Besides a Hydrasynth fanatic, around these parts, i’m known as a speculator. I just like using my imagination. You’ve been warned.
Coming up early next month is the Knobcon Show. Ashun Sound Machines is exhibiting there again this year, of course. This is the show where they show their new products.
No idea if anything is ready, they hold off all announcements until the product is almost ready for you to buy. Glen Darcy has gone so far as to say they are working on stuff, because a company needs new products to stay alive, but there is no hint on what those new products might be.
I’ve speculated elsewhere about new ASM products that aren’t Hydrasynths. The Explorer and the Deluxe took me by surprise, which was nice. So i am going to muse about some other Hydrasynths they could do.
The Hydrasynth Eurorack Module. The complete eight voice engine in a compact Eurorack format. It has a screen and a few multifunction controls, perhaps similar to the ones on the Explorer. It also has at least the full set of CV inputs and outputs, with USB and TSR MIDI. Priced a notch below the Explorer. In orange and black ?
[ Haken did this with their EaganMatrix Module. ASM can too, and do it better. ]
The Desktop Deluxe. A bi-timbral desktop, with a vastly improved pad matrix. The pad matrix would be larger, and the pads would be sensitive to touch in three dimensions ( X, Y, Z ). There would also be a sequencer mode with that grid, and pad presses would be mappable into the Mod Matrix, as well as eight of those pads tied into Macro Controls, for lightning fast finger controls, for the pad virtuoso. This will be the go-to device for those seeking a premium non-traditional keyboard controller. Priced a notch above the 49 key Hydrasynth Keys.
A software upgrade for the Deluxe to give it quadraphonic audio output capability, allowing for things like LFO control of individual voice placement in two dimensions. I discussed the technical possibilities of this earlier.
The 49 key Hydrasynth Keyboard Mark 2. With the release of the Deluxe and Explorer, ASM made small improvements to the keyboard sensitivity, and added Note Velocity Off detection capability to those two keyboards. This hardware upgrade brings those improvements to the HSK. But it also does the Deluxe one better by adding pressure sensing to the ribbon.
This might also be accompanied with Keyboard Split functionality for the HSK as a synth / controller. The keyboard split software upgrade will be available to the HSK1 owners as well.
The price of the HSK Mk2 remains the same.
Your turn to pretend you’re the product manager for the HS.