We’re back at it with Hive 2 – this time making a very atmosphere deep wide pad good for drum & bass and other things.
In today’s Synth Secrets we’re going to use u-he’s workhorse synth Hive 2 to cook up a deep, wide, atmospheric stab that would make a good centerpiece for an atmospheric drum and bass tune. Think LTJ Bukem with 21st century tools.
This thing is lush, and we’ll use oscillator 2 to hide a special secret; though it’s a stab patch with most of the excitement up front, if you hold the note long enough it evolves into a mellow, unobtrusive ambient pad that can sit in the back of the mix and let other elements take center stage.
If you don’t already have Hive installed on your machine, you can grab a demo from u-he’s website and we highly recommend doing so.
Set your DAW to 170 bpm, drop an instance of Hive on a new instrument track, plug in the following MIDI information, and let’s go.
Here’s what we’re making:
Step 1: Initial Setup
It’s a new patch, innit? Click on the preset selector up top and select init to initialize the patch and start from scratch. On the global settings up top, set the voice mode to legato and set the transpose value to -16.
Moving to Oscillator 1, click on the waveform to change modes and select Wavetable, and then click on the wavetable menu, choose the Harmonics submenu, and select 3 Overtone Series. Now, click and drag on the waveform to change the wavetable position, moving it to 44.
Fatten it up by changing the Unison setting to 8, the accompanying Detune to 20, and then set the Octave parameter to -2, giving us a deep foundation to begin with.
In the Sub Osc 1 section, change the waveform from Pulse to Like Osc to essentially duplicate what we’ve already got going on. Change the Semi setting to 7, which transposes the sub oscillator up a perfect fifth from the root.
You’ll see in the input selector section of filter 1 that, by default, only Osc1 is lit up. Click on Sub1 to route the sub oscillator to filter 1 and ultimately to the master output. Our progress so far:
Step 2: Adding Oscillator 2
Let’s bring oscillator 2 into the mix. We’ll make this one a wavetable oscillator as well, and in the Harmonics menu of wavetables we will select Overchord Saws. Set the Wavetable position to 22. We’ll modulate that parameter later to add some dimension to the sound.
Set Unison to 8, Detune to 10, Octave to -1, and Semi to 4. Then move over to Sub Oscillator 2. Change its waveform to Like Osc and set Semi to 7.
Now activate OSC2 and SUB2 on Filter 1’s input selectors and we’ll hear that it’s starting to come together in earnest.
Step 3: Tone Sculpting
Now let’s do some tone sculpting. Pull the cutoff on filter 1 down to 0. Set the resonance to 60 and the Mod Env setting to 60, which sets up modulation envelope 1 to affect filter 1’s cutoff over time with significant strength.
Now to filter 2. Select Filt 1 on filter 2’s input selector, which essentially duplicates filter 1’s output signal and sends it through filter 2 to be shaped. Set resonance to 80, cutoff to 0, and switch the type from Lowpass 24 to Highpass. This gives oscillator 2 a nice bump in the low mids that adds body to the sound.
Step 4: Shaping with Envelope
Now to shape the envelope of the sound. Head to the envelope section of Hive. Starting with AMP 1, set A, D, S, and R to 1, 80, 25, and 50, respectively. Then move to MOD 1 and set the sliders to 1, 45, 15, and 60, as pictured below. Also change the Velocity parameter on mod envelope 1 to 30. By turning that parameter up, we make it so that the velocity of our notes affects the overall intensity of mod envelope 1’s effect.
Head over to AMP 2 and set the sliders to 90, 50, 100, and 75. This very high attack setting makes it so that oscillator 2 has a long and dramatic fade in. Try hitting a key and holding it for a good long time – 5 seconds or more – and note how oscillator 2 now slowly fades in as a pad layer well after the main hit.
Leave MOD 2 untouched, it will do just fine as is.
Step 5: FX Section
Let’s get some gratification in the effects section. Hit the FXbutton in the center section to bring up the effects menu and activate the Reverb, EQ, Comp, and Delay engines.
Set the parameters of the effects to roughly match what you see below. Now we’re getting deep.
Step 6: Modulation Matrix
Now we’re going to give the patch some life in the modulation matrix. Select Matrix A and set the first unit’s primary source to Velocity and click and drag the target selector to the filter 1 cutoff knob. Now turn the depth knob in the mod matrix to a value of 35. Hit some notes at different intensities on your MIDI controller and note the effect.
In the second unit of the matrix, set LFO2 as the primary source and drag the target selector to filter 2’s cutoff knob. Move the depth to 10 for a subtle effect.
In unit three, select Shapeseq A as the primary source and drag the target selector to oscillator 2’s waveform display, which will route the modulation to oscillator 2’s wavetable position. Turn depth up to 25.
Finally, in the fourth unit, select LFO1 as the primary source, LFO2 as the secondary source, and drag the target selector to oscillator 2’s Pan control. Set depth to 75. This will add width and interest to the long tails of our notes.
Step 7: Final LFO Tweaks
Finally, we will make some minor tweaks to LFO parameters. Turn LFO1’s Rate to -2, and LFO2’s Rate to -4. Also change LFO2’s restart behavior from Gate (which resets the envelope every time a new note is hit) to Sync (which lets the LFO run more freely and give us long sweeps). Finally, draw an interesting six-step pattern into Shape Sequencer A which will give us a subtle and satisfying wave sequencing sound on the tails, faintly reminiscent of the classic tones of the Korg Wavestation.
Here’s the patch on its own:
And in the context of a mix, with a chopped break and some basic processing: