Now Hive is here, is it RIP Sylenth?

[fluffy_little_something]

RIP Hive? Nope, just did a quick look at our sales:

Bestsellers this year so far in numbers currently are Diva, followed by Zebra, Hive, ACE, Satin, Bazille, Presswerk, others in that order, where Hive sells about almost as often as Zebra and a bit more than half of Diva. Hive also sells about twice as often as ACE, so we can safely say it has become our third flagship product.

Hive and Bazille don't appear in those "Top 10" lists simply because they haven't (yet) reached the market share. While it's unlikely with Bazille, I think it's inevitable for Hive to get there. I think Hive has already drawn even with ACE, and ACE regularly makes it into "Top 40". Give it a year or two, Hive might just arrive in a really good spot.

OTOH the reason why NI and u-he often miss out on the absolute top spots is because we have multiple products. If you take votes for Musicradar's "Top Synth" lists for instance, someone who's into NI our u-he as a brand can always only vote for one product even though they might vote for two or three. So they have to decide, which splits votes. If such elections were open for multiple votes, NI and u-he products would rank much higher. And so would Arturia ones I guess, which might have an even much larger dispersion. What I'm saying however is that "product rankings" often distort the notion of actual market share in favour of brands with single products.

- U

Bazille probably never will as it is too complicated for most people.

What would be more interesting than sales is which synths people are actually using and which are just sitting idle in VST folders.

[nIGhT-SoN]

If you are thinking about instrument interface I think Propellerhead are the kings. Please don't include Reason's interface here. I talking mainly about Thor, it's done so well that it's easy to understand the chain. Zebra I think it's something like Thor in it's capability but interface wise is way behind imo. LD I think was inspired by how Propellerhead do it and applied it to Sylenth1. I would love to see more synths like Thor, interface wise even sound wise, for me it's really easy to understand it. You don't have to read the manual to be able to use it.

If I were to make a top 10 of synths with best user interfaces, Thor would take the first place and most Propellerhead stuff would take the next ones. They look really good and also they are logical for me, easy to understand, filters, modulation are placed in the right place.

[Urs]

Bazille probably never will as it is too complicated for most people.

It's a labour of love, yes. I think it's still my favourite u-he synth.

What would be more interesting than sales is which synths people are actually using and which are just sitting idle in VST folders.

I think that would indeed be interesting. I guess our stuff gets a good cut considering that we have a pretty low rate of license transfers while at the same time providing for a very low hurdle to do so. I guess plug-ins with a high license transfer fee, low resale value or unresponsive developers might end up having a sad life...

[Urs]

Zebra I think it's something like Thor in it's capability

Uhm, I don't think you can compare the two feature wise. You can rather compare Thor and Diva in that they have a set architecture with a set of swapable modules in their respective slot.

[EnGee]

I still believe that Hive 2 can be an immediate hit if u-he ignore the success of Sylenth1 (or any other soft synth!) and start doing their vision for easy to use/ light on cpu / can be easily adopted by the Dance producers with something original.

That can be accomplished IMO (of course!) by for example bringing the PD from Bazille with those nice functions like the Fractalize one. Wavetables synths are very desired, so this is also something to add. So, easy to use but still very versatile synth. Instead of the three modes (clean, ..etc), for example, comes three synthesis types (VA, PD, Wavetable) not far from Dune 2 actually, but still different in the details.

Actually I believe when people begin to compare Hive 2 to a hardware synth, that means a success! But, comparing Hive all the time with Sylenth1, it just make it feel not original and like its main purpose is to take the crown from Sylenth1! So, the motive is just a jealousy?! No, this is not the way IMO. It should be a labor of love like Bazille and ACE (which are IMO more original and attractive than Hive, but due to their complex nature, they have higher learning curve).

I also don't find the time will be beside Hive! New synths are coming and the competition is a Hell! Especially for the Dance/new genres music. Predator 2 is coming and Icarus just landed and I'm sure other developers are also working either in new versions or enhancing their own.

