Hive 2.0

[david.beholder]

Clearly not. Having tabs doesn't fit in with Hive's ethos

Of course they don't. But wait

[PieBerger]

Clearly not. Having tabs doesn't fit in with Hive's ethos

Of course the don't. But wait

I'll revise then, excessive tabbing. It's quite uncommon to need to view the FX and Sequencer at the same time, however being able to see the mod matrix, mod sources and other synth parameters together is essential for working quickly.

Load up Serum, make a basic patch, add some modulation, then modulation of modulation, some choas modulation, then add FX and then modulate the FX and notice how many times you have to switch to a different tab to achieve this and also how much of the rest of the synth is excluded when doing so. Then you might come to appreciate just how much better Hive's UI/UX is by comparison.

[Urs]

Urs, one more question: why settings of voice detune are so limited. Look Dune 3 for example - it doesn't take much cpu but sounds very distinctive.

Also interesting news: Hive init patch (4 voices/poly) with 8 detuned saws with or without filter takes 2-2.5 times more CPU than similar patch on Dune 3. In the same situation Serum is consuming 3-4 times more CPU than Hive.

Both things are related. Dune uses a lot less CPU on simple waveforms while Hive has a lot less aliasing (checked that years ago though). Not being able to detune more than, say, Sylenth, did not seem to ever be a problem there, and it let us keep CPU way below Serum's.

It's all about compromise. One doesn't need a vast detune range if one has 4 multi-oscillators at their disposal. Hence we focussed on a sweetspot between CPU usage and detune range while preserving ultimate sound quality.

[david.beholder]

Both things are related. Dune uses a lot less CPU on simple waveforms while Hive has a lot less aliasing (checked that years ago though). Not being able to detune more than, say, Sylenth, did not seem to ever be a problem there, and it let us keep CPU way below Serum's.

I guess they've fixed alias in Dune 3, but their cutoff starts around 19 khz.

I did more performance tests.
Conditions: Most recent demo versions. Only one oscillator with unison: 4, wavetable: default/saw, 33% of detune. Max voices count: 4. Only one lowpass filter is on. No gui opened. Ableton 10.1.

Sequence 1: 4 sequential 1 bar long notes c1-c2-c3-c4

Dune 3: 6%
Serum (4x mode): 11%
Hive: 13%

Sequence 2: 2 bars Cmin9 - 2 bars Fmin7

Dune 3: 7%
Serum (4x mode): 32%
Hive: 38%

Either my tests or your assumption Hive CPU vs Serum is wrong.

It's all about compromise. One doesn't need a vast detune range if one has 4 multi-oscillators at their disposal. Hence we focussed on a sweetspot between CPU usage and detune range while preserving ultimate sound quality.

May be you misunderstood me? Both of settings I've marked by red arrows are not CPU intensive (Serum has one of them under name 'blend') but they give really distinction to Oscillator sound.

[Urs]

Either my tests or your assumption Hive CPU vs Serum is wrong.

Scan wavetables with it.

Hive's advantages come into play when you use more than just features from plain settings.

I've made it a rule for myself to not debug other synthesizers anymore. If you can safely assume that another synth beats all our offerings, please don't bother me with questions as to "how did they do it". Usually they didn't, but I can seriously not chase up every such question anymore.

(sorry if that comes across harsh, but I don't know what people expect from me. I can waste two hours and come up with an explanation, or these two hours are wasted on the same conclusion as the poster. Neither outcome will change a thing. If I can optimise something, it will happen. But if I can't, it won't)

[david.beholder]

Either my tests or your assumption Hive CPU vs Serum is wrong.

Scan wavetables with it.

Hive's advantages come into play when you use more than just features from plain settings.

I'll try tomorrow, let's see what would be performance in this case

I've made it a rule for myself to not debug other synthesizers anymore. If you can safely assume that another synth beats all our offerings, please don't bother me with questions as to "how did they do it". Usually they didn't, but I can seriously not chase up every such question anymore.

Huh I've pointed hat Hive has only one detune param, Serum has detune and blend, D3 has detune, blend and distribution settings. I haven't asked how it's done because it's clear.

(sorry if that comes across harsh, but I don't know what people expect from me.)

I'm demoing Hive and competitors and leaving notes on Hive's weaknesses here. If notes like this are not welcome anymore I'm expecting you to tell me about it.
I haven't asked or suggested any actions, so i think you're overreacting or have a bad day etc.

[Urs]

Ok, let's reset things here:

Hive has 4 oscillators (2 main, 2 sub). You can easily achieve what blend does by using two oscillators. If you choose the same waveform on Osc1 and its sub, the volume control of Osc1 is essentially the blend control. You just need to crank up Sub volume. There's no necessity IMHO to add a dedicated blend control - it would be borderline redundant (even though it's an understandably welcome feature in a synth which has a more restrictive UI, i.e. which can't show parameters of multiple oscillators at once)

As for CPU usage, all I can say is, we have chosen our compromises, others chose theirs. The design process for the standard unison waveforms was done 5 years ago. At that time, Hive had the best specs among a range of competing products and within our choices of design / catalog of criteria. Surely someone might have come up with something better by now, but I really can't do the same research again - particularly because CPUs have become faster since and this isn't even an issue IMHO. If it wasn't an issue back then, I don't see how it could become an issue today.

As for wavetable playback - our criteria have always been about sweeping wavetables. When I researched this about a year ago, no other synth was doing what Hive does (extra smooth realtime interpolation). That was our angle, and we made it fast enough to compete with synths that used plain crossfading or no interpolation at all. Even when you set Hive to its most lofi setting, there's still some smoothing going on. Please keep that in mind when you compare. And use settings that Hive is made for, i.e. wavetable sweeping and oscillator unison.

