so glad I don’t feel the remotest pull to buy one.
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(If I had a Mac) Numerology + Shapeshifter + 2 or dual lpgs. Surely = much sonic dope.
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Haha I did have the thought “maybe I should just get both”. It’s only money right?
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If you can only afford one right now, then put the names in a hat and draw one out, and that’s the one you can get now.
You don’t really want two new synths at the same time. One will just end up sitting there feeling sad.
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The Hydrasynth can really do most of what you’d do with a Cascadia; two filters, three oscillators, and five LFOs and Envelopes is quite a lot of power.
Taiga and the Cascadia aren’t really comparable imo. Both are lovely though.
Both Taiga and Hydra look absolutely dreadful. And Cascadia is superior to them in aesthetics. When something looks that good and is designed with great UX in mind, then it invites a lot of play, which is the whole point of hardware anyway.
Even though I haven’t played with Hydra and Taiga I think the Cascadia is for sure superior in sound too. Sometimes it’s better to pay more for one extraordinary synth rather than see what more you can buy instead.
It’s my favorite synth purchase after Syntakt.
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I love the Cascadia dearly, and it’s gorgeous- but I think the explorer and taiga look great too!
I like the knobs on the Taiga as well
There are still few videos showing off the Cascadia.
Wondering if anybody who has one could comment on whether it would work well as a standalone device, for more ambient-leaning music?
I understand that it is capable of some bi-timbrality but not sure how far that could go.
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I think in terms of sound it works extremely well for more ambient-type music. Its numerous modulation options making very easy to create some movement in the sounds. (I attach a short sound snippet of a slowly moving Cascadia-only live-recorded sequence below.) As the Cascadia is mono, you need to run its output through an external stereo effect in order to give the sound some space. (In the example below, it goes through an Erica Dual FX module.)
As of the latest firmware, it has a dual mono mode in which you can use a second midi channel to send pitch and gate to oscillator B independently from oscillator A. You could route both oscillators through separate filters. (The second filter being “just” a four pole low-pass ladder filter.)
Edit: what I find most amazing so far (I am only at my 3rd day with the synth) is that very interesting sounds can be generated with very light additional patching (see the photo below for the patch in the recording). A big part of the sound performance comes from live playing with the faders.
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Keep it up and keep posting your sounds.
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Just managed to set up dual-mono mode… 
The melody is VCO B through VCF B (modulated by ENV B), with pitch and gate coming from Midi channel 2. The rest is VCO A through VCF A and ENV A sequenced on Midi channel 1. (All again through Erica dual fx.)
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Juicy sounds. Does it sequence itself?
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Thanks! In the examples above, I sequence it externally with a Torso-T1.
Edit: There is apparently a sort of “Turing machine” sequence generator (via ENV B in LFO mode) available in the latest firmware (see also one of the posts from December above), but I have not tried this yet.
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Thanks. What about effects like Reverb and Delay?
No built-in effects (according to some reviews this was a deliberate choice as most users would already have a range of external effects). A mono send-return (with dry/wet control) to an external effect can be patched anywhere on the synth. The final output of the synth is mono only, and most demos (as well as my recordings above) therefore run the final output through an external stereo effect.
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Thanks again. Im sure your going to have a blast with this beauty
Is there a way to achieve cross-modulation between the oscillators? How does the ‘pitch’ input of osc B work, could that be used?
plenty.
FM (TZ or not, there is a switch) is pre-routed to a pair of sliders, one for level and one for mod-level (normaled from Envelope A).
There are also hard and soft sync preroutings; and you can have a separate pitch input to VCO B if you wish.
You can also route pitch CV pretty much however you like.
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