Spire Synthesizer

[Ploki]

I'm finding Spire and Hive2 are making very good match sonically.

Spire sounds bright, clean and very hi-fi, Hive covers somewhat similar territory but sounds darker and grittier. They play well together in a mix.

Also they complement each other in features (Hive has wavetables, Spire has FM and various interesting oscilator modes like sync and vowel).

Other U-he synths aren't really comparable to Spire IMO as they are very different sonically and conceptually.

thanks for the run down. Some quick preset surf and some knob tweaking later yes. Hive cannot do what Spire can do, on the other hand, i find Hive quicker to navigate for actually tweaking sounds.

I will give Hive another try when they implemented the new filters (which Urs announced). Not really a big fan of the current filters and the overall sound. Maybe that'll change with the new version. Don't think I'd buy it full price anyway though, so... if they don't do another NI sale it probably won't happen.

i absolutely ADORE hive, but i agree that filter need sauce. They're functional, but lacklustre and what irks me the most, there isn't any variety. LP12 and 24.

[anoise]

I'm finding Spire and Hive2 are making very good match sonically.

+1 Two of my most used synths. Spire and Hive 2

[recursive one]

I remember Urs said he was going to add a comb filter to Hive, but for what i know the current set of lp/hp/bp is not going to change. I also remember Urs said that a very coloured filter wouldn't work well with wavetables and supersaws anyway.

Maybe i missed something though. Anyway, we will likely know in a week or two

I can't really explain why i like Hive so much. None of it's components is really spectacular (except for the very good selection of the factory wavetables), but somehow it makes sense as a whole. When i program it, i often occasionally hit sweet spots where i didn't expect that and it always sits well in the mix. I basically have the same experience with Spire but the sound character is very different, this is why I ended up with having both.

I was demoing hive 2 for more than a year before buying it though. I wasn't thrilled much by v.1 so it took me a while to appreciate that v.2 is something quite different.

[e-crooner]

For most modulations audio rate is not necessary, anyway. There is a reason why it can be switched off in Dune 3, it's probably a waste of CPU power in most cases.

It's neccessary when the modulator frequency is in the auditble range - that will typically be an oscillator (in cases like oscillators cross-modulation or filter FM) or maybe a very fast LFO.

If you use such modulators but the modulated parameter is not updated at audio rate you will be getting various noisy artifacts which in most cases you don't want.

For "normal" slow LFOs and such you don't need that, it won't make any audible difference.

What does that mean in terms of Hz?
I find it funny when people always ask for fast LFO's, it's kind of contradictory

[recursive one]

For most modulations audio rate is not necessary, anyway. There is a reason why it can be switched off in Dune 3, it's probably a waste of CPU power in most cases.

It's neccessary when the modulator frequency is in the auditble range - that will typically be an oscillator (in cases like oscillators cross-modulation or filter FM) or maybe a very fast LFO.

If you use such modulators but the modulated parameter is not updated at audio rate you will be getting various noisy artifacts which in most cases you don't want.

For "normal" slow LFOs and such you don't need that, it won't make any audible difference.

What does that mean in terms of Hz?
I find it funny when people always ask for fast LFO's, it's kind of contradictory

Just checked in Dune 3. Its LFOs go up to 250 hz. I started hearing the difference between the normal mode (low CPU) and the audio rate mode somewhere around 100 Hz and at 130 Hz it was pretty apparent.

This depends on the intensity of the modulation, the target etc. I guess for subtler modulations you would be able to use faster LFOs in the low CPU mode without much audible difference.

[chk071]

Fast LFO's isn't contradictory... some analog synths either have very fast ones, or can use an oscillator for modulations.

[e-crooner]

For most modulations audio rate is not necessary, anyway. There is a reason why it can be switched off in Dune 3, it's probably a waste of CPU power in most cases.

It's neccessary when the modulator frequency is in the auditble range - that will typically be an oscillator (in cases like oscillators cross-modulation or filter FM) or maybe a very fast LFO.

