the watmm GAS thread

  On 12/24/2021 at 10:04 PM, luke viia said:

uhhh this is too awesome, GAS ignited

Anyone ever messed with a Hydrasynth desktop? Looks pretty complicated. A friend with little experience wants to jump up a level but i'm kind thinking this might be pretty frustrating if you were new to the game. Also, it's not a synth I've heard about a lot, so not sure if it's good quality piece of gear. looks beefy and fun but maybe a lot of manual reading before really getting into music-making part.

https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/hydrasynth-desk

  On 1/3/2022 at 12:15 AM, cooliofranco said:

Anyone ever messed with a Hydrasynth desktop? Looks pretty complicated. A friend with little experience wants to jump up a level but i'm kind thinking this might be pretty frustrating if you were new to the game. Also, it's not a synth I've heard about a lot, so not sure if it's good quality piece of gear. looks beefy and fun but maybe a lot of manual reading before really getting into music-making part.

https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/hydrasynth-desk

Tell yo friend to buy it; he won’t regret it! It’s a fun beast! 

  On 1/3/2022 at 12:15 AM, cooliofranco said:

Anyone ever messed with a Hydrasynth desktop? Looks pretty complicated. A friend with little experience wants to jump up a level but i'm kind thinking this might be pretty frustrating if you were new to the game. Also, it's not a synth I've heard about a lot, so not sure if it's good quality piece of gear. looks beefy and fun but maybe a lot of manual reading before really getting into music-making part.

https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/hydrasynth-desk

Had a friend also in the same boat just before the holidays and advised they go for it. Not actually heard if they like it yet but will find out when get back to work this week.  It’s a beast sound and build wise. Built like a tank. It’s well designed and intuitive enough to to explore without getting lost. The home button helps. I have one myself and compared it recently with the novation peak, mainly for spacey pad and string sound design duties and I prefer the hydra. It’s a wavetable synth, it has fm modes and cross modulations. Therefor It can sound very harsh very easily. It has lovely filters to subtract the edges and the filter controls are on the front panel. 

The only minor issue I can foresee with my colleague (and possibly your friend), without several moons of synthesis techniques under their belts, it could be more alluring to preset surf which is understandable and no bad thing, but could become the way one looks at it and uses it. Again, no bad thing but it could be intimidating flicking through the sheer number of sounds if the intention is to make own stuff and control what’s going on. 

Preset wise, They are a very mixed bag. The “init” button is always right there for instant dismissal of the shockingly bad ones. Thankfully it’s pretty easy to reverse engineer nicer patches, the ringed encoders help a bunch in finding out what going on and figuring out what is roughly where, Click on the envelope section for instance and all the encoders jump to only env params with mostly 1 or 2 pages of relevant tweaks. it’s really a musically sensible interface once you get used to it. The LFOS buttons even glow at the rate they are modulating at as well as the envelopes leds increasing and fading with rise and fall times etc. It’s neat and pleasing and helps digest what’s going on. 

for the cash monies it’s a cracker in my book. The sound quality is excellent and it’s got a absolute tonne of features. Its an investment synth methinks. A good teaching tool for synthesis to begin with and a silly amount of modulation and depth  if and or when you choose to go there.  
 

Hope some of that waffle is useful...
 

Ps I’m not a rep for ASM 

I've been thinking about selling off a couple of the 90s ROMplers I got back when 90s ROMplers were still dirt cheap and using the money to buy a desktop Hydrasynth as a second MPE synth, but I haven't quite been ready to do it yet, every time I fire up one of the old ones to make sure I'm ready to sell it, I end up losing an hour or two programming new patches, being really inspired by it and deciding I don't need to get rid of it or get something new after all.

But if I ever get another synth that's probably what it will be, everything I've seen and heard about it seems really nice.

Fair warning: never check local listings for used gear, you might end up GASing for stuff you never knew you wanted!! At the very least, if you do find something, do not search youtube, SoS, Sonicstate for reviews - you do that and you are gone. GONE!

Anyways I never knew the Korg Electribe was such a cool beast:

Yes I have been listening to the soma FM vaporwave station for all day today, surely this has not clouded my judgment.

