[Review] NI's amazing U-HE bundle!

Hi gang,

I hope you guys had a better Holiday season than I did.. it was ok, but due to the crisis and heavy restrictions it definitely wasn't as relaxed and fun as it should have been. Alas... Last January I skimmed the NI website and noticed what appeared to be "yet another instrument bundle", or so I thought. Although I've been collecting some expansions for my Komplete & Maschine setups I had enough sampled based instruments as it is, I really wanted something else for a change. "What's this U-HE stuff?", I wondered not really remembering that name. At first I even thought it was yet another Kontakt collection!

So I did some Google'ing, read some reviews and even though I wanted to take my time the pressure was on because I only had 2 more days to decide (actually 1 because I had some obligations for the day after tomorrow). So after reading many positive comments about U-HE I decided to dive head first into the unknown (for me at least) and yah... I've been messing with these instruments for a few weeks now and they blew me completely away, mind blown! This is some seriously good stuff!

What's U-HE?

If you're like me, a casual synth fan, then you might also not have heard the name before. U-HE is an software company from Berlin which specializes in developing VST plugins which can be used in DAW's. These plugins vary between instruments and audio effects, and as one could imagine: some of them also provide NKS support which means that they're perfectly usable within Native Instruments software such as Maschine or Komplete Kontrol.

And as mentioned above: some of those plugins are in my very humble opinion completely mind blowing!

The U-HE bundle

Mention of this bundle is gone now, this was obviously a temporary Holiday special, but the bundle included the following plugins:

Instruments: Diva, Hive 2, Repro 1 & 5 and Zebra 2.
Audio effects: Colour Copy, Presswerk, Satin and Twangström.

And in addition you also got the "Dark Zebra" soundpack expansion; a collection of dozens of presets for Zebra.

The whole bundle sold for E 459,-. A lot of money for sure, but if you look at the U-HE website you'll notice that Diva (= personal favorite) sells for E 179,- alone, Zebra 2 goes for E 199,- and if you add Hive to the collection you're already looking at E 527,- for only 3 plugins. This was a very good deal, and it turned out to be even better than I expected because these plugins are seriously special!

And despite the fact that you had to deal with a 3rd party the whole sale went remarkably well. In fact, it was a highly professional experience because... I didn't even have to register myself on the U-HE website as you see happening so many times these days. Instead I got an e-mail with download & registration instructions. I provided my name to use and in no time I got a collection of serial numbers registered to my name.

While waiting for the final e-mail I could immediately start downloading all the demo versions from the U-HE website (obviously I also quickly picked up some freebies, maybe a tip for random readers?) and after installing those all I had to do next was register them from within the plugin, provide my name and the right serial number and done!

So then I wondered how many times I was allowed to do this? I mean, this stuff doesn't come cheap and well... I'm also using a Maschine Mikro on the road, if possible I'd really enjoy some of these plugins on my laptop as well. Guess what? More people asked this; and their answer is simple: they register to people, not maschines (pardon the pun ). So as long as I'm the person using those other computers then I can activate these plugins on all of them. Now that's professional!

Diva


Diva is a semi-modular analog synthesizer. And honestly? I don't know what it is but according to a close friend of mine who is as passionate about his hardware synths as I'm passionate about my soft synths the line between analog and digital gets awfully blurred when using this gizmo. We actually hooked up my Audio 6 to some of his equipment and we started comparing the sound from Diva with some of his hardware synths. As mentioned; it's really really close! With some of these presets it's actually quite difficult to notice that it's a digital soft synth!

Alas... Diva provides 5 oscillators (Triple & Dual VCO, DCO, Dual VCO eco and Digital). These oscillators simply cry out for tweaking and sound designs, they're extremely extensive in their options (you can see an example in the upper left corner of the above screenshot). Filters... according to the official website these are behind the specific sound created by Diva, there are 5 of them: Ladder, Cascade, Multimode, Bite and Uhbie. Once again not exactly the common types you'd expect on a synth and so... there's plenty of tweaking to be done here as well though the individual controls leave little to guess fortunately (things like cutoff & resonance should be obvious enough).

