Ways to make Wavetables for Hive?!

[yellowmix]

Hive 2 has the cleanest wavetable morphing so when I want that I write an UHM even if I already have a sample-based wavetable. The other advantage is any UHM can output sample-based wavetables with arbitrary frames, so I can get the highest quality no matter which target synth it will be used on.

Of course there are more sample-based wavetables than UHM. Sample-based wavetables have been around for decades. And many of them were generated programmatically. Wavetables like Galbanum Architecture, which are used in many synthesizers, were created that way.

I don't know what programming tools they used, but I used to use C before nicer languages with audio libraries came along. When xFer Serum came, the one-liner wavetable-generating function was very exciting but I easily hit its limitations. So when UHM was introduced with a great balance between musicality and power I haven't used any other language since.

If I want to draw or make wavetables from samples then I use Phase Plant. It can automatically figure out where wave cycles meet and I can crossfade as little or as much as I want. There are a couple other tools also found in UHM (e.g., normalizing the whole table or per frame). But there are many wavetables that are very difficult, if not impossible to draw that I've been able to bring in to my other synths by generating the appropriately sized sample-based wavetables from UHM.

[pdxindy]

Hive 2 has the cleanest wavetable morphing so when I want that I write an UHM even if I already have a sample-based wavetable. The other advantage is any UHM can output sample-based wavetables with arbitrary frames, so I can get the highest quality no matter which target synth it will be used on.

I recently bought the new Waldorf M hardware synth. It can import up to 32 user wavetables. It takes 8bit unsigned 1-256 frames. Is it possible to have an UHM output a wavetable in the correct format to import into the M? That would be cool to bring some Hive wavetables into the M!

[yellowmix]

Hive exports IEEE 32-bit floating point in a RIFF Wave container. Though it can import other sample-per-frame values, it exports only 2048 samples per frame. You'll need to do a bit depth conversion and determine how many samples the M takes per frame and possibly downsample to that. I don't have an M so you'll have to refer to its documentation for what exactly it expects.

Hive factory does have some really useful wavetables!. FM, Metal Swish, Additive Chords, Vosimplified, Alpine Water, Simple Karplus Clean... so many...

Another tip. Since the M has up to 256 frames but 32 user wavetable, and many Hive UHMs have fewer than 256 frames, you can combine them to save space, e.g., 16 x 16-frame wavetables. The easiest way to do this is to Import the waves using incremental From values. This is assuming a precise wavetable sweep range is specifiable in the target synth. You'll want to write down exactly where the boundaries are if they are not constant (i.e., not all 16 or whatever).

[pdxindy]

Hive exports IEEE 32-bit floating point in a RIFF Wave container. Though it can import other sample-per-frame values, it exports only 2048 samples per frame. You'll need to do a bit depth conversion and determine how many samples the M takes per frame and possibly downsample to that. I don't have an M so you'll have to refer to its documentation for what exactly it expects.

Hive factory does have some really useful wavetables!. FM, Metal Swish, Additive Chords, Vosimplified, Alpine Water, Simple Karplus Clean... so many...

Thanks for the reply.

I thought maybe the Uhm script itself could define the output of the export.

In theory, I can take the exported wavetable from Hive, open it in Serum and Serum has an 8bit export option which will then import into the M. I have not tried it yet, but the M developer said the Serum to M part will work.

[Urs]

More output formats for uhm are on our todo list, but they are not the highest of priorities.

In fact IIRC our own .uhm exported to .wav tables were converted to 16 bit to save memory.

I wouldn't have thought of 8 bit though... I'll make a mental note...

[yellowmix]

More output formats for uhm are on our todo list, but they are not the highest of priorities.

Future plans are great to hear. And thanks for the internal workings tidbit.

I don't know if by "formats" you mean specific to another synth or more flexible parameters like the NumFrames command. Would prefer the latter as there is idiosyncrasy out there. For example, MicroMonsta v1 takes 16-bit samples, 128 samples per frame, 33 frames. 33 frames isn't a power of a 2. Odd, huh?

[pdxindy]

I wouldn't have thought of 8 bit though... I'll make a mental note...

M thanks you...

[petedako]

Has this happened yet? …a soundset of vocal sounds as Uhm Scripts?
The excellent thread has been going for awhile — finally jumped in to bump up this question:

if someone would come up with a soundset of vocal sounds made from sophisticated Uhm scripts, I'd buy that immediately

Second the recommend(s) above for PLUGMON to help us learn more about UHM scripting and also just enjoy the sounds. D'oh!
Come on! … even if maths aren't necessarily a musicians greatest skill, are we really going to be frightened away from using copy and paste and poking around?

