and what doesn't. If I look in my VST folder I can see dozens of synths, worth hundreds of dollars, that I haven't even thought to use in years. There are some, even, that I consciously avoid because not only do they not inspire me but I actually don't like working with them. Then there are hundreds of dollars more worth of stuff I may have used once or twice but know I will never use again. But I had to spend the money to find out, to find the real gems that do inspire me, that get me fired up to create. Synths like Substance, Thorn, bx_oberhausen, Equator, Vacuum Pro, ARP Odyssey and (lately) JP6K. I know I can load those things up, start playing around and something worthwhile will come of it.

A lot of the time inspiration comes from trying to use an instrument for things you don't really think it's best at. e.g. Trying to make a nice pad from Monoment Bass (which is mostly what I use it for). Pushing boundaries, not putting things in boxes with strict labels. It's counter-productive so, yes, it will always get an argument out of me.

[yellowmix]

A lot of the time inspiration comes from trying to use an instrument for things you don't really think it's best at. e.g. Trying to make a nice pad from Monoment Bass (which is mostly what I use it for). Pushing boundaries, not putting things in boxes with strict labels. It's counter-productive

Might not be the most efficient use of time but that's what I do when I set aside time for sound design. And Hive's really good at that since you can make the wavetables do funky things like PD, FM, fractal, whatever. The Mark Holt wavetable pack has one that's based on geographical boundaries. There's an organicness to them that the Hive interpolation engine and modulation can leverage very well.

You can modulate the FX too, the delay time is in note duration but if you modulate it, it's smooth and creates pitch effects as you'd expect from hardware. It's little touches like that that makes it holistically so inspiring to work with.

You might want to do the One Synth Challenge once in a while. It's great sound design practice.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I don't see what's so hard to understand about what he said. He said it sounds more like the virtual analogs of the mid-00's (which have their own character, not so vintage) as opposed to synths that are trying to accurately model vintage analog s from the 70's.

So AN1x wasn't trying to do what classic synths from the 70s and 80s did? Neither was Prophecy or MS2000? You guys love over-categorising things that really aren't all that different from each other. You think that if you want to do this, you need that and if you want to do that you need this other, specific thing but that's mostly bullshit. It's stupid and limiting, you need to broaden your horizons and realise you can mostly achieve whatever you need to achieve with whatever tools you have in front of you. Putting things in little boxes undersells their capabilities and, most likely, restricts you from doing the best that you might be capable of.

Nah, you're rambling. He just said one synths sounds like synths from a certain era and the other two are more like synths from decades earlier. That's all. Nothing about achieving anything or anyone's needs. You're arguing about stuff nobody said.

[telecode]

Regards Hive 2: how is it for CPU, compared to Diva?

Hive is the least CPU intensive of all U-he synths. Diva is a killer on system. Mind you, a lot depends on the setting and patch. Zebra is a little better but not much. The really cool Hans Zimmer patches are usually killer on non- high end systems.

Demo .. demo demo..

[zerocrossing]

I think it sounds different enough from these, it doesn't try to emulate analog like Diva and Repro. I find it sounding more similar to mid-00's VA synths

And what does "VA" stand for? What you're actually saying is it doesn't try to emulate analogue but it does sound like other synths that try to emulate analogue. Where is the sense in that?

What's up with your fixation on the first part of the word analogue?

I think you are confusing VAs with "analog emulations"

Technically VA does mean "virtual analog", but it's just an umbrella term describing a synth having an oscillator with saw/pulse/sine waveforms, a filter and an envelope. A VA synth doesn't have to actually sound like any existing analog synth.

In my VST folder I have a folder for “subtractive” synths and a sub folder for “emulations.” Hive, Sylenth and Diva are all subtractive synths, but only Diva is an emulation. (Or I should say collection of emulations)

[Spring Goose]

If your computer isn't up to much, then Sylenth1 is quite low on CPU.

[BONES]

He just said one synths sounds like synths from a certain era and the other two are more like synths from decades earlier.

And I'm pointing out that what he said is bullshit, that synths from both eras sound similar enough as to not make any worthwhile difference. The rest of my post is by way of something with which you may be unfamiliar - an explanation.

[BONES]

In my VST folder I have a folder for “subtractive” synths and a sub folder for “emulations.” Hive, Sylenth and Diva are all subtractive synths, but only Diva is an emulation. (Or I should say collection of emulations)

Why? That seems like a very arbitrary distinction to make. Where would DUNE go, for example, with it's collection of emulated filters? Or JP6K, which models certain aspects of a JP8000 without being a full emulation of it? I see all my VSTi in one big, long, alphabetical list, with a handful of favourites at the top. Again, I don't want to put anything in a box and then try and force a solution onto it. Within certain limitations, I choose the synth I most want to work with, not the one I think is the best fit for any particular job.

[poopinpants]

Regards Hive 2: how is it for CPU, compared to Diva?

High.... it almost as bad as the DIVA if you want low CPU go for the Sylenth or Dune

[irvg]

Just got Hive 2, love it and finding it much lower on CPU than Diva, which I also have. Also found Zebra to be lower on CPU than Diva. But it does depend on the patch; you can get almost any synth to take a lot of CPU if you try hard enough. The question is how much the average patch takes, and which features of the synth you need and use (especially unison and oversampling).

[PieBerger]

Regards Hive 2: how is it for CPU, compared to Diva?

Why don't you just try the demos and make your own comparisons? I find Hive pretty light on CPU but I mostly make monophonic patches, so every synth is pretty light on CPU to me. Also Hive has its VA waveforms, like Diva, plus wavetables, which Diva does not. Also there are multiple interpolation modes in Hive each with their own CPU overheads. Diva has audio rate capabilities, which generally places heavy demands on the processor, whereas Hive does not. You need to make equivalent patches in both, the kind you would make for your tracks, to see what the differences are in a real world setting, relevant to your own production needs/style.