Then we also have some obvious sections like LFO's, arpeggiator and some global effects (like chorus, phaser, reverb and delay).

But there's more... notice the tabs at the bottom? For dramatic effect I'm showing the scope but there's a lot more you can do here like setting up specific tuning, specific modifications (do you want VCO to follow your key or maybe something else like an envelope or modwheel?) and you can even detune the whole thing if you want to.

And the best part... Right click on the preset name (in the top middle) and you can select the "init" option, this will reset the device into its default settings, thus giving you a fully pristine setup from which you can start sound designs. Fun fact: this is actually one of the many specific features of Reason which I value the most: being able to reset a device with a few clicks.

Fair warning though... Diva can be quite CPU intensive, but... who cares with that kind of sound potential?

Hive 2


What is Hive? I can only describe Hive as a completely overwhelming dynamic synthesizer which provides a ton of sequenced sound designs. This is a modulation beast if I ever saw one... I've been playing with Hive for quite a while now and each and every time I just can't stop messing with the presets.

But alas.. it has 2 stereo oscillators which provide a nice variety of waveforms (sine, sawtooth, triangle, pulse, square..) but you can also draw your own. What makes this setup so special is the fact that you can apply variations to pretty much every part of your sound using either a combination of an arpeggiator with a 16 step sequencer and/or... the shape sequencer (see the middle section above the keyboard).

It's really hard for me to even describe this thing because despite having worked with it for quite a while I still don't fully understand everything about it. What I do know is that the musical potential of this thing is completely mind boggling. Here I was thinking that Reason's Europe was a pretty complex "dynamic synthesizer" and then I get confronted with this beast!

I'm well aware that this is a pretty weak review but it's the best I can do without reciting official product descriptions

And just as with Diva you can init this device to get a minimal default setup from which you can start to design your own setups.

Zebra 2


Finally a synth which is somewhat easy to understand!

4 wavetable oscillators combined with 8 filter types and 4 ADSR based envelopes makes Zebra a really good pick for sound design. Especially when you start messing with the routing panel (which you can see in the middle). Although looks can be deceiving (and they are) . Seriously though, you control Zebra from the main routing interface from where you can quickly set up a basic design using either additive synthesis or FM synthesis, then add some effects which you can optionally control using one or more LFO's, set up some envelopes and you're well on your way to make a specific sound design.

Just using some oscillators and basic filters alone make Zebra sound somewhat common, but once you start using some specific filters (like the XMF filters) then you can get some really specific sounds from this critter. Zebra excels in providing sounds varying from strong leads to soft pads.

At this point in time I prefer Zebra over Hive for sound design, but only because I still have a lot to learn about Hive.... and as with all U-HE synths: right click on the preset name and you can initialize the device...

Repro-1


Repro 1 (and 5) are very straightforward synths, in fact they're probably the easiest to learn within this U-HE bundle. It's an analog synth which has a rather simple interface: 2 oscillators, filter & envelopes, LFO, a modulation section and an arpeggiator and step sequencer.

It looks simple enough (and it is!) but Repro still had a little trick up its sleave:

And I thought Reason had a realistic "hardware look" ​

Next to your standard ways of experimenting with your sound you can also use the tweak section shown here to, well, tweak with your sound by applying specific changes in the way some of the Repro components should behave. So you can actually tweak your LFO, oscillators, envelopes.. even the main clock signal!

This makes Repro a bit of a "hybrid" when you compare it with, say, Diva or Hive; it has a bit of both (at least that's my impression!).

The sound effects...

I can only review one because I simply lack experience with the others, and as I mentioned before: I'm not going to write up reviews in which I merely recite official product descriptions.

Twangström


Twangström is a reverb effect which is surprisingly easy to use despite the rather complex looking interface. Just set the tone, filter and envelope found on the left and then you can apply extra modifications to your settings using the modelling controls on the right.