Despite knowing very little (read ZERO) about coding or maths etc I have used various script languages AppleScript, Userland Frontier over the year so clearly had no trouble popping open UHM and H2p files, like any curious cat . Would love any more info on the SYNTAX tip above and how to add that to a Text Editor(?) Please?

I do not have the other non-U-He soft synths mentioned so far above in this thread but I do have free open source multi-platform Wave Edit now which is not as pretty or up to date, but except for 'Export to SWN' otherwise more less identical in major features to SPHERE EDIT the (free) app 4ms released with its Spherical Wavetable Navigator eurorack module and can agree with the general consensus above about the PITA and beauty of WaveTables but still recommend downloading one or both of these free apps for anybody interested in Wavetables: https://4mscompany.com/SWN -scroll to bottom to d/l 'SphereEdit software for creating Spherical Wavetables on a computer for Mac, Windows, Linux + SphereEdit Manual

BTW, if anybody is keen, I bought TWO of those excellent 4ms SWNs I love them so much, not just for the wavetables it's a bit of a swiss army knife 26 HP 6 VCO eurorack synth that can eg. use LFOs like envelopes and many other things. Haven't yet but will definitely try to load some HIVE wavetables into one — in any case I will gladly trade this or one of my other fave 4ms 'doubles' [mint w/original box] for a U-He CVlization module which are scare here in Canada if there are any at all yet, otherwise I would have bought one by now, from a domestic CDN dealer like Moog Audio or Nightlife.

Funny how largely thanks to all these newer U-He products I'd missed until now, I have come full circle back to software while all my hardware is sitting right next to it.

[petedako]

wow THANKS for this… can not believe the results(!) I got so quickly with this method - is Z2's Export from OSC 1 wavetable export tool still buried in HZ someplace? …could not find it in the 'original' or 'vitality' HZ skins
the other free wave/sphere edit apps I mention in previous comment are still an interesting worthwhile educational resource but rarely if ever got me creating my own new wavetables sounding this good

We have sneaked a wavetable export tool into Zebra2's Osc1. I think it's pretty much one of the most powerful visual editors out there as you can render Zebra's OscFX onto the file. It does not import though, and in order to get best results you have to use the spline-based Geo/SpectroMorph type of waveforms.

[petedako]

Has this happened yet? …a soundset of vocal sounds as Uhm Scripts?
The excellent thread has been going for awhile — finally jumped in to bump up this question:

if someone would come up with a soundset of vocal sounds made from sophisticated Uhm scripts, I'd buy that immediately

Second the recommend(s) above for PLUGMON to help us learn more about UHM scripting and also just enjoy the sounds. D'oh!
Come on! … even if maths aren't necessarily a musicians greatest skill, are we really going to be frightened away from using copy and paste and poking around?

Despite knowing very little (read ZERO) about coding or maths etc I have used various script languages AppleScript, Userland Frontier over the years so clearly had no trouble popping open UHM and H2p files, like any curious cat . Would love any more info on the SYNTAX tip above and how to add that to a Text Editor(?) Please?

I do not have the other non-U-He soft synths mentioned so far above in this thread but I do have free open source multi-platform Wave Edit now which is not as pretty or up to date, but except for 'Export to SWN' otherwise more less identical in major features to SPHERE EDIT the (free) app 4ms released with its Spherical Wavetable Navigator eurorack module and can agree with the general consensus above about the PITA and beauty of WaveTables but still recommend downloading one or both of these free apps for anybody interested in Wavetables: https://4mscompany.com/SWN -scroll to bottom to d/l 'SphereEdit software for creating Spherical Wavetables on a computer for Mac, Windows, Linux + SphereEdit Manual

BTW, if anybody is keen, I bought TWO of those excellent 4ms SWNs I love them so much, not just for the wavetables it's a bit of a swiss army knife 26 HP 6 VCO eurorack synth that can eg. use LFOs like envelopes and many other things. Haven't yet but will definitely try to load some HIVE wavetables into one — in any case I will gladly trade this or one of my other fave 4ms 'doubles' [mint w/original box] for a U-He CVlization module which are scare here in Canada if there are any at all yet, otherwise I would have bought one by now, from a domestic CDN dealer like Moog Audio or Nightlife.

Funny how largely thanks to all these newer U-He products I'd missed until now, I have come full circle back to software while all my hardware is sitting right next to it.