We won’t go into the fine detail of our original Hydrasynth review, but a recap is undoubtedly helpful. All Hydrasynth models share the same powerful synthesis engine. Everything revolves around three oscillators capable of wave‑scanning, FM and virtual‑analogue synthesis. There’s 8‑voice polyphony in all models except the new Deluxe, which gives you 16. Wavemorphing is a feature usually found on synths with preset wavetables. But creating user wavetables on those products is arduous or downright impossible. Unlike most wavetable synths, our oscillators 1 & 2 have our easy-to-use WAVELIST mode. Designing sounds has never been so open and with the musical potential of the Hydrasynth, both you and your audience will be inspired by its performance.

loopable DAHDSR Envelopes and 5x synchronizable LFOs with several Waveforms and Trigger Modes including a sixth Vibrato LFO provide plenty of movement in the sound. Besides some fixed Modulation Connections, almost every parameter can be modulated in the Hydrasynth via the Modulation Matrix, which has 32x Slots. A 670mm long Ribbon Controller can not only be used to modulate other parameters, but also offers a completely different method of note input in Theremin Mode. Extra customisation of your sound comes in the form of Mutators. Both oscillators 1 and 2 are routed into Mutators which give you 7 processes with with to transform your sound.Let’s start with the wave-morphing. With 219 waves to choose from, you’ve got plenty at your disposal. Oscillators 1 and 2 can morph waveshapes with mutators – 7 mutation processes to be precise. At this point, the possibilities seem endless. But it doesn’t end there; two filters offer 12 modes in total, from LPG to 12dB octave-morphing. Then there’s the LFOs, 5 envelope generators, ring modulator, noise generator, mixer and effects (including modulation, ambience and more) so you can send your signal on whatever wild path you choose. Tactile User Interface The effects section contains four modules. Pre and Post have one slot each to fill with a pitch-modulation, bit-smashing, EQ, or compression effect. Nestled between them are the delay and reverb. The effects sound very good, and you can use any source in the mod matrix to modulate their parameters.

Filter 2 is a 12dB per octave state-variable filter, which means it can sweep continuously from either low pass > bandpass > high pass or low pass > notch > high pass. It is similar to the classic SEM filter in many ways.

Similar Best Sellers

Now that the Hydrasynth is becoming widely available, let’s find out what makes ASM’s flagship synthesizer unique.

All three oscillators can access any of the 219 available waveforms; these include the expected analogue modelled waves, plus families of more exotic fare, with names such as Cluster, Flux, Vokz, Klangor and Scorpio. The tonal qualities of each are rich, varied and best experienced by trying them out while watching the oscilloscope. I did initially wonder whether a couple of hundred waves would be enough, but since the Hydrasynth offers myriad ways to twist, squash, mash and trash them, it should be ages before you try every combination. The 24 velocity-sensitive trigger pads are arranged in three rows of eight pads. Remarkably, they respond to polyphonic aftertouch, meaning that each pad responds independently to how hard you press on it. Although they feel good and are useful for programming, I wouldn’t use them as my main controller. You certainly could, though. If you turn off local control and send the pads’ MIDI output to another device, however, you have 24 tunable percussion pads. Nord’s most powerful synth to date. It has a five-octave waterfall keyboard, four parts and includes sample-based waves, virtual analogue waves, wavetable and FM synthesis, plus 48-voice polyphony.

Misc

I have only scratched the surface and am thrilled to start creating my own sounds. Out of the Box the Hydrasynth is very intuitive, no heavy DEEP MENU diving necessary (man how I hated the DX7 for that). It is also built like a tank! You can't get a better build quality. This is a free of charge update for all current and new users of Hydrasynth. The biggest news in this update includes: Modal’s latest board includes all the great features of the Argon 8 but with a 61-note keyboard. Features include 120 wavetables, 32 static wavetable modifiers, 32 high-resolution wavetable oscillators, eight types of oscillator modifier and four filter types.