Lastly, I try not to comment on competitor's products. Comparison posts invite trouble. Hence, I don't like them.

[GreyHCK]

Hi Urs,

Hive 2 is a quite interesting synth and i say it after fiddling with some other wavetable synths.

I would like to ask a pair of things (i apologise if some questions are redundant on this thread):

- Is there anything in Hive that resembles the XS-MOD feature like i've seen doing on TyrellN6? And in general, is it planned to add the possibility to use oscillators as modulation source somewhere (unless it's already there hidden and i couldn't find it on the manual)?

- Speaking always of what i've seen on Tyrell (it has some interesting features i admit), will there be some "feedback" parameter to reinject some of the output signal back in the chain in Hive as well?

- Will a "loop" mode be implemented on the envelopes?

- Will some other types of filters be implemented somewhere in the future? Am mostly imagining some comby/formanty/phasery stuff just to add a couple of flavours more.


Anyways great job so far on the plugin and thanks in advance for your answers.

[Joe Leidigkeit]

Sunday. 38°.

[Joe Leidigkeit]

post 23695 was definitely one of Urs' favs.

[KBSoundSmith]

Hi Urs,

Hive 2 is a quite interesting synth and i say it after fiddling with some other wavetable synths.

I would like to ask a pair of things (i apologise if some questions are redundant on this thread):

- Is there anything in Hive that resembles the XS-MOD feature like i've seen doing on TyrellN6? And in general, is it planned to add the possibility to use oscillators as modulation source somewhere (unless it's already there hidden and i couldn't find it on the manual)?

- Speaking always of what i've seen on Tyrell (it has some interesting features i admit), will there be some "feedback" parameter to reinject some of the output signal back in the chain in Hive as well?

- Will a "loop" mode be implemented on the envelopes?

- Will some other types of filters be implemented somewhere in the future? Am mostly imagining some comby/formanty/phasery stuff just to add a couple of flavours more.


Anyways great job so far on the plugin and thanks in advance for your answers.

If I recall, Urs explained that they decided against audio-rate modulation for GUI/technical/philosophical reasons. The approach seems to be: "if you want XYZ sound, there's a wavetable for that." In Hive's context, I find that appealing (speed/ease of use). And if there's isn't a wavetable for that (there usually is), a combination of .wav and .uhm scripts for custom wavetables can get you there.

Looping envelopes. While not looping, the ADSR envelopes can be re-triggered via LFOs. Alternatively, the deceptively powerful Shape Sequencer can be used. Then you can modulate the rate of the Shape Sequencer, curvature of shapes, etc.

Filters... I'll never say "no" to more filters That said, formant filters, while nice to have, arguably are redundant given Formant wavetables, plus multiple filters, etc (again, I wouldn't turn them down ). I don't know how Comb filters might factor in to Hive's design philosophy, I'm curious about that idea myself.

[Stefken]

post 23695 was definitely one of Urs' favs.

I guess he likes species 8472 as well.

[KBSoundSmith]

Urs, one more question: why settings of voice detune are so limited. Look Dune 3 for example - it doesn't take much cpu but sounds very distinctive.

Also interesting news: Hive init patch (4 voices/poly) with 8 detuned saws with or without filter takes 2-2.5 times more CPU than similar patch on Dune 3. In the same situation Serum is consuming 3-4 times more CPU than Hive.

Hmm. Read your exchanges with Urs, got to thinking about exactly what your question is. I think Urs answered part of it regarding the Blend option, but it also seems you want to be able to detune the unison sound more than the default allows, and vary the way they are spread?

Two things:

1) You can detune more by using a Constant as a modulation source, with Osc Detune as the destination. You can stack that as many times as you want (until you run out of modulation slots, that is ).

2) Changing the engine type (clean/normal/dirty) will alter the way the unison stack is detuned

From the manual:

Clean: Wide oscillator detune, linear envelope attack, exponential decay and release, linear (i.e. non-distorting) state-variable filter.

Normal: Exponential oscillator detune, s-curve envelope attack, short decay, oversampled self-oscillating ladder filter with non-linear resonance.

Dirty: Evenly-spaced oscillator detune, exponential envelope stages, oversampled self-oscillating diode ring filter. Very “non-linear” and unpredictable.

*************
Just to demonstrate, I did exactly as I mentioned above by combining 1 and 2 into a patch The sound is Osc 1 only, with 16 stacked sawtooth waves. The sound starts at the default max detune, then after about a second, I push the modwheel and you can hear the effect of ALL mod matrix slots maxed on Contant -> Detune

Clean Engine
https://app.box.com/s/76vk2z23m7q5w2zqaxl41yzcsavff5o1

Normal Engine
https://app.box.com/s/ds7q50g1armaa2c66tlzxwx9tfhkzysl

Dirty Engine
https://app.box.com/s/4743pi7arfs5oyoxr5oojytzece5vy99

BTW, the audio player on that site will cause artifacts. Download to hear what they actually sound like (oscar winning... )

**************

Anyway, point being... In Hive, a lot of the "limitations" are only apparent. The modulation system allows you to go much further than an initial glance at Hive would suggest.

[david.beholder]

double post

[david.beholder]

Sunday. 38°.

Heatwave in Berlin =)

Hmm. Read your exchanges with Urs, got to thinking about exactly what your question is. I think Urs answered part of it regarding the Blend option, but it also seems you want to be able to detune the unison sound more than the default allows, and vary the way they are spread?

I don't have questions other than why there are no such and such features in Hive 2.
I'm actually able to read manuals (and read Hive manual prior this) but thanks your may help others.