u-he news

Over two years in the making, Metaphorium for Hive 2 is now available! 220+ presets programmed in-house by Howard Scarr, Viktor Weimer (TUC) and Urs Heckmann himself.

This soundset contains a staggering variety of rhythms, chugging basses, melodic loops, atonal and tonal pads, dreamy soundscapes, dramatic and ambient effects. However, meticulous XY pad programming in Metaphorium makes many of the presets defy categorization: You can create radically different versions within seconds, bending presets beyond all recognition. Such flexibility makes them suitable for any genre of music and film.

Speaking of which: We are very pleased with how well the sounds work in The Matrix Resurrections score! We are already looking forward to hearing how other film composers and music producers use Metaphorium.

We saw Apple's switch to their own CPU architecture as a welcome opportunity to up our game and “go native”, so to speak. After several months of hard work, we have new plug-in versions, all refactored to offer a massive performance boost on recent Macs with Apple Silicon CPUs, especially if your host application has also gone M1-native. This means more instances of your favourite u-he plug-ins!

Users of other computer systems are not left out in the cold: We improved multicore support for Intel-based Macs, and the GUI response is generally smoother on all Mac models. Windows and Linux users also benefit from the following:

• Improved browsers, easy drag & drop soundset installation
• New resource management in Hive means that most presets will use even less CPU
• Support for MTS , a new project-wide microtuning standard
• New designs for Triple Cheese (freeware) and ZebraCM (magware)
• Better overall performance for all plug-ins on all platforms

As usual, these updates are free for existing owners. Simply download from our website and install.

AAX Mac is temporarily unavailable until native AAX support for Big Sur/Apple Silicon arrives. Pro Tools users should continue working with the previous versions until further notice. Installers for previous versions can be obtained from our Release Archive.

Version 2.1 comes with four new filter types, support for the latest Apple macOS and M1 hardware, 100 new presets, an alternative skin by Plugmon and much more.

How about some serious new synthesis 'grunt'? The added filter types are various flavours of comb including polyphonic reverb (!) as well as a sideband filter for ring-mod-like effects and other complex tonal colours. You can use the new filter 'Spread' (hidden parameter) to create immersive stereo in all filter modes, and the extra modulation source 'Mod Noise' lets you inject swirly organic magic into the cleanest of patches… try modulating one with the other!

The browser now features 'Bank' folders, which already list the factory presets by origin (the 100 new presets appear in the "Hive Factory 2.1" bank). Users can create custom banks via drag & drop, for instance all the Hive sounds you have used in one particular track.

Other workflow-related options include Scope viewing of modulation matrix outputs and the radically different alternative skin by Plugmon called 'Izmo'. Thanks, Yuta!

Hive now supports macOS Big Sur and the new M1-based Macs. As these developments dropped 32-bit support, so has Hive 2 on the Mac.

AAX Mac is temporarily unavailable until AAX support for Big Sur/Apple Silicon arrives. Pro Tools users should continue using Hive 2.0.1 until further notice.

To update Hive 2 from an older version, download the installer from the product page and follow instructions on page 4 of the included user guide.

Changes in version 2.1 include:

• macOS 11 (Big Sur) compatibility, native support for Apple Silicon (M1 CPU)
• macOS 32-bit support discontinued
• 100 additional factory presets
• Simplified soundset installation
• New smart folder type 'Bank': origin of presets or custom collections
• 4 new filter modes: Comb, Dissonant, Reverb, Sideband
• 4 new filter modulation targets: Spread, Damp, Ratio, Mix
• New delay & reverb modulation targets: Pan
• New Shape Sequencer targets: Position A/B/C/D
• New shape sequencer option: 'Halt'
• New modulation source: 'Mod Noise'
• The scope can now display modulation matrix outputs
• Alternative skin 'Izmo' by Plugmon
• New scale quantizer menu with 15 scale options
• Improved hold pedal and note-stealing behaviour

This update is free for all current Hive 2 owners. Enjoy!