Hydrasynth Desktop

Product Information

Of course the routing is flexible so you can choose the other oscillators as mod sources if you like. The Hydrasynth is a seriously impressive opening salvo from a fledgling company; hopefully it heralds a more expressive future for synthesis. In this section you'll find the Hydrasynth's biggest screen, which deals with patch selection among other tasks, and also displays waveshapes in real-time just as Korg’s ‘Logues do. This wasn't a feature I'd met before but it's a cracker, and at its extremes, is capable of further variations on the theme of 'nasty and noisy'.

Sound Design Tips for the ASM Hydrasynth - Perfect Circuit Hot Sound Design Tips for the ASM Hydrasynth - Perfect Circuit

Something that always impresses me is that you can modulate these excellent effects too, greatly increasing the Hydrasynth’s versatility. With all of the buzz surrounding the reveal of the Deluxe and Explorer models, we thought it would be fun to spend some time diving into the sound design depths of the Hydrasynth to emerge with a handful of tips to enrich your own patch creation process. Allowing you to get the envelopes perfectly in sync with your music, you can adjust the stages in seconds or time divisions.You can use almost anything on the Hydrasynth as a destination, including the effects, arpeggiator and Modulation Matrix points. Besides traditional analog modeling, oscillators 1 and 2 sport a Wavescanning feature, which allows you to smoothly scan through hundreds of waveshapes at will. Because of these nonlinear traits, summing signals with sub-audio frequencies and static voltages before applying saturation is a super fun thing to do in the context of modular patching, as it gives the synthesist direct control over the character of their drive. Hydrasynth is a great end user product and built better than anything else I own in the high-end synth offerings.

Hydrasynth Desktop LN105506 - HYDRASYNTH-DESKTOP | SCAN UK

The four smaller screens line up with the rotaries, with the top third of each screen displaying assignments for the top row of knobs. This is especially true on the Deluxe model, which allows for both layers in Multi mode to use their own arpeggiator independently. Initially, you change patches by spinning the encoder or pressing the L/R arrows, holding Shift to jump in 10s. Length issues aside, you'll be pleased to hear that the Hydrasynth is not just an expressive controller with any old synth engine tacked on. There is also a respectable array of connections, with a wall-wart power connector, a pair of front-edge mounted headphone sockets, stereo unbalanced outputs, MIDI in/out/thru (DIN), USB, plus sustain and expression inputs.

By default, every envelope will be triggered by playing notes, but it's also possible to allow them to be activated by LFOs, ribbon gestures on the keyboard and Deluxe models, pressing a sustain pedal, and the modulation inputs. If we repurpose our first tip, we can use the oscillators in sub-audio ranges for another reason: manipulating the characteristics of the filter drive in a periodic way.