Hydrasynth

[wickfut]

Never understood what's the point of having this in a hardware. It sounds nearly as any modern digital VST synth, thin ,boring, not musical. Instead of building this, would like to see more manufacturers concentrate on building a proper VA/Analog modeling.

I've only owned it a few days now and it does a lot more than most synths I've owned and I've owned quite a few, I'd say the closest to it is Serum in VST.
I do prefer the sound of my Virus Ti to it, but it has amazing modulation routings which makes me question if I still need a lot of my eurorack as everything I do on it can be done on this synth - from cross FM to step sequencing LFOs. It's not perfect though. I find it quite difficult to hit sweet spots with table morphing but when you get it right it sounds amazing.

A lot of the presets are boring as hell, mostly lush pads and plinky bell tones. Not many hard lead type sounds, which is what I was expecting it to do, and a lot of the delay/reverb effects sort of soften the sound up a fair bit. I'm finding this quite strange as putting a similar amount of reverb on from say my RV500 or the built in verb in my mixer doesn't have this effect. I have the rack version and a lot of the presets are designed to use the polyphonic aftertouch which my master keyboard doesn't have. Sounds designed to use the aftertouch come across as a bit too static without it.

I don't get the "it's too bright or harsh" comments I've read online, I think it's the opposite. It has a glassy almost Novation Supernova 2 type sound and I'm not a fan of the filters apart from the formant filters. There's plenty of types but a lot, like the bandpass and high pass are too soft - they sound more like Ozone's EQ rather than synth filters. I'm trying to do some psytrance type blips and not getting the sounds I'm used to from other synths.

If I'd demo'd it in a shop first I probably wouldn't have bought it, but now I've ventured passed the presets it's a very deep and complex synth and I'd buy it again in a heart beat. I'm sure it's going to get a lot better as I learn how to coax out the sounds more.

[Stefken]

Never understood what's the point of having this in a hardware. It sounds nearly as any modern digital VST synth, thin ,boring, not musical. Instead of building this, would like to see more manufacturers concentrate on building a proper VA/Analog modeling.

I've only owned it a few days now and it does a lot more than most synths I've owned and I've owned quite a few, I'd say the closest to it is Serum in VST.
I do prefer the sound of my Virus Ti to it, but it has amazing modulation routings which makes me question if I still need a lot of my eurorack as everything I do on it can be done on this synth - from cross FM to step sequencing LFOs. It's not perfect though. I find it quite difficult to hit sweet spots with table morphing but when you get it right it sounds amazing.

A lot of the presets are boring as hell, mostly lush pads and plinky bell tones. Not many hard lead type sounds, which is what I was expecting it to do, and a lot of the delay/reverb effects sort of soften the sound up a fair bit. I'm finding this quite strange as putting a similar amount of reverb on from say my RV500 or the built in verb in my mixer doesn't have this effect. I have the rack version and a lot of the presets are designed to use the polyphonic aftertouch which my master keyboard doesn't have. Sounds designed to use the aftertouch come across as a bit too static without it.

I don't get the "it's too bright or harsh" comments I've read online, I think it's the opposite. It has a glassy almost Novation Supernova 2 type sound and I'm not a fan of the filters apart from the formant filters. There's plenty of types but a lot, like the bandpass and high pass are too soft - they sound more like Ozone's EQ rather than synth filters. I'm trying to do some psytrance type blips and not getting the sounds I'm used to from other synths.

If I'd demo'd it in a shop first I probably wouldn't have bought it, but now I've ventured passed the presets it's a very deep and complex synth and I'd buy it again in a heart beat. I'm sure it's going to get a lot better as I learn how to coax out the sounds more.

Hey Wickfut,

Congrats on your new synth. Mine is ordered but has not yet arrived.

I concur that Hydrasynth is not a lead or bass machine. This is not were it shines.
Imo it's very good for ambient stuff with a lot of modulation. And yes, it can somewhat be seen as a modular in a box; the expanded step/sequencer lfo's and the new envelope trigger options expand the options even more.
I think it's also good at distorted/gritty stuff.
But for sounds with tons of oumph I go to my SE-02 and MS-20, which shine on the bass/lead department.

The pads on the desktop DO have poly AT. FYI : I hear that some people combine the desktop with a regular keyboard, using one hand on the desktop and a second hand on the regular keyboard.

I think ASM concurs that the default patches are not the best around so they commissioned extra banks that you can download from their site. I aspecially like the bank from Roger Austli which has quite an analog feel to it.
https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/downloads

This is a bank I like as well (again quite analog sounding).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfbz6KWAgUo

This is more a bread and butter bank for lack of a better word. Push-Pull is also working on a spacey ambient bank.

