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Tame Impala - Lost In Yesterday

nice mix, good vibe.

Details
Category: Fresh Cut Fridays
Published: 24 July 2020

Ashun Sound Machines Hydrasynth Review and Roger Austli aka 'the sun god RA' Hydrasynth Bank

HYDRASYNTH



The Hydrasynth is a powerful new digital synth from the folks at Ashun Sound Machines, ASM. It's really good at making dreamy pads as well as aggressive, dirty sounds and classic poly sounds.  It also can make sounds you simply have never heard before and may not be able to imagine without experimentation.  It's that powerful. The Hydrasynth would pair perfectly with a powerful analog bass/lead oriented synth like the Moog Subsequent 37. You could make nearly any sound you could dream of with that combo. It's like ASM took the building blocks from the Roland D-50, Yamaha DX-7, EMU Proteus and a Prophet and added more oscillators, filters, LFOs, built-in effects and endless ways to modulate the sound and then modulate that even further. Not to mention you can process external audio from other instruments or playback devices as well. It's kinda nuts. The Hydrasynth sounds very clean and ASM added a 'warm' option that you can toggle on and off with any patches to indeed warm them up a bit.  With all this power it's pretty easy to dial in interesting and new sounds that broach the digital and analog realms.  Sure the Hydrasynth leans to the digital side of things but you'd be hard pressed to identify it in a mix with a carefully crafted patch.  It's a synth that is begging to be programmed and experimented with. 

Everything is readily accessible but we're still getting familiar with all the capabilities of this synth. It's not that it's hard to program, it's just that there are endless options and modulations and it's really deep, so you can go down the rabbit hole of just one little element of sound design. Luckily there are some amazing free patch banks being released that serve to show off the capabilities of the Hydrasynth but also act as a starting point for creating new sounds. The Hydrasynth also includes a 'Random" button which will create random patches. These can range from chaos and noise to really musical and interesting sonic detours. This is a great discovery tool and every electronic instrument should have some kind of random button. If you've ever said, "if only I could do X" with your current synth, odds are you can do X with the Hydrasynth. Hitting 'random' will both delight and baffle you as the machine does it's thing. Really watch your levels when playing with this feature as you can varying levels of output that may suprise you and we'd recommed not using this feature while using headphones to protect your ears. 

The Hydraynth features a Polytouch keybed that offers polyphonic aftertouch over each note. This is really great for expressive playing and works as advertised. It also features a 4 octave ribbon controller which is fun to experiment with too. The pitch and mod wheels aren't great with the goofy handle on top. We'd prefer the classic Moog style with the indent. However, we imagine less funky Moog style pitchen bending  on this unit anyway. So not that big a deal but really don't get that choice. The Hydrasynth keybed is just ok and if you already have a master controller you love, we'd recommend getting the synth option without the keys, unless the ribbon and polytough is important to you. We always prefer a full synth versus just the brain but if you're on the fence just get the brain.

The Hydrasynth is built like a tank. It's heavy with lots of metal. However we're baffled by the use of a wall wart for power and the cheap feeling buttons. Wall warts are just a hard stop. We lose them, we break them, they cause a tangled mess and Ashun bundles a unit with a really short cord. Please no. I see this getting yanked out on gigs. It's cool that the buttons light up so you know what's in use..etc, but they're a bit wobbly and mushy and instill no confidence during use. The encoder knobs are much hardier and have a good feel. It's like two completely different levels of quality. Perhaps ASM is still dialing in their design language, fit and finish and bill of materials strategy and there's an opportunity for big improvements here in future product release, similar to how Elektron updated it's Analog Rytm MKII with a much better feel/buttons than the original. They layout is great but wobbly, noisy buttons need improvement. Steel the feel of the MPC Live transport controls.

Overall, the Hydrasynth is a good value. We wouldn't call the experience of making new sounds immediate. It's too deep for that. You couldn't make enough knobs and buttons. However, the flow is well laid out and by using some existing patches as a jumping off point you can quickly lose yourself in sound design for hours; like hurt your neck looking down at the knobs and buttons as you tweak away. The Hydrasynth comes with 5 banks of storage, each holding 128 patches. Doesn't seem like enough. Between downloading patch banks, the factory presets and making our own patches, 5 banks will get eaten up fast. 10 banks would have been great. With so many great sounds why force me to delete patches? The patch manager runs on Windows and Mac OS and is an easy way to manage patches. So, once we settle on our favorites we can make that work.

ASM has been rolling out updates and we used the firmware update tool on Windows and it was a seamless udpate. We'd like to see more videos on sound design and a breakdown of how to create a specific patch and what that process is for someone of the top sound designers in the synth world. That would be really cool. Even if you're familiar with synthesis and sound design ASM is coming at this with some new capabilities and you'll need a deep dive to truly appreciate all if offers.

