I am thinking of getting another Hydrasynth Explorer, I sold one in the past as I found it too harsh… But it had the best implementation of macros in any synthesiser I’ve used. It was super easy to make a decent sounding patch, and then on top of that make one or more sound it could transition to with a single knob.
Below I’ve listed some HW/SW that I have found useful for this kind of thing, but I am hungry for more.
Hardware: 303 / 303 clones (separate control of accent envelopes allows pattern morphing) Hydrasynth (morphing filter, lots of macros) Octatrack (never tried one of these, but I understand scenes are a big deal) Norand Mono (able to morph between patterns) Modular (obviously)
Software: Ableton Live (snapshots) Bitwig (infinite macros and modulators) Cableguys Shaperbox Max/MSP / CSound etc
What are some tools that you have found useful for going from A to B (and then to C on the weekends)?
Well, it’s not modern but the yamaha AN200 also has a scene function that lets you blend between 2 completely different versions of a patch using the scene knob. Also, not quite the same but the JD-05 multistage envelope can kind of be used like this, but it would be more like creating a patch that naturally morphs over time and not the knoblike transition that you mentioned (which the AN200 does have).
I don’t know about rare, but I would say that sometimes these days they may be more hyped than they were a few years ago when nobody cared but the prices vary wildly. I’ve seen them on marketplace sites like craigslist, mercari and poshmark where the focus is not solely music gear and they do show up for less than what you might find on ebay or reverb for example. But reverb, I think it just depends on the seller. In most cases with most gear, it depends on the seller and their motivation.
The heyday of people “not knowing what they have” is mostly gone, but it’s the new heyday of people thinking they have something worth more than it is.
There’s one that I see on reverb for $450, there’s one on mercari for 586, several of various prices on ebay, sometimes it takes some waiting or digging to find the right item or the right price. I try to be patient with gear because music equipment is so high turnover that something will always be for sale.
I also frequently check places like music go round and guitar center because they’re more about getting stuff out the door (usually) than turning the highest profit and items are constantly marked down.
I haven’t looked much at an200’s lately but within the last year or so I saw a couple in the $300-400USD range so for me, I wouldn’t pay more than $400-450 for a nice one, but again, I’m more of a wait for the deal person than a “buy it now” shopper. And I can’t confirm that this is accurate for “current” market value, but to me, I wouldn’t pay more than that.
I’ve been burned a couple times buying older gear, but the AN200 might be worth trying again.
I should have added the Analog Rytm to the above list. I found it very immediate for coming up with patterns and developing them, but I found the sound design to be slow. It does have macros, but it generally took me long enough to find one sweet spot that I wouldn’t have the energy to find a second to morph to.
This is the Polybrute’s defining feature. Almost anything on it has a continuous transition between states, even the oscillator sync is a knob instead of a button. You can also control the morphing using several control surfaces like the Morphee, the ribbon and after touch if you want.
The Nord Lead has a velocity morphing feature.
In the modular world, I often use patch morphing on Intellijel Plonk, where you simply set a “morph to” mod destination then pick a saved patch to morph to.
Also, not sure if this meets your definition of morphing, but the Modal Skulpt does smooth transitions of oscillator waveforms, from sine to PWM and everything in between. The filter can morph from LP to band to HP, too. And you can also easily transition chords. There’s a lot those oddly angled knobs can do!
Took my Skulpt out yesterday and remembered how it’s actually a great VA synth.
Drambo does scenes and a crossfader a la Octatrack, but does it in software and with a virtual modular rack.
A4 has crazy macro capabilities, and the QPER of the mkII provides easy access to them.
Prophet VS and its “vector synthesis” derivatives (Wavestate, TG-33) are worth looking at.
For a thoroughly modern take, the Vector synth is pretty amazing. Given the company name is also “vector” and the overlap with “vector synthesis” it can be hard to google for. So here’s a link.
With its four voice polytimbral layering and spectral-shaping macros, I’m enjoying the Manatee for this right now. Though other additive classics like the Synclavier (Regen in hardware or Synclavier V in software) or Fairlight CMI (CMI V in software) give more control over morphing at the cost of complexity.
Ontop of the already mentioned Drambo crossfader (works like the octatrack) you can place unlimited morph macro modules to morph groups of parameters. Its extremely powerful.
Gotharman gear has two morph knobs, one for the audio side and one for the sequencing side. You can have two versions of the patch and blend between the two. Ontop of that, you can mutate the sequences with LFOs which is really powerful (my current obsession).
The MFB Dominion club has continuous morphable OSCs, as well as a VCF that morphs from LP->HP->Notch. Both are great for subtle changes.
Loopy Pro. I use it as mixer, control surface, effect hub and looper. Tons of options there.
Use retrospective loops to catch the last X bars (up to 32) of what happened anytime on one or multiple channels. Of course tempo syched and with crossfades for seamless loops.
Map any number of controls (“widgets”) like buttons, potis and XY pads to multiple actions with multiple targets (Loopy, plugins and MIDI) at once.
Map MIDI controllers to control one or more widgets.
Same can be done with widgets controlling other widgets.
Create and restore snapshots of these widgets on the fly (eg a widget to control multiple delay sends at once but it creates a snapshot before modification and restores it when you release it)
Morphing at its most basic form is simply the synchronous transition of several parameters to new values. That what the Octatrack does with the crossfader: all available parameters transition to from one scene’s values to the other scene’s values. A good approximation of this can be done with any synth that has a mod matrix that meets the following criteria
you can assign midi CC (or dedicated knobs on the machine, like in the A4) as modulation sources
most (or at least enough) parameters of the synth are available as modulation targets
there are enough modulation slots available
Off the top of my head, the following synths have enough slots in their mod matrix to do complex enough morphings:
Waldorf Microwave II / XT, Q, MicroQ, Blofeld, M (16 slots)
Waldorf Iridium (40 slots)
You could also achieve something similar with a Blokas Midihub for synths that expose all required parameters via) MIDI, but that’s a lot of hassle to set up, and you need to update that patch whenever you change one of the morphed parameters in your synth.
Q has the actual Xmorph patch morphing also… you could kinda set up a chain of morphs by morphing and then jumping to the next instrument slot and morphing and jumping.
If we are talking non synths cirklon has some really clever ways if slowly transitioning a sequence between multiple different instruments, you would still have to design a few different patches that work well.