u-he The European alternative to Native Instruments / Spectrasonics

u-he is the brand name of Heckmann Audio GmbH, a German plugin developer that has been creating software synthesizers and effects since 2001. The company is based in Berlin and focuses on virtual instruments inspired by analogue and hybrid synthesizers. The products are used in electronic music, film scoring, sound design, and experimental music. The most well-known plugins include Diva, Zebra, Repro, and Hive. The portfolio also includes effects such as Satin, Presswerk, and Colour Copy.

u-he's plugins are downloadable software and run locally inside the user's DAW on Windows and macOS. The developer Heckmann Audio GmbH is based in Berlin. Licence management is handled via serial numbers and the in-house customer account without permanent online binding of the plugins themselves. Downloads and updates are delivered through u-he's official servers. As a result, the entire vendor infrastructure is located in Germany.

u-he offers several plugins free of charge that can be used without functional limitations. These include the monophonic synthesizers Tyrell N6 and Podolski, the granular sound generator Triple Cheese, and the experimental resonator Protoverb. From the Zebra family, there is Zebralette as a slimmed-down version of the wavetable synthesizer, complemented by BazilleCM and ZebraCM as special CM editions. These plugins are often used as an entry point into the u-he ecosystem. They support the common formats VST, AU, and AAX.