Anyway, in the end, I like a lot u-he as a company and still have ACE (which I love). It is a great company IMO and has second to none service. Very polite and friendly team and I wish them Good Luck

[mcnoone]

That approach is odd because the two synths are not identical in terms of architecture etc. So it should be up to the user how they achieve a similar or even identical sound. For instance for pwm you have to use two osc's in Sylenth, in Hive not.

Use whatever pwm trick Sylenth can use to copy the sound, and show the preset, with both the sound, and recording.
It's only one oscillator and one filter which Sylenth can do exactly.

Not sure whether you used a sub on the first bass. Sounds like it.

Like I said. Only one oscillator and one filter. No sub or anything else.

The second type of sound can definitely be done in Sylenth, I had one myself, not sure whether it is in the patches I had uploaded some time ago.

With only one oscillator, one filter, and no overdriven distortion or other sound altering effect?
Let's hear it.

Why do you have that ugly attack psiu psiu on every patch? It ruins the patches as that kind of sound does not fit in most music.

You mean that it doesn't fit in your music. It's the singing resonance, and can be gotten rid of by just lowering the resonance a little anyway.
Besides, for someone who doesn't have the Hive demo or own it, you seem pretty opinionated about it.
Maybe you need to go back and check it, with the patches I posted, and try to do it in Sylenth.

[chk071]

I rephrase the topic: "Hive is here, is it a killer synth like Sylenth? Can it be a substitute for Sylenth1?"

Answer is Yes
Also you can say that about Spire, Dune 1/2, Massive, Zebra 2.

That wasn't exactly the topic though. The topic was, will you retire Sylenth1 now that Hive arrived. Which, of course, is highly subjective too. And my answer would be a clear no if Sylenth was my main synth, which it isn't even, because i own at least 2-3 synths which i prefer to Sylenth. At the very least i wouldn't buy Sylenth now, because it's simply overpriced for what it does. Lennard should have adjusted the price to 99 € with v3, because he changed nothing about the sound, and that sound engine hails from 2007. Spire, for example, not only sounds better IMO, but also has many features more. And costs just 40 bucks more (i believe). Obviously, he thought that people will still buy Sylenth for that price, maybe that's true. I saw that the used price of Sylenth maybe lowered a little bit here in the market place, but it usually still sells above 80-90 $.

[Cyoon]

in every post you hail spire you really like that one it seems.

[chk071]

I try not to do that every time, but, yeah, i really like it. I also think it's very close to Sylenth, at least it's not very difficult to make Sylenth-typical sounds IMO.

[recursive one]

I try not to do that every time, but, yeah, i really like it. I also think it's very close to Sylenth, at least it's not very difficult to make Sylenth-typical sounds IMO.

Spire can't into Arp 303 saw Completely different filter behaviour, not that liquid/squelchy.

And you know what? This thread made me dust off my Hive demo and it sounds MUCH better that I remember it to do. E.g., I loaded Big Unison Lead 7 from factory folder and it played some chords along with some loop I've made of several Virus TI sounds and drums and it gels very nicely as if it were another Virus isntance. I guess, when I was trying it for the first time my impressions were like "doesn't sound like Sylenth or Spire = fail", now that I know what Virus sounds like I think Hive sounds closer to it than these two, not in the timbral characteristics (here Spire is the clear winner) but in overall thickness and lushness.

I will spend more time with the demo, maybe when Zebra 3 hits I'll get them two to have an ultimate ITB Virus replacement.

I feel sorry for bashing such a good synth, like I used to do

[fluffy_little_something]

That approach is odd because the two synths are not identical in terms of architecture etc. So it should be up to the user how they achieve a similar or even identical sound. For instance for pwm you have to use two osc's in Sylenth, in Hive not.

Use whatever pwm trick Sylenth can use to copy the sound, and show the preset, with both the sound, and recording.
It's only one oscillator and one filter which Sylenth can do exactly.

Not sure whether you used a sub on the first bass. Sounds like it.

Like I said. Only one oscillator and one filter. No sub or anything else.

The second type of sound can definitely be done in Sylenth, I had one myself, not sure whether it is in the patches I had uploaded some time ago.

With only one oscillator, one filter, and no overdriven distortion or other sound altering effect?
Let's hear it.

