I’m pretty sure from the voice the rep here is Flux, who is now an employee. He’s on the about page.
Pinged TJ to give up what we’re dying to know - is the refined keybed hype for real or not?
His response - don’t fault him for not knowing the HSK convention…
The Deluxe is a bit lighter feel and more consistent travel as opposed to HS49 with a more resistant spring like feel. I can’t say I favor one or the other without them side by side. There wasn’t a HS49 at Knobcon. It’s probably more a matter of taste. The Explorer is certainly one of, if not the, best mini keys out there right now. I didn’t get to formally test the note off velocity response. Hard to that at booth without creating my own test preset.
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I have a bad case of GAS for both new models, despite, or maybe because of owning the HSK. Totally irrational, but GAS often is.
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Owning and loving the HSK makes me want the deluxe. Like, a lot.
I bet that if the explorer had been out before I had ever played the HSK I would likely have gone for it instead since it seems like a great deal. I don’t mind mini keys if they’re good (I absolutely love the keys on my reface) though I obviously prefer full size. However, having owned the HSK for a while now I really love the interface as a whole and that includes the ribbon. I thought the ribbon would feel a little bit gimmicky or tacked on but it feels like an essential part of the hydra to me. It ends up playing an important role in most of my patches.
I’m interested to hear more about the keybed changes in the deluxe. I have better feeling keybeds than the HSK but I’ve yet to play anything with better articulation. If they’ve managed to retain that but improve the feel I’ll be trying to decide what to sell to fund the deluxe.
Note: by “feel” I mean resistance or “sponginess”. And by “improve” and “better” I mean more in line with my preferences. It’s a great keybed as-is, I just have other keyboards who’s tactile response feel more natural to me, strictly a personal preference thing and far outweighed by the poly aftertouch.
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Just confirmed my favorite local shop will be carrying Explorer and Deluxe. Same shop that has a bunch of Sequential, Moog, etc synths all in the same room.
Can’t wait until the store has all these new toys in the room ready to be played. The only downer is the store doesn’t seem to carry Dreadbox- would have loved to include Nymphes in what looks to be a fun shootout.
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New patches for Hydrasynth from Sonalsystem.
The patches are called Abyss.
The patches are described as ethereal, ambient, and massive. I liked what i heard.
$25 USD.
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I read where people peg the Hydrasynth as a wavetable synth, when really it does so many other things as well.
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Yeah I see it referred to that way commonly, maybe primarily. I don’t tend to think of it that way even though I do use that aspect of it.
I seem to have an affinity for synths with wavetable elements that I don’t have to view as purely wavetable. Hydra, esq-m, sq1+, pro3, evolver, all in my stable.
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Here Ken Flux shows the metal bottom of the Explorer, and talks about some other construction details
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I like this. Good to see more detail on both. The setting of the cross over keyboard split point on the Deluxe has a good set of options and the display very helpful. The metal underside to the Explorer shown in the video is interesting to see.
Minor oops shortly after 14:45 Jorb says the performance controls are potentiometers. They are not, they are high quality encoders, as are the fixed controls.
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Just came across this (on the synth, and in this thread). Makes a big difference. Was starting to feel limited by Hydrasynth but just had to dig in a bit more.
Unrelated, I wouldn’t mind 4 more pages of favorites.
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Favorites are useful. Not sure why there aren’t more pages. Being able to name pages might be nice too. With eight per page, you can also treat it as two groups of four. Note : There are eight pages of four on the Explorer.
Other ways to do similar things:
I’ve spent time using the Patch Manager to move stuff around. This together with setting the power up patch to be in the middle of a group is useful.
I’ve also hijacked one of the less used Browse Categories, i think i used “Chord” because that didn’t have very many patches in it. I use it for my patches. I wish there was a Browse Category specifically for this, like “User”. Or better if there was a way to create your own Category names.
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From the start there has been a Keyboard Velocity OFF “Velo Off”, along with Velocity ON in the list of Mod-Matrix Sources. In the old manual, there is a footnote on the Velocity Group as follows:
[2] Incoming Note Off velocity messages are recognized, but the Hydrasynth keyboard does not generate them.
In both the Deluxe and the Explorer manual this footnote is gone. NOTE: As far as I can tell the MIDI Note Off Velocity change has no effect on MPE.
Now i have no information regarding whether the HSK ( the 49 key one ) will continue to be manufactured this way, or if this a pending software upgrade, or perhaps a hardware version change at some point.
I am pretty sure that the change in keyboard action that Ken Pierce describes in the videos, is a hardware only change. Is that only a Deluxe feature, or will there be a hardware version change ? Really not expecting an answer from anyone here, unless someone really does has some news.
There needs to be new Deluxe version with HydraMorph.
You set separate MIDI channels for Up and Lo on the Deluxe, and a HydraMorph Deluxe could control all the NRPN controls of both at once.
An interesting way to do that is to use the ribbon set to pitch bend. Lots of different effects possible depending how you play the ribbon.
And you can do something else, not what you’d expect. You set a arpeggiator sequence. Then use Voice parameters Key and Scale to remap that sequence. There are issues with this, but there are ways to work around them. You can explore very interesting harmonic places with well considered Key and Scale sequences, or just trip over them at random.
Do other HSK users here play the poly-aftertouch while running an arpegiator ? You might not think of that but it works. Just another way to vary your arpeggiator sequence.
Other HSK arpeggiator tricks. Put a chord in and arpeggiate that chord around. ( Simple chords or two notes usually. ) Turn Tap Triggger ON, and tap a rhythm on the arpeggiator sequence – holding the Tap Trig button down holds whatever is playing at that point. Turn on Glide. Combine any of these separate pieces and see what happens.
Lots of tips and tricks.
Top tip: Just try things and see what hapoens.
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Just want to salute @Jukka and say thanks for always sharing your knowledge, methods, and insights on the Hydra. Much appreciated. If I ever understand it even 1/2 as well as you do, I’ll be pretty stoked. Until then… the experimenting continues, and the beeps keep goin.
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FWIW’s the few stores with preorder listings for both the Deluxe and Explorer have them listed as shipping between Nov 14 and Nov 25.
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