  On 1/3/2022 at 9:42 PM, thawkins said:

 

 I never knew the Korg Electribe was such a cool beast:

 

same! im shocked how powerful it is 

You can also get sampler electribes. Might be cool to attach them.

I was looking at the electribes years ago when I was deciding which hardware thing to get, and I never ended up getting them because they were not inspiring enough (and I never bothered to research in depth either). Back then they were brand new devices and for some reason I thought the Electribes with that fancy tube thing were cooler. Past me continues to be a huge dumbass.

  On 1/3/2022 at 10:40 PM, thawkins said:

I was looking at the electribes years ago when I was deciding which hardware thing to get, and I never ended up getting them because they were not inspiring enough (and I never bothered to research in depth either). Back then they were brand new devices and for some reason I thought the Electribes with that fancy tube thing were cooler. Past me continues to be a huge dumbass.

Aren't some of the tubed up Electribes more versatile? I think they have more tracks too? All I remember is them being made for dancey electronics like psytrance, whereas the newer Electribes are more for.. what are they for?

  On 1/3/2022 at 3:35 AM, Thaddeus Bach said:

Had a friend also in the same boat just before the holidays and advised they go for it. Not actually heard if they like it yet but will find out when get back to work this week.  It’s a beast sound and build wise. Built like a tank. It’s well designed and intuitive enough to to explore without getting lost. The home button helps. I have one myself and compared it recently with the novation peak, mainly for spacey pad and string sound design duties and I prefer the hydra. It’s a wavetable synth, it has fm modes and cross modulations. Therefor It can sound very harsh very easily. It has lovely filters to subtract the edges and the filter controls are on the front panel. 

The only minor issue I can foresee with my colleague (and possibly your friend), without several moons of synthesis techniques under their belts, it could be more alluring to preset surf which is understandable and no bad thing, but could become the way one looks at it and uses it. Again, no bad thing but it could be intimidating flicking through the sheer number of sounds if the intention is to make own stuff and control what’s going on. 

Preset wise, They are a very mixed bag. The “init” button is always right there for instant dismissal of the shockingly bad ones. Thankfully it’s pretty easy to reverse engineer nicer patches, the ringed encoders help a bunch in finding out what going on and figuring out what is roughly where, Click on the envelope section for instance and all the encoders jump to only env params with mostly 1 or 2 pages of relevant tweaks. it’s really a musically sensible interface once you get used to it. The LFOS buttons even glow at the rate they are modulating at as well as the envelopes leds increasing and fading with rise and fall times etc. It’s neat and pleasing and helps digest what’s going on. 

for the cash monies it’s a cracker in my book. The sound quality is excellent and it’s got a absolute tonne of features. Its an investment synth methinks. A good teaching tool for synthesis to begin with and a silly amount of modulation and depth  if and or when you choose to go there.  
 

Hope some of that waffle is useful...
 

Ps I’m not a rep for ASM 

 

Expand  

  On 1/3/2022 at 1:53 AM, xox said:

Tell yo friend to buy it; he won’t regret it! It’s a fun beast! 

Very helpful, thank you so much for the info. i think he's more into the sound design vs. gnarly basslines so this makes a lot of sense. A lot of this stuff you can get with software for much less money. I think the allure of hardware is real tho, yeah maybe you can get the same sounds with the abelton plugins but since doing that is less fun, you're less inclined to really get into it

The only things I still kind of wish I owned (but not enough to spend money on)are a really well maintained, original Korg Mono/Poly and Behringer Tweakalizer.

One is a lot more obtainable than the other, but also a lot less practical.

  On 1/4/2022 at 12:28 AM, TubularCorporation said:

The only things I still kind of wish I owned (but not enough to spend money on)are a really well maintained, original Korg Mono/Poly and Behringer Tweakalizer.

 

One is a lot more obtainable than the other, but also a lot less practical.

On the mono/poly I have a good gas mask for you:

- It lacks patch memory
- Too much stuff to tweak - Not effective!

  On 1/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, yekker said:

You can also get sampler electribes. Might be cool to attach them.

