Maybe they can be close when both playing relatively vanilla patches, sure, but there is no chance that the Hydra can hang with the Peak/Summit on a patch that uses a good amount of drive and filtering. If you’d like I can make a patch for you and you can see if you can get anywhere close? I guarantee you can’t I’ve been wanting to do this anyway actually so let’s do it!
edit: ok I made a very very simple e-piano-esque patch, 3 osc with a looping mod envelope on a high pass filter, no stacked filter tricks so this patch is fully Peak compatible. Summit only direct into Ableton, swept the filter and noodled around a bit. I made this patch super simple so you wouldn’t have to try to untangle something crazy, better for a comparison. It’s a very stereo patch with a lot of bass so use nice headphones. I creep up on the high resonance portion very slowly so watch your ears when you hear it going that direction. I’ll upload once I get to work because my home internet is glacial. If you can get close to this one, then I’ll try again! It’s not super fair I don’t think though, 3 analog drive circuits in series and a wicked analog filter, those interactions are pretty complex and lively!
If you like the peak as much as you do may I submit another option? Perhaps you sell all three? I believe that would allow you to grab a novation summit(essentially 2peaks in one IIRC) and have enough left over for some eurocrack!
@plusn Your turn! Listen on a good system or headphones, not too much point on a cell phone speaker. I think you’ll like this, listen all the way through. Zero processing.
Here’s a link to the real file, I don’t know what effect soundcloud has on the quality so download this for true fidelity lol:
Haha oh totally, that would have been very cool of me. Yeah this synth rips, I wanted to use the dual-filter modes with the resonant peaks spread a bit, that gets REALLY gnarly when the drive bites and it wobbles and dances like a flame… but then it wouldn’t be Peak-compatible and that’s kind of the entire discussion.
Hydra you find most fun to use, but in terms of sound you don’t seem to prefer it that much.
Rev2 you don’t use much, so why keep it?
Maybe if you do get rid of the other ones, you’d use it more?
Peak seems like the most balanced choice. You do use it for poly sounds, and the hands on experience might be more motivating for you than using Omnisphere. None of us actually needs hardware to make great music, so why do most of us get into hardware? Because we find it more enjoyable being more hands on than clicking around with a mouse and setting up a controller. Sometimes it’s because of the sound that we can get.
Peak is also the one that you use the most. You like the sound and know it inside out.
It’s quite obvious to me that you should keep that one. It’s your workhorse it seems.
Leads and sequences you can do with the modular
As others have suggested, reading through your posts, it seems like flipping the bird the turd and getting a Summit might be the way to go. That way you get the nice big keyboard as well as basically two Peaks in one. And if there isn’t enough space, then get a toaster oven. It’s really the best way to do French bread pizza.
No, I haven’t, but I will try to eventually if anyone has them on display here in Aus.
If I get rid of the Rev2 and miss it, I would definitely be considering the T5. But that’s relatively far down the road at this point.
I think it might be a bit big for what I would want. If I get a keyboard synth, it looks like the T5. 44keys would be a perfect footprint. That’s another box that thing ticks off. Size.
Ha! Ok, we both have a total opposite approach to sounds. From your perspective the Peak is indeed with the many gain staging and drive options the best choice. For me, i am more on the vanilla side of things, and for my needs, the Hydrasynth superseeds the Peak.
Check out the first track of my latest album. The Piano is a factory preset from the Hydrasynth. Pure. Mellow, dusty, beautiful. Outstanding. Bass from Matriarch.
Hey that sounds really nice… but I want to hear a patch you made!! See if you can replicate mine or get close, since this was predicated on the idea that the Hydra can do “all the jobs.” No worries if you don’t want to, I just thought it was fun. Nice track though. I just watched a demo of the Hydra’s distortion types with some sound examples, they sound pretty sweet! I’m really curious how it all drives together with the filter, sounds like some very interesting distortion controls were added in FW1.5
Time is a precious thing. I always seek to squeeze and use it efficiently.
Red Means Recording did a lengthy and deep comparison video between Peak and Hydra. An eye (ear) opener.
Man, I gotta tell ya. This is video just reinforced why I would pick the Peak over the Hydrasynth based on sound alone.
I’m not sure if you’re presenting it as a pro-Hydrasynth thing or it changed your mind about it or what, but I think the Peak pretty much won every single one of those examples on the “warmth/3D/analog” end.
Dual filters is great, I don’t know what other checkmarks the Hydra got though. Other than the aforementioned “fun factor”.
Don’t get me wrong, I still really like it and I think it’s a great synth. But sound compared to the Peak? Nah, I don’t think so. Especially after stacking a bunch of tracks with it.
But everyone’s got their thing, for sure.
Your track was cool man, you sound like a good musician.
I’ve been wanting to do this anyway actually so let’s do it!
