My review of u-He's Hive

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polarbear
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2015/05/26 17:06:13 (permalink)

My review of u-He's Hive

Hey Everyone,
 
I just did a review (along with a new piece of music) of u-He's amazing new synth, Hive, over at my blog:
 
http://www.bydavidrosen.com/2015/05/25/this-thing-rules-u-he-hive/
 
Check it out :-)

David

http://www.bydavidrosen.com
http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
Winner of Best Song of 2007 at Acidplanet.com!
 
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/26 18:46:52 (permalink)
    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 
    post edited by synkrotron - 2015/05/26 19:29:35

    http://www.synkrotron.co.uk/
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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/26 22:57:52 (permalink)
    Thanks Andy. Yea computer is finally fixed haha. I am back in business... Finishing up a short film score tonight and then I get started on my 2nd ever feature. Excited to be back to work.
     
    Glad you liked the demo. Hive is really cool. I'm excited to continue digging into it :-)
     
    Oh and yea that Soundcloud Pro feature is called Spotlight I think? Lets you keep your 5 favorite tracks pinned at the top and all new tracks go after it. It's kind of confusing to be honest, but it's also cool because I don't necessarily want  "Infiltrate" or some of the other tracks on my Soundcloud to be the very first thing someone hears if they just stumbled upon my profile.

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
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    Vastman
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/27 02:31:01 (permalink)
    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...

    Dana
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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/27 09:54:11 (permalink)
    Thanks. Isn't it fun? :-)
     
    And thanks for the feedback on my website. I've had a few other people say that too... I just like that dark theme to it, but one of these days I am gonna try to at least make the links a slightly lighter shade to make it stand out more. Just gotta pull myself away from music for an hour to figure out how haha.

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/27 17:48:18 (permalink)
    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...

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    Fleer
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/27 23:08:53 (permalink)
    Thanks for the review, PB. Love Hive, although I'm not into EDM.
    Some amazing patches. Met Howard (HS) at Musikmesse, wonderful guy.

    "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" (Wish You Were Here)
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 06:55:03 (permalink)
    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...

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    Fleer
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 09:52:51 (permalink)
    Tangerine Dream, Jarre, early Kraftwerk, nice, nice. I find that Howard's patches show Hive to be much more than an EDM synth.

    "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" (Wish You Were Here)
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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 11:00:23 (permalink)
    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 :-)

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 11:03:22 (permalink)
    BTW just figured I'd throw out there that at an event where I showed off one of my new music videos, an old guy compared my music (from my album, An Unseen Sky, not the stuff in this Hive demo) to Tangerine Dream. Which of course made me consider that day/week/month a huge success :-) haha
     

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 12:13:57 (permalink)
    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 )

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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 12:58:18 (permalink)
    I'm definitely interested to hear your test track when it's done. I don't get that into the automation stuff as much as it sounds like you do, so I'll be really interested to hear what you come up with. I'm a tweak then play kind of a guy, rather than a play AND tweak haha.

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
    Winner of Best Song of 2007 at Acidplanet.com!
     
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 14:23:55 (permalink)
    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!

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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/28 14:57:21 (permalink)
    Haha yea for sure, I'd love to see that. :-)

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
    Winner of Best Song of 2007 at Acidplanet.com!
     
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    Fleer
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/05/29 00:06:56 (permalink)
    Same here :)

    "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" (Wish You Were Here)
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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/06/02 13:24:07 (permalink)
    BTW, just a reminder, Hive is available today. :-)

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
    Winner of Best Song of 2007 at Acidplanet.com!
     
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    synkrotron
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/06/02 19:11:45 (permalink)
    polarbear
    Haha yea for sure, I'd love to see that. :-)




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

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    polarbear
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    Re: My review of u-He's Hive 2015/06/02 20:14:12 (permalink)
    cool

    http://www.bydavidrosen.com
    http://www.imdb.me/davidrosen
    Winner of Best Song of 2007 at Acidplanet.com!
     
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