for the hell of it…101 consecutive randomizations…
first sound is INIT Saw to demonstrate pattern, followed by 101 consecutive randomizations. no adjusting volume or any settings. a clap separates the sounds [if it wasn’t obvious enough 
]…
caution at 3:13…its loud for.a sec
I was gonna do 1001 but fuuuuuuu.
phaelem – Please keep asking your questions. You send me skittering off into new unexpected unfound territories. But i don’t understand why you care – never forget you hate the way the HS sounds.
So the answer to your question is YES, but not exactly like you think. It’s done very Hydra. Be water. And the result can turn out more musical if you want that.
I thought of writing another of my long drawn out posts describing the procedure in detail – but i don’t understand the exact detail well enough yet, and this post is going to be too long as it is.
So let me just tell you the separate parts you assemble to do various things in ways like you ask. (That’s the Hydra ‘gestalt’.)
It’s a combination of how you use the Chord function, the Arpeggiator and the scale and key selector in the Voice section. You can add the Latch to this as well. All these pieces have sub-pieces and aspects.
There are 37 separate scales available not counting chromatic, which is really just an ‘all’, plus there is a Custom scale which you can pick any notes you want. Here’s the list:
Chromatic, Major, BeBop Maj, BeBop, Mixolydian, Harmonic Major, Lydian, Lydian Aug, Acoustic, Pentatonic Maj, Locrian Maj, Prometheus, Whole Tone, Melodic Minor, Half Diminished, Aeolian, Dorian, Harmonic Minor, Algerian, Gypsy, Hungarian, Ukranian, Dim. Whole Tone, Locrian, Neapolitan Major, Neapolitan Minor, Phrygian, Flamenco, Persian, Phrygian Dominant, Enigmatic, Tritone, In, Insen, Augmented, Blues, Pentatonic Minor, Hirajoshi.
Anyone else out there who uses the Irijule Theoryboard? You’ll recognize a lot of these scales, i think the HS has a few more scales, but the TB does the chords side for all there scales too. The TB has poly-aftertouch as well. Playing with the two together in another post, sometime.
A neat effect is to change the scale while arpeggiating a chord. Also switching between ‘Order’ and ‘Random’ on the arpeggiator has good effects. BTW the Prometheus scale is really cool – a little Scriabin anyone?
So one thing you can do is hold to a scale and key, so it’s not just playing the same chord and offsetting the note it starts on. (This is what i mean as more musical.) And since the HS ‘chord’ is more complex than just a collection of notes, it allows the Arpeggiator and the Voice to do other things depending on how they’re controlled. Add LFO, or other controls to this (i want to connect five expression pedals) lets you go in all sorts of directions.
Oh and the Ribbon controller can play through the Key and Scale too if you want.
I had another one of those moments last night experimenting with this all. I have several every day – going on the trip listening to what you’ve got the HydraMonster doing. I’m not sure exactly, but i think it has something to do with a mismatch in length of the chord and the arpeggiator, that sets off these Steve Reich sort of poly-rhythms (or is it poly-meters?). All in stereo with headphones. So i stopped everything and was just tripped on the sound – ten minutes it must have been. And i swear every so often the HS would switch something up for a few bar and then go back to the same hypnotic pattern – or is it just my mind playing tricks on me.
Also i’m starting to think the description of monotimbral doesn’t fit – there’s definitely other sounds happening, drum parts even, depending on the patch i’ve done. My neurotransmitters are spiking when i play the HS.
You’re making my spidey-sense tingle… I love the way you describe using the hydrasynth. I’m going to keep an eye on this beast.
RESPONSE! 
I keep asking because I SO enjoyed using the synth, I’m trying to find a way to love it…
so I WILL keep asking, since I can’t get on it at will. and I hope folks don’t mind answering.
a synth can sound good and also be TOTALLY uninspiring to use.
the Hydra was super fun to mess with.
hoping that future firms might address the highs…a way to roll it off. advantage: fully Digital. there can be updates
thanks man.
so thinking about what I said re: a synth being ‘inspiring’…
as an example [apples to oranges but kinda the same]: its no fun so get infant of a piece of gear that just doesn’t appeal…like…
GOLF CLUBS. [again not saying this applies to synths 100%, but to a degree]. golf clubs are pretty much all the same. diff flex, face etc…but the differences are negegalble. tho that’s not what the manufacturer wants you to think cuz…they wouldnt be able to sell as many…BUT…
for any skilled player, they can play pretty much any club as well as the next. BUT. another but, if you do not like what you are looking at…you just can hit them. the focus is taken off the swing and focus of how freakin ugly those clubs look. you gotta get a club that not only fits you, but looks right to your eye.
so…I think there is a level of that that applies to gear. and the Hydra looks sweet as fuck…to my eye. and fits with the way I do stuff. so I wanna get back over there and mess with it again, despite the sound. I feel like I can find how to figure it out…
[maybe I never will…]
anyways…
What I really want to do is replace my Blofeld with a modern wavetable synth. Specifically going for these kinds of sounds here:
That was all done with a Blofeld and I dived deep into the 'tablesphere to create those sounds. I’m hoping I can get similar worlds of sound from HS. Any owners have any thoughts on this?
