galanter

Here's an interface idea that would help make patch forensics a bit easier. Add to the mod matrix display⦠option to display and edit "hardwired" connections (e.g. env1 -> Filter1) option to sort display by source or destination

FWIW, I think they've done an excellent job of balancing the complexity of this synth. If you initialize a patch you basically have something like a minimoog. Pick your waveforms, adjust their levels in the mixer, and you've got an ADSR pre-assigned to the VCF and the VCA, and pitch-bend and vibrato mod-wheel is ready to go. You can just ignore the second filter, and pick the response curve you want in the first. Easy-peasy. But if you want to do more, then you start exploring the mod-matrix. You can start off slowly. "I want a minimoog, but I want to add an extra wobble in the filter cutoff." No problem. Just assign one of the LFOs to the Filter Freq and bang, you're done. The trick is to not get sucked into feeling like "I've got 32 mod-matrix slots. I better use all of them!" Ditto on the mutators and wave morphing stuff. Start with the init patch, and then add just one or two things from the big bag of tricks. After a while they will become as comfortable as the minimoog-like init patch. In short, start with the basic patch. It's easy. Then slowly add more tricks. It will be a long while before you exhaust those!

(Apologies to those not interested in these nerdy asidesâ¦just skip ahead to Mike's next post! Just for laughs I took a quick look at the MIDI spec for this critter. http://www.mecldata.com/download/asm/Hydrasynth_MIDI_Implementation_Spec%20v1.4.pdf They are still using bit mapped integers like the old days, and I don't think there is an easy way to change the firmware to allow for greater mod wheel resolution without messing up existing patches. However, since sys-ex can be variable length, they could extend the current sys-ex with additional info, and make the new firmware length tolerant, and perhaps kludge a transparent change. A bit messy and inelegant, and future versions might just get worse in terms of coding, but the users would never know. p.s. I'm guessing Arturia could have done something similarâ¦but they're being lazy...)

Well, as you know a long time ago I did some patch editor and sysex app coding. But it's been years and years and things may have changed. If, for example, patch info is now stored as floating point numbers, extending the range on the synth user interface might not really impact the internal representation in a way that breaks the data format. But in the old days the internal representation and sysex was integer representation, and they typically used every single bit. So widening the range would mean either (1) adding more bits, breaking the internal data maps or (2) changing what the bits meant (i.e. 00000001 would mean a lower amount of amplitude than it did before) losing resolution and breaking people's patches. Making a converter program isn't a big deal technically, but the user support problems are bad. They really don't want people posting to boards that "ASM screwed up the vibrato, and then my old patches didn't work any more, and then they had to release a fixer-upper conversion program, and it was a real hassle to download and useâ¦blah blah blah." And after the 50th email complaining "I installed the new Hydrasynth upgrade, and now the vibrato is broken on all my old patches" it gets really old. So yeah, they could release a converter program and ask every one to dump, convert, and reload. But in the real world, and especially for a new company, that could be a dangerous thing in terms of user perception. But all of the above is sysex as it was many years ago. They seem to be really bright engineers, and they could well have anticipated this kind of need and built-in something that is more adaptive than the old fashioned rigid methods allowed. So unless someone on the inside has something to say, I'd chalk the above up to geezer speculation.

New pre-/post- effect and/or filter I'd love to see them add? Something akin to the Moog 914 fixed filter bank.

Good job Mike! Useful stuff. Oddly enough today I discovered my first Hydrasynth thing where I went "No. This isn't a question of taste. This is just plain wrong." Yep. The vibrato range. I like to use just a little vibrato, and with the current setting of 1 I can't go further than 1/3 of the throw, and it's way too easy to go to far. The problem with this kind of thing is always making a change that is backward compatible with existing patches. I think they could do it by adding a .5 and .25 option. That's different than the ratio settings elsewhere, but I think it would be cognitively comfortable to see those same fractions. (Of course the internal representation in the Sys Ex protocol probably doesn't have room for it. It's one thing to change the interface, and another to change the internal representation. This could get gnarly with the sys ex having to have version numbers and code parsing different versions different ways. Yuck. But these guys are pretty bright, and I'd be surprised if they haven't already allowed for this.) I also mostly agree with you about the joys (or not) of "drive" AKA distortion. For the most part i don't like it in synths. But in the realm of electric guitars it's really irreplaceable. However, the fetishism around specific amps and speaker cabinets is really over the top IMHO. However^2 the guitar and amp modeling realm has gotten *really* good, I'm using Helix native on my Mac with Logic Pro X and it's amazing. I'd love to do a good double blinded study with some of these guitar snobs and see if they can really tell the difference. Back to synths, it's said that a big part of the Moog sound attributed to the filter was really the little CP3 mixer modules being overdriven. I have this module from Manhattan Audio that has a mixer that is basically the CP3 circuit. My ears say it's true. If you've had a chance to hear one, or ever get a chance, I'd be interested in what you think. Overall it's a great filter if folks are looking for a classic 60's synth sound. https://manhattananalog.com/products/svvcf Edit: Actually on the above web page there is a good demo.

You must have missed the message I sent you. Too late now alas⦠Mine, a keyboard, arrives tomorrow. Neener Neener Neener!

Thanks, that helps, but I still think we've got a metaphysical/ontological problem here. As in "what are mutators/mutants really?" Even that naming scheme shows there's a problem. After all, what would a mutator create? A mutant! What? So they create themselves? As best as I can figure it out, and perhaps once I get my hands on one I'll know better, sometimes it's more like a post-oscillator input/output device (a mutator, e.g. harmonic), but usually it's an alteration to the oscillator itself (a mutant, e.g. FM). For someone actually writing the code there is no particular reason to have a crisp ontology. You can just go in there and hack the code at will. But it certainly confounds rigorous naming!

Thanks for that. One complaintâ¦were you wearing a lapel mic that was rubbing on your shirt or something? Anyway, the one thing I'm (knowingly) unclear on is the relationship of the mutants to the oscillators. It seems like mutants aren't properly input/output devices, but rather modifications to the oscillator itself. But as you show, both the osc and mutant can be mixed (ie wet/dry). So that's not exactly right either. (Although from a software POV I can imagine what is really going on.) Anyway, what is the relationship of mutant 1 and mutant 2? Is the "input" of mutant 2 osc 1 or the wet/dry mix of mutant 1 or ⦠? Put another way, if I have 2 different mutant settings, does it ever matter which one is mutant 1 and which one is mutant 2? thanks! p.s. Are all of the mutant "knobs" (eg parameters like ratio, depth) modulate-able?