Expand  

  On 1/3/2022 at 9:42 PM, thawkins said:

Fair warning: never check local listings for used gear, you might end up GASing for stuff you never knew you wanted!! At the very least, if you do find something, do not search youtube, SoS, Sonicstate for reviews - you do that and you are gone. GONE!

Anyways I never knew the Korg Electribe was such a cool beast:

Yes I have been listening to the soma FM vaporwave station for all day today, surely this has not clouded my judgment.

Expand  

  On 1/3/2022 at 9:52 PM, xox said:

same! im shocked how powerful it is 

I have a gas mask for u guys:

- Arp on these are very poor
- Can not have reverb on part only the master
- Very bad memory capacity 
- Sound is terrible like a Groovebox under a pillow
- The layout is bad
- No song mode

Thank me later  

  On 1/4/2022 at 12:42 AM, cern said:

On the mono/poly I have a good gas mask for you:

- It lacks patch memory
- Too much stuff to tweak - Not effective!

What's patch memory?

The hing that makes me not ever want toor xpect to get a mono/poly is that the cheapest one I  can see right now is over $4000, fuck that..

I'd pay $800 if it was in showroom condition, but above that there are so many better ways to waste money.

if I had $4000 to spend I'd buy a shitty used car and play out of town shows with the gear I already own.

Yeah vintage synth prices went wild since covid. I bought a refurbished monopoly in feb 2020 for $1500 lol

  On 1/4/2022 at 3:03 AM, TubularCorporation said:

What's patch memory?

 - presets 

btw...could maybe behringer monopoly be good enough?

  On 1/4/2022 at 12:54 AM, cern said:

 

 

I have a gas mask for u guys:

- Arp on these are very poor
- Can not have reverb on part only the master
- Very bad memory capacity 
- Sound is terrible like a Groovebox under a pillow
- The layout is bad
- No song mode

Thank me later  

Expand  

lol yes, thnx but tbh i didnt expect much from these; i actually thought they're nothing more than paperweights.... but realizing they have ANY other function was shocking to me

  On 1/4/2022 at 12:54 AM, cern said:

 

 

I have a gas mask for u guys:

- Arp on these are very poor
- Can not have reverb on part only the master
- Very bad memory capacity 
- Sound is terrible like a Groovebox under a pillow
- The layout is bad
- No song mode

Thank me later  

Expand  

That wouldn't scare me off really. What I want(ed) is a small box that can do some loops and has multiple tracks so I could drive my Korg MicroX or some other gear with it (or just bring with me to a train ride or a trip). I finish all my tracks in Live anyway, so the lack of song mode, effects does not really matter.

  On 1/4/2022 at 9:53 AM, xox said:

- presets 

That was a joke.

I don't want or need any more gear, other than eventually some more i/o and maybe another power conditioner (which are pretty affordable if you buy new-old-stock industrial or medical power conditioners rather than the overpriced and often not as good kind that are marketed for audio and home theater, so that's no problem)

Is there any reason why I should buy synths/effects from plugin boutique over the software's homepage?

  On 1/4/2022 at 9:53 AM, xox said:

 - presets 

btw...could maybe behringer monopoly be good enough?

It's just another paraphonic pretending to be poly, so no. 

  On 1/9/2022 at 4:54 AM, yekker said:

Is there any reason why I should buy synths/effects from plugin boutique over the software's homepage?

Sometimes they're on sale.

GAS-adjacent, but finding a replacement L-shaped rubber end cap for a keyboard stand is damn near impossible it seems. Figured they'd be relatively easy to find online and so far completely elusive.

Got a price I couldn't pass up ($120, cheaper than a Volca) on a pretty clean Roland M-160 to use as a synth submixer. I know they're not great but until I find a Mackie LM3204 for under $200 (or win the lottery and buy a Speck Xtramix), I'll settle for this and have enough money for a few cheap, Monoprice 8 channel snakes left over. 

It was the three true-stereo aux sends (and a fourth mono one) that got me. Smallest mixer I'm aware of with a half decent number of channels and that many sends.