Shamefully this is only my second or third time booting it up since I got it almost a week ago. I set out experimenting with stereo oscs and filters after watching the latest UDO Super 6 demo, and ended up with this patch I really loved.
It’s a saw on osc 1 and “Chendom1” wave on 2, slightly panned to L/R, with the filters in parallel mode, cutoff modulated on each with their own LFO at different phase and rate. Plus a tremelo, bit of reverb/delay, bit of lo-fi, and some EQ to boost the lows and taper the highs.
One trick I found that I like is setting the key tracking of one of the oscs to be slightly below 100%. I also patched aftertouch to detune further.
Love your chord progression there.
Hah, thanks, I just stumbled upon it and I’m 99% sure I stole it from something.
Oh yes, I totally hear that and that may be it!
That’s exactly the sorts of sound I was hoping to hear from this. Very nice.
Nice…still
Sounds pretty harsh…metallic/glassy(to me)
Nice line tho!
“Harsh”?
Okay, not to be argumentative, because I agree that most of the demos I’ve heard thus far have indeed been rather brash and metallic; but I officially don’t know what you’re hearing now. And I say that out of genuine, clinical curiosity.
Granted, I’m a 40-something, hard-touring, career musician of 30 years now, and I know for a fact that I don’t hear much above 15kHz anymore (which is typical for my age, never mind my profession), but I’m wondering if anyone has endeavored to put this synth through a spectrum analyzer or oscilloscope to see if there are in fact any upper frequencies escaping the filter or visible sidebands or distortion?
I don’t now how old phaelam is, or what he/she does for a living, but being able to hear ultra-high frequencies, especially if you find them overly distracting or grating, does not always indicate perfect hearing: i.e. sometime it can be the result of hearing damage or an overactive nervous system.
For that matter, it could be the medium through which one is listening to this synth: headphones, speakers, converters, amps/preamps, etc.
To put this in perspective, I’m producing an album right now, and my engineer just sent me a mix wherein he changed the phase of 10kHz on the Pultec, and I caught it straight away. That’s just to say that I know how to listen, and I have heard some warmth come from the Hydra (albeit I can only think of a single demo that showed that, other than the one above).
Cheers!
I listen on either grado ps1000 + schiit amp, Yamaha hs80 or klipcsh rf5. And I’ve never an will never put any in ear listening devices in my ears.
I’m old, but my my ears still test at the 15 years of age group.
Thanks.
Fair enough. But that is precisely what I’m saying. If you’re confident that it’s not your ears or your monitoring, then maybe someone should put this thing on the scope for a proper, unbiased, technical analysis, rather than subjective opinion based purely on perception (whatever that may entail). I’d personally like to see its shortcomings, if they are in fact there.
Again, I’m not denying that the Hydrasynth can be harsh; but we could wait forever for a competent sound designer to prove us wrong, especially on a synth that wants to be shiny. If there is an overabundance of high-frequency content, even with the filter closed, it will show on the scope.
Cheers!
Really lovely thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you so much for the comments, everybody. Didn’t expect such a nice response but I suppose the hype for this thing is still hot!
If anyone has a request to demonstrate something I will do my best to oblige.
My only comment about the perceived harsh/metallic/glassiness in my demo is that I am using 2 harmonically complex waves in that patch that definitely have some high up overtones in them though mostly filtered down, as well as a lo-fi effect after the filters which certainly adds some aliasing-like results if you listen close.
If I removed the lofi and changed all the waves to tri or sine, maybe the glassiness would be gone, but it’d also probably be much less interesting?
I have had mine on preorder since September and was originally expecting it sometime this month, but with the small delay I won’t have the unit til January probably. So I’m really avidly following all this haha
For myself, I would be interested to hear more wave morphing, and mutators, and how they might be used with evolving sounds, like long echoey pads and chords.
Some of the reactions make this out to be an interesting machine. Not really what I thought at first (something like the blofeld with a nicer interface). But it almost sounds like the guard rails are off and it lets you go there and do some unorthodox things, and maybe push the envelope of what people can even tolerate(!) I like that.