Hydrasynth from ASM

Back in the days when I used a computer, I made a little Local Off button that sent the appropriate CC to the designated port. Always a way.

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Thatā€™s not why I returned it. I returned it for low volume output primarily. With master at full, amps full, it would come into my DAW around -40db. Add having to press super hard on the ribbon, mod wheel that didnā€™t engage for around the first 15 degrees of music, parameters getting stuck across ALL patches (example: reverb would get stuck on, say, patch b5 and remain present on all patches. Only fixable with a power cycle)

Also add, that as the sound gets deeper, it gets quiet. And warm mode not really being much differentā€¦

I sent it back for a warranty diagnostic. When that came back as ā€œnormalā€ I was going to lose shipping (all directions) and customs. Which added $800 to the initial price. To get back a unit that to me sounded terrible and didnā€™t really werk as expected.

The power in patch issue is an issue, but definitely one I would NOT return a synth for.
I think they hydra is super well built, has a sick UIā€¦but to my ear, sounds gutless and it just had no power. I really tried to get on with it. But when I had to add a gain insert and add 25 or more dB to be audibleā€¦And pay an extra $800 to get that backā€¦I couldnā€™t.

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have you heard of anyone else having this issue, or did you get a bad unit?
suck that was your experience because it seems like such an awesome machine.
curious to learn all i can before i think of pulling the trigger on one.

I have to ad, when it was tested, I was told they A/B-ed it with another Hydraā€¦and mine appeared to be fine.
that was extremely disappointing, cuz as I said, the output was terribly low.
so with that, I was not going to pay to have it shipped back to me again.

disappointing. I really liked the unit it self, not how gutless it was.

Donā€™t feel too bad, a Summit costs 2,900 CAD so you would have had to pony up quite a bit more.

id get it from the US :wink: ā€¦WOULD HAVE gottenā€¦

maybe one day id get it again. when I can afford too. there are cool sounds in it. but if I can only have one, that would not be it.

Sorry, I meant to reply to the thread about the local setting response, not you.

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I think a neat option would be to have the setting as on/off (soft, doesnā€™t survive power cycle)/off (hard, survives power cycle). Same goes for the tempo lock Setting, which also doesnā€™t survive a power cycle.

Trouble is, that still doesnā€™t help prevent confusion from people who accidentally turn it on, forgot they turned it on, or someone else before them turned it on.

I honestly struggle believing anyone buying a complex synth such as this would just straight return it because they accidentally turned off local control or forgot they turned it off, without at least contacting support.

Maybe the odd person or two, but enough to warrant the decision to not retain the setting on power cycle?

Perhaps on their consumer products they had a high return rate for that reason? That said, I donā€™t understand how theyā€™d know that was the reason unless they contact support first, in which case wouldnā€™t support solve the issue before return?

Maybe I just have too much faith in human intelligenceā€¦

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Holy shit

Started digging deeper into this last night and I donā€™t think Ive ever been this is excited about an instrument . Pairing multiple OT midi track LFOs to it with conditional trigless trigs controlling the mod matrix is a brain orgasm and migraine at the same time , but Iā€™m into it

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Well said! Thereā€™s so much there, it is boggling.

Macros can be a little like that too, theyā€™re like mini Mod-Matrixes in themselves. But with the Mod-Matrix add in that you can have as a destination a self reference back to itself ā€“ the Mod-Matrix modifying the Mod-Matrix! I scratched my head on that for a while. Itā€™s fun to find a complex patch someone else did and take it apart and look at what they did.

Also the Mod-Matrix sources are rich ā€“ the two CV ins, any Midi CC, and now the MPE ins. Plus the Ribbon, and i always add the Expression Pedal.



I was expecting a different punch line. :roll_eyes:

The mod matrix on this thing is just full of endless funā€¦I was just messing around for an hour applying LFOs to arp division, gate, octave, and mode, as well as messing with envelope segment lengthsā€¦Syncing the LFO and envelope segments to bpm = in time chaos haha. So much fun.

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Iā€™ve really been digginā€™ the videos VoltageCtrlRtv has been doing recently. Think musique concrĆØte. Heā€™s really been developing a style of performance. Looking forward to his promised live patching tutorial.

His Notes with this video

Back to hot-wiring this spaceshipā€¦ Iā€™m testing another one of my patches for my up coming Hydrasynth sound pack. This patch is inspired by my modular synth live performance patching techniques. Iā€™m demonstrating the expressive range of the patch and showing you a few examples of where it can be creatively taken. More sound design / patching tutorials coming soon for the Hydrasynth, Digitone and modular.

This one is wild too.

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Whoa - thanks for sharing. I see his stuff pop up on the IG from time to time. Perhaps itā€™s time to dive into the youtube channel. I like the thought process behind this ā€“ really exploring capabilities. The ā€œCan it Buchlaā€ video is especially interesting. Hydrasynth is neat.

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The link i made up thread is a search for the most recent Hydrasynth youtube videos. It a live link so itā€™s always a fresh search, and you can pop back anytime.

The HS has such versatility it can be used in a lot of different styles.

Thereā€™s another video recently, not as good, by another guy doing some simple ā€œtechno chordsā€. I think its a factory patch, or close to one, with phrase #1 in the arpeggiator. Simple but there is the beginnings of something there.

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Thatā€™s actually a pretty simple patch I tried creating myself yesterday.
Itā€™s one of those typical early 90ā€™s Rave FM sounds.

I have made them before on Ableton Operator as well.

Start with Saw waveform on OSC1 and 2, then add a Sine wave to OSC3 and play with the mixer to blend them together.
Add some reverb and delay and voila. :blush:

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So much more to this synth but Iā€™ve just barely moved off playing detuned sine waves on OSC 1&2. I like do as little pitch modulation and some subtle Mutator tweaks.

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are people digging the warm mode? or perhaps its best used on a case by case basis?

All I have done so far is actually using the CUTOFF on Filter 1 to suppress a bit of the high frequencies. I find it sounds better that way.
So yeahā€¦ I guess itā€™s a case by case basis.

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