Hive 2

Five star synth.

This synth sounds good even with the init preset :)
The filters are amazing, the wavetable selection is great and modulation is easy to manage.

Once you get to know Hive you can get some beautiful sounds with just few moves.

Here is my beginners guide and demo.

https://youtu.be/sIrE6jMK6SU

2024 EDIT:

A while ago I bought one of Ploki's skins for Hive, which not only looks amazing but has made Hive 2 much easier to work with, to the point that it's changed my mind about this synth. I'm actually amazed at how something as simple as a skin has had such a profound effect on my feelings about an instrument, so I'm re-writing my review to reflect my changed attitude/opinion.

The core sound of Hive is quite good. I find it particularly suited to basslines and arpeggiated rhythms and stuff like that. It comes with a gajillion presets, which are well handled by the best preset browser I have ever used. The browser is amazing. I spent a week or more going through everything and colour-coding any preset I heard that I thought we might be able to use. Then I started looking for opportunities to use it in some of our songs.

Where the stock interface/layout feels like two separate synths slammed together, so you are forever flicking from one side of it's gigantic interface to the other, trying to work out how the patch has been set up so you can tweak it. It wasn't too bad in v1.2 but the update to v2.0 somehow seemed to make it harder to work with (for me at least). Ploki's skin fixes that, placing everything in a more logical order, laid out to follow the signal path, which makes it far easier and more intuitive to work with. These days I actually like working with Hive, where previously I kind of dreaded it.

Hive comes loaded with a million features, most of which don't interest me in the slightest, and when you look at the list of features on the product page here at KVR, you'll notice that the most important things about any synth - it's oscillators and filter(s) - barely rate a mention. In fact, there is no mention at all of the filters. Normally I hate that but with Hive it's easy enough to ignore the stuff you're not interested in and focus on what you are. It's still a bit cluttered by the skin I'm using has improved that situation a lot for me, as the clutter is more out of the way. Nothing in the synth really stands out but, by the same token, there's no area where it isn't at least competent, so you know you can always get something usable from it. I suppose that's a good definition of a workhorse synth, which is exactly how I see Hive.

I now find myself reaching for Hive fairly regularly. It has a solid sound, it doesn't use too much CPU and, with the skin I'm using, it has become easy to work with. I don't think it will ever be part of the core list of synths I love using but it definitely has its place in my arsenal, in no small part because of its very flexible skinning system.

Hive 2 is the most outstanding synth i've ever imagined for sound designing it just literally blew me away. The sound quality is so impressive, very clear and even no artifacts what so ever. Even loading my own custom wavetables I was so impressed of how they sound. I feel this is now my new primary soft synth i'm using along with my old hardware synth. I'm just barely scratching the surface of what this thing can do. It would be nice if they included a ring modulator or maybe a phase distortion to modulate Osc 1 and Osc 2 together for even more sonic possibilities. Overall I just feel Hive 2 belongs to an elite class of today's top software synths such as Omnisphere 2, Zebra 2, Padshop Pro, Dune 3, Electra 2, Diversion, Pigments, Synthmaster 2, Serum and other top ones. I should say this is a darn good synth in it's own ways of making music and manipulating sounds with lots of potential behind this software beast. The only limitation it has is your creative imagination. The sky's the limit of what you can do with hive 2. I would say this is a tough act to follow but sure wonder what Zebra 3 will turn out to be when it comes out.

This synth is absolutely amazing! It just sounds so good, I can dial in usable sounds in zero time, and they always seem to magically sit well in the mix. It's a lot more versatile than just a "trance machine" as some people say. This completely replaces (and blows away) my Virus B in every category. The interface is all on one page, the arpeggiator rocks, the effects are good, and the mod matrix has drag and drop. Many things are done to speed up making patches. In many ways it feels like a hardware synth.

This review is for the Linux and Mac versions.

Amazing vst. I found that every sound in the list has been professional produced. The layout of Hive is quality and easy on the eyes. The sounds are fantastic and not too rich and not too poor. Its perfect sounding of each sound element. I have come accross many good vst's. But the sounds are extremely too rich for my ears. With Hive all of the sounds are just perfect. I look forward to see the future with Hive updates and upgrades. Well worth the money. If anyone has not tried it, I urge you to try it. I give it 98% out of 100% if I was to rate it. Richie.....