Hydrasynth or Iridium desktop as a poly synth.

[Glyn Darby]

Hi all,

I have a Behringer 2600, Moog Sub37, Microfreak and Minibrute 2s and would like a poly synth to finish of my setup. I use Ableton Live 11 and am purely a home musician with Electronica as my influence. My needs are the ability to make pads of all types, bread and butter stuff to outaworld types. The Hydrasynth and Iridium desktop have really caught my ear, and can connect with my other synths, which one at the end of the day as the best ability to produce the biggest range of sounds.

Cheers,
Glyn.

[zerocrossing]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

[pdxindy]

^^^ +1

[Glyn Darby]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit that is the way my preference is leaning, the Hydrasynth Mutators do intrigue me though.

Cheers,
Glyn.

[zerocrossing]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit that is the way my preference is leaning, the Hydrasynth Mutators do intrigue me though.

Cheers,
Glyn.

Maybe get the Iridium Keyboard and then start saving for the desktop Hydrasynth. They’re both great instruments and have the polyphonic aftertouch thing going for them, which is super nice. You seem to have analog well covered and even a hybrid, so an all digital powerhouse like the Iridium seems to make sense to me because it covers so much ground. I don’t know if you use plugins, but you can get something like Icarus from Tone2 which has a great audio to wavetable import function and things that are similar to the Hydrasynth’s mutators. Or even Vital, a totally free synth, has the spectral morphing function for the wavetables. Both sound great to me, easily as good as a Hydrasynth.

[Glyn Darby]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit that is the way my preference is leaning, the Hydrasynth Mutators do intrigue me though.

Cheers,
Glyn.

Maybe get the Iridium Keyboard and then start saving for the desktop Hydrasynth. They’re both great instruments and have the polyphonic aftertouch thing going for them, which is super nice. You seem to have analog well covered and even a hybrid, so an all digital powerhouse like the Iridium seems to make sense to me because it covers so much ground. I don’t know if you use plugins, but you can get something like Icarus from Tone2 which has a great audio to wavetable import function and things that are similar to the Hydrasynth’s mutators. Or even Vital, a totally free synth, has the spectral morphing function for the wavetables. Both sound great to me, easily as good as a Hydrasynth.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your input, it’s greatly appreciated . I do use VST’s and I have Vital which for a freebie is amazing but I was brought up on hardware from 1976 onwards and just prefer working with hardware, I’ve nothing against VST’s and some of them are just incredible but I fancy getting back to basically all hardware except for a DAW, probably Mixbus 8.

Cheers,
Glyn.

[zerocrossing]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit that is the way my preference is leaning, the Hydrasynth Mutators do intrigue me though.

Cheers,
Glyn.

Maybe get the Iridium Keyboard and then start saving for the desktop Hydrasynth. They’re both great instruments and have the polyphonic aftertouch thing going for them, which is super nice. You seem to have analog well covered and even a hybrid, so an all digital powerhouse like the Iridium seems to make sense to me because it covers so much ground. I don’t know if you use plugins, but you can get something like Icarus from Tone2 which has a great audio to wavetable import function and things that are similar to the Hydrasynth’s mutators. Or even Vital, a totally free synth, has the spectral morphing function for the wavetables. Both sound great to me, easily as good as a Hydrasynth.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your input, it’s greatly appreciated . I do use VST’s and I have Vital which for a freebie is amazing but I was brought up on hardware from 1976 onwards and just prefer working with hardware, I’ve nothing against VST’s and some of them are just incredible but I fancy getting back to basically all hardware except for a DAW, probably Mixbus 8.

Cheers,
Glyn.

No need to apologize. I was just trying to help you find a way to have your cake and eat it too. I’ve got a bunch of hardware, but I find plugins are a great way to fill in the gaps of things that software can do better, or on things that I’d use a few times a year but not during the day-to-day. Like a Mellotron, for instance. Love the sound of one, but I’m really not making space and dealing with the maintenance for the real deal. Good luck with your purchase.

