[Updated on 2/2/2022 to add interview with Sonic State interview with Sound Designers at bottom of post]
U-HE Hive 2 is one my main go-to plugins. It’s easy on the CPU, sounds incredible. It has amazing presets and straight-forward user interface allowing you quickly find something useful yet tweak it to make it your own or to make it the sound sit even better in the mix.
U-HE Recently release a killer new sound set for Hive 2 called Metaphorium.
Here is a teaser video for the sound set.
I grabbed it right away and made this quick jam video on Push 2. the main lead is a tweaked preset from their new awesome Metaphorium sound set. I also use U-HE’s amazing Diva synth in this jam.
About Metophorium
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.
These sounds were used film composers Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer for the TV Series Babylon Berlin and then by both composers again for The Matrix Resurrections.
In the past U-HE and U-HE’s Howard Scarr has collaborated with composers like Hans Zimmer to make sounds (and even a special version of Zebra called Dark Zebra), so I was kind of surprised when they made these sounds for Hive.
That being said, these sounds for HIVE don’t disappoint. And as with Dark Zebra presets, Howard, Viktor, and Urs’s work here is also master class in sound design.
The Metaphorium story
So how did all this come about? Below is an excerpt from the U-HE web site on the 2 year journey to create these sounds and I also included a 27 minute review of these preset with Nick Batt over at Sonic State.
Summer 2019: Composer Johnny Klimek approaches Urs about Zebra2 presets for a secret film music project. He describes the kind of sounds he is looking for, and asks Urs whether he knows of any u-he sound banks that would fit the bill – or failing that, the names of sound designers who would be capable of creating such presets.
After some thought, Urs recognizes the sonic gap in u-he’s portfolio… u-he could make those presets themselves, to be released as a soundset after Johnny’s project hits the cinemas. A win-win for both parties. For it to become a viable product, the soundset would have to be for one particular synthesizer: It was decided on Hive.
Autumn 2019: Viktor, Howie and Urs start programming new Hive presets. Urs adds features to Hive so that it can deliver all sound types Johnny described. Howie and Urs fly off to Gran Canaria to polish the sounds and integrate them into Johnny’s workflow. Howie and Johnny sit together and tweak the presets until everyone is satisfied. By the end of 2019, a bank of over 200 presets is ready for the composers.
Spring 2020: Johnny and Tom Tykwer’s project Babylon Berlin airs, with some episodes already featuring the new presets.
Summer 2021: IMDB quotes Johnny and Tom as co-composers for The Matrix Resurrections movie! Clearly, this was the secret project! And sure enough, Hive features heavily in the score.
U-He Metaphorium Patch Flip – Sonic LAB
Nick over at Sonic state a walkthrough video of a lot of the presets which will give a sense for them as well as a sense for Hive if you’ve never used.
I also added this video where Nick interviews the sound designers.
Mark Mosher 