Hive Fire Beta
You’re in the hive. Thank you for testing!
Below is everything you need: the download, a two-minute setup, a tour of what to try, and the form to send bugs and ideas straight to me.
✓ View the VirusTotal scan of this installerUp and running in two minutes
Install
Run the installer. It puts Hive Fire in the standard VST3 folder every Windows DAW scans (C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3).
Rescan
Restart your DAW, or rescan plugins. Look for Hive Fire by Dad Bee Music.
Load a chain preset
Add it to a track and pick a preset from the CHAIN menu under the tabs: your genre, then your instrument.
Make it yours
Click any tab to open that module, power modules on and off, drag tabs to reorder, and save your own presets.
Hover over anything with Show ToolTips on (top right) to see what it does. The Help link opens the full User Guide.
The biggest update yet
Plus a long list of bug fixes and polish under the hood.
- 900+ presets. Whole-chain and per-module, by genre and instrument, all level-matched to bypass.
- A new harmony engine. Harmonies that hold steady on big, low-tuned chords.
- Click-free everything. Every delay, power button, switch and dropdown changes smoothly mid-song, within about 5 ms.
- Reverse delay that swells up from silence into each reversed note.
- A rebuilt transient shaper. Take the pick, pluck or bow attack right off any instrument, or make it punch harder.
- EQ fixes. Cuts and shelves sit exactly on their nodes, and dynamic bands glide instead of stepping.
Eleven tools, and what to try in each
Testing tip: try things on real tracks you know well, and push settings to their extremes. That’s where bugs hide.
Noise gate
Cleans up silence between notes and phrases. Always first in the chain.
a vocal or tom track; set Threshold just above the bleed.
Level rider
Rides the volume toward a target level, and can write that ride as automation.
a vocal with quiet and loud lines.
De-esser
Softens harsh “s” sounds. Listen lets you hear exactly what it removes.
turn on Listen, then sweep Frequency.
Dynamic EQ
Up to 24 bands with a live spectrum. Any band can react to the level, or to another track through the sidechain.
key a guitar-bus band to the vocal so the guitars duck only where the vocal sits.
Compressor
Punch and glue, plus Low-End, Highs and Fry Scream character sliders.
Fry Scream on screams and aggressive vocals.
Width & harmony
Width, a doubler, a transient shaper and up to four harmony voices on Classic, Poly or Poly HQ engines.
Attack at -100% to strip the pick off a lead guitar.
Slap delay
Short slap-back with tape-style wobble and saturation.
Bee-Slap and Tape on a rock vocal.
Delays & looper
Throws, ping-pong, analog, tape, reverse and a bar-locked looper.
automate Throw on the last word of a line; try Reverse at 1/2.
Reverb
Room, plate, hall and chamber, with filters and ducking.
Duck on, so the tail opens up between phrases.
Limiter
True-peak brickwall limiter, up to 32× oversampling, dither and lo-fi crusher modes. Always last.
a master preset, then compare its loudness in VIEWER.
Analyzers
Spectrum, LUFS loudness, phase correlation and the fire stereo-field display.
open it on your master while the song plays.
Flip it mid-song
Every switch can be clicked or automated while audio plays, without clicks.
an envelope switching PACK’s Fry on and off for a roar.
Great bug reports make a great plugin
Anything that sounds wrong, clicks, crashes, looks off or just confuses you is worth sending. Ideas and “I wish it could…” are welcome too.
What happened
What you did, what you expected, and what happened instead. “Clicked Reverse on a vocal and heard a pop at the end of each repeat” is perfect.
Where
Which module and settings (or preset), what track it was on, and roughly where in the song.
Your setup
Your DAW and its version, Windows version, sample rate and buffer size. A screenshot or short screen recording helps a lot.
Good to know
Restart your DAW or rescan plugins (in FL Studio, use “Find installed plugins” in the plugin manager). Make sure your DAW scans C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 and is 64-bit.
Nothing is lost. After Oct 31, 2:16 AM the beta passes audio through untouched, so your projects still open and play, just without Hive Fire’s processing. Install the Halloween Special release and everything comes back, settings included.
A few features look ahead to work their magic: the gate and limiter look-ahead, HARM’s 2 ms transient look-ahead and its Poly harmony engines. Hive Fire reports this to your DAW, which keeps every track in time automatically. Keep your DAW’s plugin delay compensation on.
Not in the beta. Mac (AU) and Pro Tools (AAX) are planned for version 1.0.
Please send friends to dadbeemusic.com/hive-fire to sign up instead, so everyone gets the beta email and the updates.
Bug reports, ideas and questions
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Every report is read. Please allow up to 24–48 hours for a reply.