If you like somewhat more agressive stuff, I suggest you take a look at the Ignition 1 and 2 bank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgoPSqfIo4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63nEaCd ... xKPefoKzqA

And of course, this thing is made to twiddle with, so making your own patches should be lots of fun.

[wickfut]

yeah I've already installed those free banks from ASM website. The thing is you can go right the way through all the sounds on all the banks and it sounds like the same 5-10 sounds repeating over and over again. The downloaded banks are no different from the pre-installed banks. Very few sounds stand out as being something special.

When you start doing your own patches you realise the people who made those banks must have tried really hard to make them all sound the same and shit. It's like they took a basic VST synth from 20 years ago and just tried to clone/copy the patches over rather than make any effort to make them stand out. But each to their own, you might like them, also things may sound completely different on the keyboard version with the poly aftertouch.

Those poly pads are like trying to play an instrument with a calculator. They're handy for testing sounds/arp patterns/scales if you're not close to the keyboard ,but not for actually playing

[EvilDragon]

yeah I've already installed those free banks from ASM website. The thing is you can go right the way through all the sounds on all the banks and it sounds like the same 5-10 sounds repeating over and over again. The downloaded banks are no different from the pre-installed banks. Very few sounds stand out as being something special.

Sound design is a highly subjective matter, so everything you just said here somebody else could just refute as you being crazy because there's a ton of gold in those patches for them.

[wickfut]

Sound design is a highly subjective matter, so everything you just said here somebody else could just refute as you being crazy because there's a ton of gold in those patches for them.

I did say that he may like them. To me they're nothing I've not heard before countless times on whatever VA/VST synth over the last 20 years, which is disappointing considering the complexity of the synth engine.

Also like I keep saying, the presets use poly aftertouch a lot. Even velocity isn't used on a lot of patches so when played on a regular controller keyboard they come across as very static and lifeless.

[JCJR]

Presets needing poly AT to avoid sounding blah reminds of old yamaha 6 op and 4 op fm, dx7 and such. To my ear lots of patches sounded great and lively played with velocity but sounded terrible cheezy played at any fixed velocity value. Fixed vel of low, medium or high didnt matter, just resulting in different timbres of dull boring cheezy.

So notation screen/piano roll "players" didnt get good sonic value out of the fm synths. Unless they took extra work to draw in or algorithmically add appropriate dynamic velocity data.

For notation/piano roll players, or players usimg non poly AT keyboard controllers-- Patches dead-sounding without poly AT would be even worse a problem because it would be more work to draw-in reasonable poly AT data one note at a time with a mouse. More work than drawing in veloioty data.

[Stefken]

Well, I guess you'll have to make your own patches then or change them. Like you said, this is a very deep synthesizer so there are many roads you can go.

Maybe the keyboard version would be a better fit for you?

[wickfut]

Maybe the keyboard version would be a better fit for you?

No. I wouldn't spend £1300 on the keyboard version. I would go elsewhere. £770 for the rack is fine. Go to £1300 and I might as well keep going and buy the Waldorf.

[Stefken]

I might as well keep going and buy the Waldorf.

A nice alternative but I'm not willing to part with that kind of money for a vst in a box.
What's also nice is that ASM is clearly trying to make a name for themselves, being a new company.

I think they offer a lot for the price AND their updates are really extensive and largely based on customer requests. If they can create a community around the synth and keep pushing extra functionality as they have, this can go to real interesting places.
I think the UI is also really well developed and you see that they take care to make things as accessible and fast as possible (for example for making assignments in the mod matrix).

[Chrisk-K]

IMO, the HS is the synth with the worst presets ever. What kind of sound designers did they hire? It sounds like sound designers tried their best to sabotage the HS.

[RobustAmerican]

Here's some more lousy presets from our work with the Hydrasynth so far. These are still under construction and might not even be in the final lineup when all is said and done so please keep that in mind. The sw design of this synth and the resulting workflow is really something special here. We were up and running in no time at all thanks to the clever layout and shortcuts. (Not to mention the build quality, feels like a precision instrument)

https://youtu.be/h0WaISkYrkw

[5Lives]

Here's some more lousy presets from our work with the Hydrasynth so far. These are still under construction and might not even be in the final lineup when all is said and done so please keep that in mind. The sw design of this synth and the resulting workflow is really something special here. We were up and running in no time at all thanks to the clever layout and shortcuts. (Not to mention the build quality, feels like a precision instrument)

https://youtu.be/h0WaISkYrkw

 

Nice!

[RobustAmerican]

Thanks 5Lives!

[Stefken]

Really loosy!

No, some nice sounds in there.

[RobustAmerican]

Much appreciated Stefken!