I guess it's synth month because U-HE is finishing the new Hive synth

[xamido]

Where's the betaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

[martingifford]

That looks both fantastic and a bit sci-fi/cheesy at the same time. Especially, the hexagon in the middle looks a bit like something out of Stargate. But it's 10 times better than Sylenth and that's what matters the move from antique (Sylenth) to futuristic is very wise. Everything is clear and easy to find too. But I don't see where the presets are (edit: Found the preset button).

This is supposed to be the a demo: https://app.box.com/s/16skhoqwubeo0g4jzh0i by 3ee-soundesign

Unfortunately, it sounds frosty and Serum-ish, which was my worst fear, and pretty much a deal-breaker, which is a drag cos I'm desperate for a Sylenth replacement.

BTW, where's the beta?

[3ee]

Unfortunately, it sounds frosty and Serum-ish, which was my worst fear, and pretty much a deal-breaker, which is a drag cos I'm desperate for a Sylenth replacement.

Sounds like that because of the heavy processing (including hi freq distortion)... the Raw/dry sound of the modules sound nothing like Serum... It's hard to describe the sound but sounds "analog-like with some sort of digital "oxidation" sheen" ...the sheen reminds me of Bazille a bit.... anyway, Hive seems to have a unique sound, you'll hear!

[Urs]

Lovely. Sent an email about it to your support address.

Thanks - it's a good idea, but it can't work. The glide/pitchbend/vibrato section has to stay where it is because it's also visible when the keyboard is shown.

Lose the keyboard

Nah. Keyboard will have important features.

[Kriminal]

Where's the betaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

On the beta forum, not public

[2ZrgE]

I'm not crazy about the GUI. Dark with blue light, weird spaces, fake wires, odd shapes. It looks like it belongs on the Klingon bridge.

Agree. It's not to my taste. There's an implied presumption of a level of superficiality in the customer that's rather patronising. What happened to less is more?

Marketing.

You have to sell it to "da kids" as well. Reminds me a bit of Toxic Biohazard or Papen's Blade.

Da younger people seem to like themselves imaging sitting in a space ship while turning synth knobs...

Sad but true, humans strongly react to the outer appearance of stuff, no matter what is under the hood...

[Urs]

I'm not crazy about the GUI. Dark with blue light, weird spaces, fake wires, odd shapes. It looks like it belongs on the Klingon bridge.

Agree. It's not to my taste. There's an implied presumption of a level of superficiality in the customer that's rather patronising. What happened to less is more?

I'd expect you to give us the benefit of a doubt rather than accusing us of foul play.

This is still more of an alpha version than a beta. A few knobs were dropped lately, so some blank space appeared (filter section, fx section). A few knobs may join, so a bit of blank space is required. As it takes several hours to redo the panels, we don't redo them all the time. If we drop, say, LFO delays, we can make the whole UI 40px narrower. I'm also sure the black spaces will narrow down a bit, but we need to leave some space for a planned feature that we are not going to disclose just yet.

However, we managed to display 19 modules in the top part of the synth while maintaining a workflow that is very well thought out. All of this without making it look dull or uninviting. I believe that a less "flashy" look would immediately put the perception of complexity into the foreground and thus alienate people. This one doesn't. It makes people curious *despite* the complexity that's displayed. You may call it presumptious and patronizing, I call it art.

It may not be everybody's taste, but then that's natural. A fully flat UI would be even less of everybody's taste, as would be a colour codes UI, a full 3D spacey UI or pretty much anything. I think this current design is very close to a sweet spot, and we still have some time to get even closer to that.

- Urs

[ragout]

To me, design and function are both very important. Would you buy a car that looks boring?

When Serum was released, I was amazed how cool the interface looked. Unfortunately the sound never satisfied me, to thin, brittle and harsh sounding. So, I never bought it. I know some people felt the same.

Same for Hive, I absolutely love it's unique design (if it will be skinable, even better), and I bet the sound won't be a let down, judging form the other U-He synths. We'll see.

[Caine123]

To me, design and function are both very important. Would you buy a car that looks boring?

When Serum was released, I was amazed how cool the interface looked. Unfortunately the sound never satisfied me, to thin, brittle and harsh sounding. So, I never bought it. I know some people felt the same.

Same for Hive, I absolutely love it's unique design (if it will be skinable, even better), and I bet the sound won't be a let down, judging form the other U-He synths. We'll see.

THIS! i mean, what do you want with some clunky and bad design vst?

[xamido]

Variety is a good thing. If Hive looks like any of the previous U-He synth i wouldn't even be interested.

[martingifford]

The trouble with Serum is that nearly every sound has that thin, cold, frosty, dry, raspy, buzzy timbre. It can be great if you hear it as a one-off in a record. But if you work with it and you want it to be your go-to synth, then it quickly becomes tiring and you start to notice the digitality everywhere, even in Sylenth, because Serum has trained you to notice it. If it's like that in Hive for just a few presets, then I can hopefully delete them, but if that's the timbre, then I couldn't buy it no matter how desperate I am for a Sylenth replacement. Sound-wise, Sylenth is just amazing - no wonder it's so popular - but the clunky interface and skin can repel, and the filing and preset organisation slows things down.

[2ZrgE]

To me, design and function are both very important. Would you buy a car that looks boring?

Depends what you mean by "boring".

For me Valhalla, Ableton or Madronalabs not boring at all, but very well suited for working with for long production sessions.

The GUI is nice, but hopefully there will be alternative skins.

[PALU]

I like the GUI, but I have a few suggestions:

- drop the fake cables in the background - or make them more readable. Now they look like spider-webs or something and clutter the GUI

- the blue lights at the sides of the bottom of the center hexagon could be dimmed - they are in the colour of the text and parts of GUI that you click - it's drawing the eyes to them without any reason

- at the first look I was a little bit lost in the GUI - maybe add some colour differentiation between the types of modules (oscillators, filters, lfos, modulation matrix)... I don't mean make it red/blue/green or something, but just different shades of the original colour... but it's clear too that the modules are grouped in rows, so maybe it's not needed.

- and maybe the contrast of the text in the center hexagon - the background is too bright for me and too detailed. It's hard to read.

[2ZrgE]

Sound-wise, Sylenth is just amazing - no wonder it's so popular - but the clunky interface and skin can repel, and the filing and preset organisation slows things down.

As always a matter of taste. I always found the Sylenth skin very appropriate.

Whereas the shine Serum GUI didn't make me buy it because it just wasn't 'my sound'.

[Urs]

Unfortunately, it sounds frosty and Serum-ish, which was my worst fear, and pretty much a deal-breaker, which is a drag cos I'm desperate for a Sylenth replacement.

I'm pretty sure the example you posted was not meant to sound like Sylenth. I'm pretty sure that many of the examples you'll hear will point out the differences between Sylenth and Hive. Especially the three synth engines in Hive make for fundamentally different characters.

That said, judging the sound of Hive from a single mp3 might provide for a nice surprise once you actually try it