If you use such modulators but the modulated parameter is not updated at audio rate you will be getting various noisy artifacts which in most cases you don't want.

For "normal" slow LFOs and such you don't need that, it won't make any audible difference.

What does that mean in terms of Hz?
I find it funny when people always ask for fast LFO's, it's kind of contradictory

Just checked in Dune 3. Its LFOs go up to 250 hz. I started hearing the difference between the normal mode (low CPU) and the audio rate mode somewhere around 100 Hz and at 130 Hz it was pretty apparent.

This depends on the intensity of the modulation, the target etc. I guess for subtler modulations you would be able to use faster LFOs in the low CPU mode without much audible difference.

In Sylenth1 they go up to 192Hz, in Retrologue only up to 30Hz.
30Hz is already pretty fast for typical LFO modulations.

[e-crooner]

Fast LFO's isn't contradictory... some analog synths either have very fast ones, or can use an oscillator for modulations.

Well, my question basically is, what is a low frequency? After all LFO stands for low-frequency oscillator...

[chk071]

As you can see, it depends.

In Sylenth1 they go up to 192Hz, in Retrologue only up to 30Hz.

Guess the name still hails from times when they weren't very fast indeed.

[fmr]

Fast LFO's isn't contradictory... some analog synths either have very fast ones, or can use an oscillator for modulations.

Well, my question basically is, what is a low frequency? After all LFO stands for low-frequency oscillator...

Typically, a Low-Frequency Oscillator is in the infra-sound region (below 40 Hz). But in the beginning, some modular synths used the same oscillators to perform both function (this way saving space and money). Actually, the Minimoog also used a real oscillator as an LFO.

[Ploki]

Odd enough, spire character wise is a lot more similar to bazille than hive!
Workflow is completely different tho.

It’s gonna be hard to pass this up i really like it

[ssl4000]

One thing I noticed, my pc can handle just as many instances of Hive, as it can using Spire instead. I've tested it playing init patch on both, with one osc generating 5 detuned saws and 24db LP filter enabled.
That was interesting to me, since Hive is advertised as cpu-friendly synth and Spire is (or rather was) stereotypically cpu demanding.
Didn't try with any effects enabled though.

[iPlogger]

The Spire sale ends tonight. I grabbed Spire two weeks ago with a few sound libraries. The Demo really showed me what it can do and I was quite impressed with what I heard. And the editing seems straightforward and just made sense to me. I am really enjoying it. The pad libraries from Bellatrix Audio have been especially inspiring for me. I have really been enjoying it and looking forward to including it in live sets this year.

[Ploki]

I just grabbed it before sale runs out, and two packs. Been a while since i bought a synth anyway.

Thanks chk071 and recursive one for insight

[BONES]

The second track sounds to me like the wavetable oscillators of Virus TI were used a lot in there - i may be wrong of course cause I can't pretend I know all WT synths which existed in 2007, but I'm pretty sure it's not all basic subtractive sounds (some are, but not all of them).

It doesn't matter what was actually used, it's what they sound like and they are all sounds you can get from a standard subtractive synth with a bit of oscillator cross-mod.

Morphing sounds with some "metallic" or "digital" edge is what I mostly use wavetable synths for, there might be other ways to get similar sound character but I find the WT synths like Serum and Hive are the fastest way to get the sounds I'm after.

I'd do that with FM in a fraction of the time - turn up the cross-mod and detune the modulator until you get what you need.

Also, osc cross-modulation should run at audio rate to sound good which may require quite a some CPU.

Of course it runs at audio rate, it's one oscillator modulating the other. It doesn't kill your CPU at all because your oscillators are already running at audio rate.

Never heard of them but I googled them up and Wikipeida says they were using Waldorf Microwave.

Again, who cares what someone else used? What matters is the result and you can get it all very easily if you know how to use a basic two oscillator synth with cross-mod.

Do you think you can create any sound you can create with different wavetables with PWM and cross modulation? It's a rhetorical question. Of course you can't.

Prove it. Give us a patch you think can't be done any other way and I'll show you how wrong you are.