If you need more control over the way the effect is applied then you can also use the routing matrix below from where you can assign specific settings to specific controls. For example... you could set the pitchwheel as a source and then have it control any of the knobs you see on the interface. This can create some really interesting effects. Imagine creating a higher pitch on your synthesizer while you also lower the tone at the same time thanks to the routing matrix in Twangström... That can create some really special sounding effects!

Maschine and Diva


Maschine is my main Native Instruments controller and thus automatically also my de-facto controller which I prefer using with Komplete and instruments which were designed for Komplete. So first thing I did was to ignore the browser entirely and I simply slapped Diva onto pad one (as shown above) and I got ready for some serious sound design...

Yah, that turned out to be a bit of a let down at first, I mean.. just look at those macro controls.... Where's an oscillator control? How do I select waveforms? Why do I have 3 macro pages with envelope controls? Wasn't this stuff NKS ready?!

I'd imagine that some of you veteran users out there might be grinning by now, and you should (!), because I obviously picked up the NKS support in a completely wrong way. Something which was made painfully obvious when I loaded Absynth 5 (= one of my favorite Komplete synths for sound designs) and looked at its default macro setup:

You're not going to do much with those settings on the Maschine controller I think.... ​

Yah... NKS has its (8 page) limits so the idea here isn't to load up a VST which is as complex as Diva (or Hive! ) and expect to control every part of it. No, that idea is actually not that smart

What does work is to pick out a specific preset (either a factory preset or one made by yourself) which - when done right - will provide you with just the right amount of macro controls to get the most out of that particular preset. In other words: don't expect to do sound design from scratch while behind a Maschine (or Komplete Kontrol) controller, that's not the idea here. Instead rely on presets.

Actual sound design should be done behind your PC (using keyboard & mouse) and once you have a good setup you can then assign the macro controls to specific settings which are important for your preset by using the Maschine software (I'd imagine this might also apply to Komplete Kontrol but since I haven't worked with that I simply don't know for sure).

So to prove my point....



Here I have Diva loaded again but this time I didn't load the bare VST but added the "3EE_Spark Pluckarp" preset (one of my current favorites) and as you can see the macro controls make a lot more sense now; this actually allows for some serious (and optimal) tweaking!

Beware manual downloads!

I'd almost forget... some instruments do not provide NKS sound previews out of the box, the reason for that should be obvious enough I think. So if you want to have the full experience (and thus also sound previews of your presets) then all you have to do is simply visit the product page on the U-HE website for the synth you're using and there you'll find a NKS preview download right on the top of the page. The download will provide clear instructions on how you should install these packages. Trust me: it's quite easy.

Summing up...

I hope I gave you guys a bit of an impression of some of the crazy stuff you can do with the U-HE instruments; this stuff is really something else indeed. I've been using the U-HE collection in both Maschine as well as directly in Ableton Live (which forms the heart of my home studio) and I'm seriously impressed with the sheer potential which this stuff has to offer.

After having used these plugins for almost 2 months now (not full time obviously ) I still discover new things which you can do with them, or find new ways to enhance my synth presets even further. I also managed to set up a few parameters within Live itself so that I can control parts of Diva using my Push controller and seriously... even that cannot compete with doing some sound design using the simple mouse + keyboard combo

Once again: this is definitely a rather expensive bundle, even with the generous discount which NI provided, but when looking at the sheer volume of factory presets which you can use and the massive potential for sound design then I honestly think that this collection can make a serious impact on your work. From phat leads to clear pads right up to strong basses and/or bizarre background melodies... I think there isn't much which this collection can't do for you.

The U-HE collection is definitely something to look out for and if NI ever provides such a bundle again.... then my suggestion would be to grab it while you can

Thanks for reading, I hope this was useful for some of you. Does anyone know of some kind of UA (U-HE Anonymous) group by the way? No? Then I suppose I'll get back to my phat dynamic leads

 

Funny you! It's Urs Heckmann
https://u-he.com/ki/geborene-automaten.html