Hydrasynth from ASM

The Lounge Other Gear
4163

I have joined the club-I know I am late to the party-but my Hydrasynth desktop arrived a week ago.
It came on my radar around Xmas (when I was considering a Modwave and before Leviasynth became a thing) and I have done lots of reading of boards and watching Youtube vids. Everything that everyone is saying is true! Thanks for the heads up of the joys and troughs of this synth.

As I learnt my way around, it is starting to be just a joy to program a patch-it sets a new standard for interacting with a synth. Though some things are not on the module page no1 as I expect-filter drive on P2 and no volume control copied on the Osc pages-have to go off to the mixer page.
Mixer solo function-Genius for sound design. Someone needs to give Glen Darcy some more millions to make more syths.

Who thought it would a good idea to have a little bit of viberato on the initial patch? (obviously one of Glen`s minions). Luckily, it only took me 5 minutes of confusion to work out why my initial saw was wobbling before I did anything with the init patch-I think I had luckily read it somewhere (This does not wobble dramatically everytime-but the viberato is still lurking in your sound, if you forget about it). Once I am further in, I will set up my own initial patches.

I had a huge wobble about the sound yesterday. Was the Hydrasynth any good? Should I send it back? -something I have never done with any of my synths (unlike some of you with your 6 Octatrack purchases). Luckily I woke up today, listened to the patches that I have made (over 40 in a week) and there is good variation in the sound and some good, interesting sounds.

Certainly it has helped that I put a low pass filter in Bitwig in the signal chain. There seems to a lot of high fuzz, which does not seem necessary. And I might buy an external analogue filter (Like the Behringer BM-11M) to act as a backstop.

The mutants are well named. The mutants and some/many of the wave forms lead to quite narly places very quickly, too quickly. I end up with a patch that only works as mono as a second note gets lost. Sometimes I have just stopped making a patch because I just do not like the sound. The mutants, if used a bit, are very exciting-like a dashing 2000AD mutant. Used too much and they end a distorted mess on the floor, hissing at you (Think of the inside of the Dalek).
I am learning to be subtle with the mutants (that could be a good name for a band).

Thought today, of using the mod matrix to pull cutoff more bassy and resonance down on a low pass filter as the sound was starting to get more narly due to a LFO wave scan-all via the same LFO. Seemed to work to keep the sound “musical” over too noisy/unpleasant. Good trick -but I have never had do this with any other synth. Feels the filter is more intrinsic to where the sound goes to and is very much a deep part of the sound design. And using filter keytrack at less than 100% (say 66%), keeps the high end in check, in higher octaves.

This synth is unbounded which is a good and a bad thing-I imagine a person new to synths might get lost in a noisy hell. But with your first synth, that might be where you end up anyway-I know I did.

Maybe Dante had a special hell just for synth players-where there are lots of shiny knobs but you are not in control of the sound in any real way-Oh!, the cacophony of suffering.

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4164

Now with reading the Leviasynth manual, and seeing how carefully it is setup to be familiar to a Hydrasynth player/user, i am reflecting what Glen talked about in the recent Pro Synth Network interview – that both of these synths were intended to be comprehensible and programmable while only using the synths themselves, without the use of an external computer and display and editor.

The Leviasynth has improved on this now with the full color screen, and some special display screen panels, but the Hydrasynth though not completely transparent ( in particular some of the nuance in the Mod-Matrix, and a couple of other spots ) is a synth approachable with the front panel, and a piece of paper.

Working exclusively on the Explorer front screen is surely a chore, but that ( single layer ) patches are fully transportable across the entire line of four synths, gives an option if you want to do patches and use the Explorer.

( I say fully, but there are still variations between synths – like the ribbon, and the external audio on the Explorer, and the multi patches on the Deluxe. But all of these can be dealt with as special cases. Special cases are easy enough to deal with, like for example adding VoiceMod to old patches made before that feature existed. There are plenty of other examples for taking existing patches and adapting them to new uses. )

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4165

It is for all of these reasons that I continue to want to return to my Hydrasynth–nearly everything you need to know is laid out right there for you and also why I was and am still curious about Leviasynth. ASM might be the leaders in distilling complexity down to accessible use without losing the complexity.

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4166

Wonderful concept you precisely framed here with that phrase.

Greetings and well wishes, especially now, from another ( now former ) Minneapolitan.

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4167

These are nice. If you like these, you might also like the PolyData stuff.

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4168

I already bought it.

4169

I wish they made a hydrasyntj deluxe desktop with 2 parts.

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4170

My impression from a recent video discussion with the CEO of ASM is that they are not done with development on the Hydrasynth. So wish away.

Note : The LSD ( and the LSK ) has two parts, so why not on a HSD2 ?

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4171

I was hoping someone would do this. Sounds pretty good! Can’t figure out where he posted the patches though… a Facebook group perhaps, gah.

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4172

Wait whut? I just checked an INIT patch on mine, but didn’t notice any vibrato as long as the mod wheel is down all the way (but I’m pretty bad sound designer admittedly).

What did you notice and what setting did you change to resolve the issue?

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4173

See if you can find it. It’s not too hard.

( Plus i’m pretty sure it’s documented here and in other places as well. )

If you’re still stuck in a day or so come back.

4174

if you don’t tend to assign the macro knobs, i’d just save an init patch with macro knobs set to each oscillators mixer volume

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4175

as you wrote there is a vibrato on the modwheel in the init. i guess he probably had it engaged. i couldnt find some other vibrato stuff on the init searching online. it was always the modwheel vibrato in the results. i dont think there is some other setting somewhere. i dont have the hydra close but dont remember something going on on the init

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4176
Hint :

It’s from the so called “sixth LFO”.

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4177

i googled the “hidden flo” and it points me to the vibrato on the modwheel again.

“However, the default internal structure has a ‘hidden’ 6th LFO purely dedicated to vibrato with the depth controlled permanently by the mod”

please clarify what you are talking about. your inputs are a bit confusing

4178

OK Zum,

How do you turn it off completely in a patch ?

4179

i was talking about this and thought you answer to it too.

4180

i dont know. how do you do it?

4181

But what if you want to use the Mod Wheel ( it’s a Source in the Mod-Matrix after all ) to modify something else and you don’t want it side-effecting Vibrato ?

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4183

Top idea to use module page for OSC volume.
I wonder if you could assign OSC solo here as well.-No, I just checked, it is not an option.
Still have to go to the mixer page.

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