I have no tips to contribute, but just wanted to say that I demo’d this recently and the sound quality frickin floored me. Almost bought the Hydrasynth Explorer, but went for the Minifreak instead bc I had already had my eye on it.
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One thing that intrigues me about the Hydrasynth is the inspiration behind creating it. In the article below, Glen Darcey discusses some of the sources of inspiration that went into the HS. He mentions the Prophet T8 as the inspiration behind the Polytouch keyboard, not the Yamaha CS80. He also lists several other synths, mostly hardware but also software.
One thing he didn’t seem to know is that tempo-based envelopes already existed in the Emu Proteus 2000 series modules. I also seem to remember programmable step based LFOs from somewhere… anyone know? 
Probably linked to before but here’s the article.
Other interesting UI bits include the LED rings from Nord Modular (and the Macros remind me of parameter morphs from the Nord synths), the multi-knob display from Oberheim Matrix12/Expander - and as mentioned upthread, the module selection buttons from Ensoniq ESQ 1.
Great ideas, all of them, and so nice to see them all in one place.
Obviously I’m not accusing anyone of stealing, just so that’s clear. Sharing of ideas is what progress is all about.
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it’s Apple’s business model 
Thank you for the article and the thinking behind all this!
Without our ancesters knowledge, Hydrasynth would be…an acoustic marimba with a pedal to morph it to a xylophone ? 
Btw I’d like to have/make one…
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Just pulled the trigger on a desktop! Had my eye out for awhile and one just came up on Reverb in excellent shape at a decent price! Can’t wait to make some crazy sounds on this thing.
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Same! Got mine today, so excited but yo the power cable is wayy to short lol
How short? The ones that came with both my DT and Explorer aren’t too shabby, much better than the power supplies from some other companies. So it’s possible it’s not the ASM one. Or their bean counters are making pointless savings.
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It’s like about a meter, maybe a little less. The pads on mine are very very hard to activate I feel like I will break my fingers trying to play it.
The adjustments on System Setup 3 changes this.
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Which ones exactly? I only see/find AT and VEL curves but that isn’t exactly the issue with mine, it’s the actual trigger threshold seems very high, feels like it need to hit the pads really hard to get a note and it also releases very easily so I seem to often lose notes in chords.
Not sure. I was thinking the Velocity Curve.
You could try reducing the Aftertouch Offset value.
I only have a keyboard version, so no experience with the pads myself.
I did spend time adjusting these values to get them to feel right for me, and wrote them down.
Explorer’s adapter cable is particularly long: around 3 meters !
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Yeah, over here.
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If still nothing comes out from Superbooth 2024, I’m just gonna call ASM = A Synth Manufacturer.
ah thank you. guess i shoulda searched
Hi I just added a Hydra Explorer to my DT / DN & A42 set up - this ‘too slow to play first note if you have a PC command as well as a Note Trig to the Hydra’ is driving me mad - like you and @quadk I have had to add a Trigless Trig PC on step 15 of the previous pattern to get it to play a Note trig on step 1 of the next pattern… I wish I’d seen this thread before buying the Hydra tbh… as it is super annoying…
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It’s unfortunate. Blofeld is really fast in that concern. I even used a drum kit controlled by program changes for each sound with it.
Originally I bought a 2nd hand Blofeld - but it was damaged (only 1 audio channel worked) and had to get it refunded. I used to have a multitimbral Novation Nova and that handled 6 x midi note and PC changes (6 channels) no bother from the Takt ! and that was a 20 year old device !
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It has been mentioned before I’m sure, but don’t sleep on microtuning scales! Make a sequence in your favourite sequencer and send it to the HS while going through the microtonal scales and see how they interact with even with the most boring of sounds. Or just set off a latched arpeggiator like the manual suggests.
Where to find them: they are hidden after the long list of “normal” scales in the voice menu on page 3.
Some tips:
Microtones are best served with bright sounds, as the action really happens in the overtones (harmonics), and you might find that different scales work well with different waveforms. So if you find one you like and it doesn’t always work as expected on other presets, that may be why. It’s eady to get overwhelmed (or indeed underwhelmed by some of the scales) and I reckon that’s why we don’t see a lot of microtonal music in mainstream genres. Stick at it and it will at the very least give you better listening skills.
You have 32 to choose from, which is very generous, and if you want you can repace any of them by loading your own as well. If you decide to do that, the first ones you can safely replace are the equal tuning ones, like quarter tones and 19 tone. These can be done using keyboard scaling instead.
Happy synthing!
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I haven’t had any issues getting decent bass sounds out of the Hydrasynth.