[Constructed Identity]

You could buy a used Quantum- there are a lot of them being sold on reverb at the moment.

[Glyn Darby]

The Iridium, with its multiple engines, can produce a lot more variety than the Hydrasynth. If you’re an actual player, the keyboard version is a higher quality keyboard.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your reply, I must admit that is the way my preference is leaning, the Hydrasynth Mutators do intrigue me though.

Cheers,
Glyn.

Maybe get the Iridium Keyboard and then start saving for the desktop Hydrasynth. They’re both great instruments and have the polyphonic aftertouch thing going for them, which is super nice. You seem to have analog well covered and even a hybrid, so an all digital powerhouse like the Iridium seems to make sense to me because it covers so much ground. I don’t know if you use plugins, but you can get something like Icarus from Tone2 which has a great audio to wavetable import function and things that are similar to the Hydrasynth’s mutators. Or even Vital, a totally free synth, has the spectral morphing function for the wavetables. Both sound great to me, easily as good as a Hydrasynth.

Hi mate,

Thanks for your input, it’s greatly appreciated . I do use VST’s and I have Vital which for a freebie is amazing but I was brought up on hardware from 1976 onwards and just prefer working with hardware, I’ve nothing against VST’s and some of them are just incredible but I fancy getting back to basically all hardware except for a DAW, probably Mixbus 8.

Cheers,
Glyn.

No need to apologize. I was just trying to help you find a way to have your cake and eat it too. I’ve got a bunch of hardware, but I find plugins are a great way to fill in the gaps of things that software can do better, or on things that I’d use a few times a year but not during the day-to-day. Like a Mellotron, for instance. Love the sound of one, but I’m really not making space and dealing with the maintenance for the real deal. Good luck with your purchase.

, I’ve eaten to much cake in my lifetime , cheers Glyn.

[Glyn Darby]

You could buy a used Quantum- there are a lot of them being sold on reverb at the moment.

Hi mate,
I’m based in the UK, not a lot available here unfortunately, I will keep a watch out though. Cheers Glyn.

[styphonthal]

Behringer 2600, Moog Sub37, and Minibrute 2s --> are all analog subtractive synths. Therefore, I would say Iridium/Quantum.

Simply put: more synthesis. It has wavetable like hydrasynth, but also Granular and Sample synthesis. Both have wavetable, subtractive, and FM synthesis.

And lets be real, people are selling their Quantums because of the Quantum II has polyphonic aftertouch (as does the hydrasynth keys and iridium keys).

[vitocorleone123]

Dark horse rec: Digitone. 8 voice, 8 multitimbral, sequencer, effects, audio in, Overbridge, etc.

Of the 2 from the OP: the new Quantum II.

[Stefken]

I m a bit in a (semi) modular thinking pattern for the moment, but for the modular route, the hydrasynth is the synth that can interface with the 2600 and the minibrute 2 s.

[PieBerger]

Try them both in a shop and see what suites you best. The Iridium desktop was/still is way outside my budget, so it was never really a strong contender but I tried in the shop alongside a Hydra (for the second) time and although it sounded great and is obviously immensely deep, it was not intuitive/fun to play at all. The Hydra by comparison has amazing workflow and is really fun to patch, even the Explorer which is slightly more clunky with only 4 encoders vs 8 on the Desktop/Original/Deluxe. I personally like the sonic character of the Hydra and 8 voices vs 16 on the Iridium isn't an issue for me either. As a bonus the Hydra (Exploxer) has Pitch, Gate and 2 CV mod outs, which I can use to drive my Eurorack case.

If you have the cash and a tonne of time to properly dive into the Iridium and you like its sonic character etc. I'm sure it can be a great synth, but for personally, it's too pricey and too complex/demanding, plus I really don't like the pads (nor the pads on the Hydra Desktop for that matter) and the keyboard version is even further out of reach, financially speaking.