My review of u-He's Hive

Ah.. Must be because you're a paying member of SoundCloud, that you can order your tracks as you like. I literally checked your site about an hour ago to see if you had fixed your computer. This caught me out because the demo (Infiltrate) is six tracks down.
 
Nice demo... I'll certainly be checking out Hive some time this year.
 
cheers
 
andy
 
Edit: Oh well... Looks like I have it now 

David, nice review... I love Hive too... got in with the survey gift plus early price... yummy.
 
In visiting your website I found the deep blue links to be very challenging to read... just thought I'd pass it along.  Some sites do this and seems to defeat the purpose of quickly communicating something...

Yep... Started a "Test" project with Hive being the only instrument I will use. Still early days but once I have something worthwhile posting on my SoundCloud site I'll say so here.
 
Things I like so far: Using the mouse scroll wheel to fine tune values; Everything is virtually on one page (well, the main synth is on one page but the effects shares the view in the middle with the built-in sequencer section). So many routing options... I'm just going to have to dig out the manual...
 
I'll be making heavy use of envelopes to sweep the usual cutoff and resonance settings, amongst other things, so this will be one of those "evolving" things.
 
I'm opting to use Sonar's Step Sequencer for now, because I'm not up to speed with the built in one, so it's easier to stick with what I know.
 
I'm turning off all the Hive on-board effects, for now anyway. I need to look into that further. May be I just turn off the reverb and delay and still use the flanger/chorus/phaser type effects. Need to play more, and read that manual.
 
Still, if you are familiar with analogue synths, Hive is still intuitive and easy to use...

Change of plan...
 
I said I'd turn off Hive's on-board effects. I've changed my mind on this, as it will give a false impression of Hive's capabilities. So, it's back to Hive's on-board effects, all the way. I may use my favourite limiter on the Master Bus and that's it...
 

Fleer
although I'm not into EDM

I didn't think I was to be honest. Tangerine Dream, JMJ, Kraftwerk (early) etc. but it appears that those bands sometimes get mentioned in the same sentence...

Oh much more than just EDM definitely. That's actually a constant struggle with my career haha, defining my music. Not that I NEED to define it... I'm happy with creating music that's at times ambient, at times electronic, at times alternative, at times film score, at times (rarely) EDM... But sometimes you have to check a box on a website or something, and my sometimes I'm forced into this "EDM" ghetto where everything is hard core dance music, and my track just happens to have a lot of synths in it but is totally chill and meant to be beautiful haha. EDM is actually one of my weakest points as a composer. I can fake jazz better than I can fake EDM... And I'm doing it all with synths haha :-)
 
But anyway, back on track, Hive has so much available for all different kinds of music. There's so many possiblities, and synkotron, I agree, leave the effects on. You can always add some external effects after too, but its cool to play around with what it can do internally as well. Use it to its potential :-)

polarbear
an old guy compared my music (from my album, An Unseen Sky, not the stuff in this Hive demo) to Tangerine Dream.

Yeah... A comparison to die for 
 
I'm always trying to emulate Tangerine Dream, especially around the Rubycon era, but it always come out Synkrotron 
 
My Hive test is coming along nicely. I'm going to map out a nice long sequence and then go back and pile on the envelopes for cutoff, resonance, delay, sustain, all sorts of stuff... So many envelopes to play with. I'm using Sonar X2, but I'm now wondering whether I should have used *ahem* Reaper, cos I find the way it allows you to edit the envelopes is a lot better in Reaper. If I ever find out that Platinum is better at handling envelopes then I may just consider an upgrade... (cos I'm a Sonar fanbois )

Okay David... If it's okay with you I will post it in this topic? I'll also post some pics of the automation lanes haha... mental!

Same here :)

polarbear
Haha yea for sure, I'd love to see that. :-)

I'm going to post a link in the Songs forum instead methinks...