Hydrasynth is an amazing synth and I sold the TI when I got it. But after some months, I realized how much I was missing those HQ effects, multitimbral capabilities and the ease of creating smooth sounding pads. So I sold the HS and bought a Virus again. If the HS had an outstanding reverb I‘d probably keep both, the HS and the TI. The HS makes it really easy to create textures, which mainly goes back to its amazing interface and the many LFOs and loopable envelopes.
I‘m mainly producing Ambient music and most of the time I hook up the TI to my OT with just an Eventide or Microcosm in between, which is great fun.
The mediocre effects on the HS is a really odd place to cut back on development. I always expected it would be addressed in an update but I guess they are happy with them the way they are. At least with a mono-Timbral synth you can easily route through external effects (such as the TI!).
I do like the HS a lot though, I think the filters/drive are really nice & make it a good VA. If you can have both I don’t think they step on each others toes really, I approach them in a totally different way.
I spent a good amount of time with a Hydrasynth desktop and got deep into editing to get the kind of evolving, dark soundscape sounds that I like. But despite all the positives like UI, modulation options, grid playability, etc at the end of the day it always sounded kind of thin and two-dimensional. Plastic-y is another way I’d describe it.
The Virus on the other hand, in spite of it’s terribly dated presets, can be made to sound as rich and rounded as most analog polysynths, and do a lot of esoteric digital sounds besides. Plus if Gary Numan swears by them (live and in the studio) then you know it’s a legit synthesis platform.
the dual filter and myriad of options on the Virus TI2 are superb and I found that it makes killer drum sounds as well. I am learning my Virus TI2 and it has the best coolest arpeggiator that I have ever used that can work like a sequencer with dozens of modes and options so deep. Even though the hardware and UI is quite ancient, it still beats most new far more expensive synths today in 2023 and so I am really enjoying its rich feature set and massive sound! I was able to get the Virus ipad Touch app to work over USB with the Virus and the Aura MI software working on my new M1 Macbook Pro with Ventura Mac OS X 13 that is fantastic so I can use the latest version of Logic Pro X 10.7 to record in Dolby Atmos!
you need a USB to MIDI device with power and connect that to the VIRUS USB MIDI ports. Also you will need an Apple ipad camera kit adapter. Below is a video that I made on how to get it working with my Virus TI2:
Hope it helps. I will try recording to Logic and have this open as well so I can do more tweaking on the Virus as the touch app is way faster and more immediate than scrolling through the tiny screen on the Virus and having to play edit button twister games.
I had this printed up and I’m looking forward to working my way through it… Its the Howard Scarr Virus tutorial pdf from the Virus.info website download section.
It precedes the Ti models but looks to have some good info… Has anyone here used this before?
I used to recommend the virus C manual to people as an introduction to synthesis, I guess that’s the same thing? I didn’t realise it was Howard Scarr, but I remember the manual being an excellently written introduction to subtractive synthesis whether you owned a virus or not.
this is what i needed to hear. thank you for the insight. i always had a suspicion that this was the case
i am not a fan of the ui/mod options/general layout of the hydra. like envelope shaping is very unintuitive and irritating for me on that synth (The explorer anyway). i also hate those ridged brushed aluminum knob caps. i do love the little esq-1 module schematic layout, and on the explorer they are nice and rubbery, so thats a bonus. and i totally agree about the sound of it
i wonder if i should have chosen that over the M. i dont think ive ever seen a ti2 for that cheap (same price as a M from london)
i dont think i ever knew the effects were supposed to be so great. although the reason i started seriously looking at them finally was that blush response mentioned it had things like formant shifting (or something), frequency shifting, vocoding, those mutable-warps/ableton stock spectral types of effects that i love so much that no other synth has aside from maybe the korg radias
whoa! the pdf manual i printed out for the virus c is also on my bedside table, along with a few others. WWeeiIIrrrRdddDD
Love the tape delay and distortion models