Why do you have that ugly attack psiu psiu on every patch? It ruins the patches as that kind of sound does not fit in most music.

You mean that it doesn't fit in your music. It's the singing resonance, and can be gotten rid of by just lowering the resonance a little anyway.
Besides, for someone who doesn't have the Hive demo or own it, you seem pretty opinionated about it.
Maybe you need to go back and check it, with the patches I posted, and try to do it in Sylenth.

I don't have either one anymore. But I did compare them of course when I still had both. So yes, I am slightly opinionated and biased in favor of Sylenth, which I liked more. But I am only mildly biased as I use Predator now which is so much more appropriate for old-skool sounds and of course more versatile than both. I can happily live without the supersaw sound.

Anyway, I still don't get why you want to tell me how I have to use Sylenth in order to make Hive sounds. They are not identical, so why would I not use whatever I want and need within Sylenth if that is what it takes to make a Hive sound?!

Not sure whether one can load patches into the demo version, will try it in the evening or on Tuesday.

[chk071]

I try not to do that every time, but, yeah, i really like it. I also think it's very close to Sylenth, at least it's not very difficult to make Sylenth-typical sounds IMO.

Spire can't into Arp 303 saw Completely different filter behaviour, not that liquid/squelchy.

Not my kind of sound anyway to be honest. Did you try the acid filters though? AFAIC, about any synth with a more or less decent resonance behavior could do that kind of sound. I even heard a quite convincing 303 line from Porpellerhead's Thor. IMO, it's rather about the sequence itself anyway, than the sound itself, because the 303 had a quite special sequencer.

[Cinebient]

Zebra I think it's something like Thor in it's capability

Uhm, I don't think you can compare the two feature wise. You can rather compare Thor and Diva in that they have a set architecture with a set of swapable modules in their respective slot.

Indeed, but one huge plus for Thor (at least for me). There is an iPad version
Will we ever see a multi-touch app from U-he?
I can understand why there will be no 20 dollar version of Zebra or Diva but it would be interesting to know if you would ever be interested in such an app in general.
CPU's are there and some multi-touch apps offers things you can't do with any desktop plug-in.
I still wait for someone make a windows 10 multi-touch synth which comes close to Moog.
Please don't stay in the stone age (dramatization).....

[Urs]

Will we ever see a multi-touch app from U-he?

We're going to refactor our UI library at some point (right after Repro-1 I guess) because we need some new functionality. One major point is adding identifiers to mouse/touch events so that multi touch can be supported.

If however anything gets ported to iOS or Android, I don't know. Between updates, drum stuff and analogue goodies there's just so much more we wish to explore, it would seem that supporting yet another platform or format would prevent us from what we like to do, and what we do best.

[Chapelle]

RIP Hive? Nope, just did a quick look at our sales:

Bestsellers this year so far in numbers currently are Diva, followed by Zebra, Hive, ACE, Satin, Bazille, Presswerk, others in that order, where Hive sells about almost as often as Zebra and a bit more than half of Diva. Hive also sells about twice as often as ACE, so we can safely say it has become our third flagship product.

Hive and Bazille don't appear in those "Top 10" lists simply because they haven't (yet) reached the market share. While it's unlikely with Bazille, I think it's inevitable for Hive to get there. I think Hive has already drawn even with ACE, and ACE regularly makes it into "Top 40". Give it a year or two, Hive might just arrive in a really good spot.

OTOH the reason why NI and u-he often miss out on the absolute top spots is because we have multiple products. If you take votes for Musicradar's "Top Synth" lists for instance, someone who's into NI our u-he as a brand can always only vote for one product even though they might vote for two or three. So they have to decide, which splits votes. If such elections were open for multiple votes, NI and u-he products would rank much higher. And so would Arturia ones I guess, which might have an even much larger dispersion. What I'm saying however is that "product rankings" often distort the notion of actual market share in favour of brands with single products.

- U

Do you think that the plugin rankings at Splice reflect the market better than Musicradar's list?
It surely isn't perfect either, but NI has 7 products in the top 15 there (including #1). It seems to be more based on what people actually use, but I'm not sure if I can conclude something about sales, as there might be crack-users among them, too.