Hydrasynth from ASM - Tips, Tricks and Queries

[Tagoe76]

Nice one. Also Live 11 apparently. Just to clarify, do you mean I can use the HS as a MPE midi controller to control vst’s in Bitwig?

Looking forward to getting this up and running. Ive been fighting a losing battle with my setup for years. The addition of a midi hub and cvocd have made music fun again. Got the OT happily sequencing the mother 32 / dfam and neutron, backed up by DT, DN, Syntakt and a few other bits. Its always the same, a couple of eureka moments and I’m suddenly excitedly looking to add gear…

[Jukka]

@Tagoe76

Just to clarify, do you mean I can use the HS as a MPE midi controller to control vst’s in Bitwig?

Yeah you can do that too. But the Hydrasynth will also respond to external control via either MPE or Poly-aftertouch. It’s a global parameter to select between them, so you don’t need to change patches around.

[Tagoe76]

Great thanks for the info Jukka. Is it your main synth?? You seem v knowledgeable…

[Tagoe76]

The answers in your bio

[Jukka]

Another thing in the same realm as the two way connection between a DAW and MPE or Poly-Aftertouch on the Hydrasynth, there is also a two way high precision connection to virtually all the controls accessible on the Hydrasynth by a DAW that is capable.

This is done with a trick that was added to MIDI a number of years back, called NRPN. NRPN in a nutshell is a way to combine four regular MIDI CC messages and make a new enhanced CC message with much greater precision, and many more separate messages.

There is a separate reference that ASM put together with the specification. But since it works both ways you can also manipulate almost any control on the Hydrasynth and view the NRPN code it creates, rather than studying the reference manual.

This permits you to do some amazing things, like create and navigate infinite sized wavetables, or change the Mutants on a voice on the fly and manipulate all the parameters that are not included in the Modulation Matrix, like all the parameters in the Mutant that was just changed. And on and on !

The possibilities are mind blowing and mostly little explored, including by me.

[Dstepatl]

Really, really impressed with the hydra. A little analog feel, random phase and warm mode, and it can do analog well enough.

Can also do great digital.

[braken]

@Dstepatl

A little analog feel, random phase and warm mode, and it can do analog well enough.

I find the filter drive is really helpful if I’m chasing analog-like tones, and in general is an easy way to warm a patch up. I probably have it set to a minimum of 10 on every patch I create, even when I’m aiming for digital iciness and noise.

[Dstepatl]

Will implement that.

Is there a way to do the icy aliasing Waldorf sound at all? I know modwave has the 8 and 12 bit modifiers, not sure if HS can approximate that.

[braken]

I don’t know if it’s exactly what you’re looking for, but sending a small amount (like a depth of 2 or less) of a Noise LFO at Wave Scan can rough up the edges of the waveforms and make the interpolation sound a bit alias-y. Noise as a Mutator source can also be handy

[mprinsen]

You can use the PW orig mutator with a ratio of 12 and full depth and 100% wet to reduce the bit depth of a waveform to 12 bit or ratio of 8 to reduce to 8 bit. Etc

[Dicky11]

Please help me. I’m trying to send notes from my HSD pads into my Octatrack to record what I play onto the OT sequencer with both devices on channel 10 and both devices set to send and receive notes. So far, I can only record notes on the OT’s sequencer via the OT keyboard in the OT’s Chromatic Mode. I am able, though, to record the HSD’s knob movements on the sequencer after I’ve set up the proper cc’s on that track. This proves to me that I have the midi cables sorted properly. Someone tried a factory reset earlier in this chat to success but that cannot be the only solution. Thanks to anyone who can help

[Dicky11]

Hey Dicky, are you using a Midi Merge device between the HSD midi out and the OT midi in? If so, try eliminating that device and see how that works for ya and get back to me ASAP because I care about your dilemma here.

[Dicky11]

Thanks, Dicky11. It works now but I still want to use that midi merge device as I hope to send notes from various synthesizers. Is my midi merge broken? I just got it. What a bummer if that’s the case. Cheers, mate.

[Jukka]

@loopdude

Just looked at the other options you posted, thanks. K-boars is interesting too, especially regarding the price. Can the hydrasynth do that pitchbend modulation per key thingy? For aittle upprice you would be getting a lot more with that option.

I really just want some keys where I can bend stuff by wiggling my fingers. I’m not into modwheels or such. Doesn’t feel intuitive to me.

With MPE on the Hydrasynth, there are three messages sent in an MPE channel : Note-ON, Channel Aftertouch, and Note-OFF. In the case of the Explorer and the Deluxe the Note-OFF can have a Non-Zero velocity value, the HSK and the HSD are in channel but both have a value of Zero. This is a hardware limitation.

( I do not own a Explorer or Deluxe — poor me — so i have not tested the MPE note-OFF velocity feature on those two, so anyone who’s tested this, please correct me ! )

Other MPE controllers may have more parameters that are passed in the MPE channel than with the Hydrasynths. That’s part of the trade offs you must evaluate when deciding between your options.

If you want to use the Channel Aftertouch, or Note-OFF in channel MPE messages for other functions you map those controls in your MPE synth or software.

For more options for MPE controllers see this list.

[Tagoe76]

Ive been struggling with this over the weekend. Im at the point where I can do immediate bank / Program changes from the syntakt through the octa to the hydra, meaning I can use the octa arp at the same time if I want to… still a few things to iron out…

[sezare56]

I was asking about what filter (1) to choose for 303ish sound.

@svenkarma

Filter 2 one, it does give you the most control

Interesting results indeed.

In fact was planning to use both filters, F2 as hi pass, Keytrack 100%, and increasing its frequency with a macro also controlling resonance (less lower frequencies increasing resonance).

[Jukka]

The whole thing with using the filters in parallel, and then modulating the mixer, and on the fly changing how much of each of the five sources ( six really if you own something other than the Explorer, because you can use an external source input ) goes to which filter, and how they’re all panned, while at the same time modifying all the parameters in each of the filters, while modulating all the rest of the things you can modify on the fly. It just leaves me amazed to listen to, almost three years later

[sezare56]

@Jukka

and then modulating the mixer

I guess you’re talking about Filter Routing…

Thanks to have pointed this out, it helped me to understand Patch E018 (Alpine Split), kind of fake multimbral split.

Mod Matrix Keytrack split for Osc1 and Osc2 wavescan, and different Filter Routing for each.

[sezare56]

No OLED screen saver without Lite Show ? Better to keep it anyway ?

(Lite Show can be interesting for Christmas, though, placing your HS in the tree )

[Jukka]

@sezare56

I guess you’re talking about Filter Routing…

Yeah, but also any of the 15 mixer parameters. ADDED : You can also adjust these fifteen via the Macros. Often when i think of a mixer i think of a basic mixer, this mixer is more of an automated mixing board. Much more complicated. I first learned about this in a very early video from Daniel Fisher of Sweetwater, where he went through it in detail.