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

I wanted to like this synth, I really did, and it's got a lot going for it. It's just that, ultimately, I've never found any actual use for it. That's because whenever I put it into a mix, it doesn't quite live up to my expectations. I can't put my finger on what it is but, like a few other synths in the same price bracket, it feels like it's missing that last little bit of "oomph". It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but neither does it reach the dizzying heights you might expect from everything you read about it.

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.

This is where I started to get a bit disappointed because even some of the best presets I'd found sounded kind of flat in our mixes. So I tried to see if I could give them a bit of a boost. At this point I discovered that despite mostly having everything on one page, Hive is not actually very quick or easy to work with. It feels too much like two separate synths slammed together, so you are forever flicking from one side of it's gigantic interface to the other, looking to see if the output from the right side oscillator is being fed into the right and/or left side filters and generally 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).

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. All of which got me thinking that maybe I'm just not the target market for this instrument.

If you want a synth with a really long list of features that comes with 2,000 factory presets, maybe Hive is for you. OTOH, if you just want a great sounding, versatile synth that isn't too difficult to work with, there are better options around and some of them are a fair bit cheaper.

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.....