It's a pretty impressive initial product from ASM and we're looking forward to future updates as this synth evolves. Expect to hear this beauty on a lot of records this year. Well done dudes, well done.

Get uploads and free patches for the Hydrasynth here.

Details
Category: Production and Creative
Published: 12 May 2020

Beach Bunny - Sports

if the Housemartins and Mazzy Star had a baby
Details
Category: Fresh Cut Fridays
Published: 07 March 2020
  1. See an Eco-Friendly Backyard Cottage in 700 Square Feet
  2. Boyz II Men Kobe Bryant National Anthem Tribute - Beautiful
  3. East/West Bowl Pro Edition - Key and Peele
  4. A Fun, Modern Family Home Designed to Survive Wildfires
  5. My Stick - Yoda's Jam from the Last Jedi
  6. Lewis Capaldi and Alicia Keys - Someone You Loved Live
  7. Santa Baby - SNL -
  8. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood Live
  9. Sump'n Claus
  10. Lizzo Truth Hurts Live
  11. Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You - Full Color in Tokyo
  12. Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You - Black and White Version
  13. Halsey - Beautiful Stranger
  14. James Bond - No Time To Die
  15. New Motorola Razr - The Smart Flip
  16. Grouch - Movie Trailer
  17. The Fall Color of New Hampshire in 4K
  18. Beatles Please Please Me - 1 Day Album
  19. Other World Computing Dual Bay SATA Drive Dock Review
  20. Lo-Fi Music to Chill/Study with
  21. Lana Del Rey - F-It I Love You & The Greatest (Official Video)
  22. Marina - To Be Human
  23. ILLENIUM, Jon Bellion - Good Things Fall Apart (Lyric Video)
  24. You've Never Seen a Barn Conversion Like This
  25. SampleTank 4 Max Review
  26. KRK 8s V2 Subwoofer Review
  27. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood Trailer
  28. JBL 306P MkII Powered Monitor Review
  29. Best Hard Drives for your NAS or DAS and Video Editing
  30. H.E.R Hard Place
  31. Brad Paisley - My Miracle
  32. Anderson Paak - King James
  33. Death Valley POV Fly Through
  34. MARINA - Orange Trees
  35. Skyler Stonestreet - It Kinda Hurts
  36. OK Go - The One Moment
  37. Asha Mevlana's Tiny Amplified House
  38. Feel It Still - Portugal The Man ('60s "Mr. Postman" Style Cover)
  39. Apple Color Flood ad
  40. Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey - The Middle (Official Music Video)
  41. Bob Seger - Ramblin' Gamblin Man
  42. Sleigh Bells - "And Saints"
  43. Secret Lab Throne Gaming Chair Review
  44. Best Christmas Ever
  45. Backstreet Boys - Chances
  46. TELYKast ft. Rachel Raquel - Summertime (TELYKast VIP Remix)
  47. Genelec 8030C 5” active monitor Review
  48. RAVPower RP-PC029 6-Port Desktop Charger Review
  49. Startech DisplayPort to DVI Dual Link Active Adapter Converter Review
  50. Canon TS9120 Inkjet Printer Review
  51. A Frightening Tale
  52. Winchester Mystery House POV Fly Through
  53. Rad Beats is Always Droppin' the Latest Tracks
  54. Childish Gambino - Feels Like Summer Music Video
  55. Rad Beats is Always Droppin' the Latest Tracks
  56. Coffe Mugs Made from Recycled Coffee
  57. Key & Peele - Substitute Teacher Part 2
  58. Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD Review
  59. G-Drive Mobile SSD R-Series 1TB Review
  60. Nvidia Quadro P4000 Review
  61. Kacey Musgraves Are you Sure feat Willie Nelson
  62. Moog Subsequent 37
  63. Lynx E22 Versus RME Audio HDSPe AIO - Battle for the Best PCIe Audio Card
  64. Echosmith - Goodbye
  65. Pepsi Ad SNL
  66. The Chainsmokers - Closer Acoustic
  67. Amazing A-Frame in LA
  68. The Fall Colors of New England and Michigan Will Lift Your Soul
  69. Edius 8.22 Review - Powerful Updates for Post
  70. Interpretive Drawing of White Stripes City Lights
  71. The Cars - It's All I Can Do
  72. Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
  73. Flume - Never Be Like You feat. Kai
  74. Drinking Scotch with Nick
  75. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Downtown
  76. Echosmith - Let's Love
  77. Lana Del Rey - High By The Beach Music Video
  78. Third Eye Blind - Everything is Easy
  79. Tim Akers & The Smoking Section do Uptown Funk
  80. Jim James - State of the Art Live
  81. Best Coast - Feeling Ok
  82. Everything is Awesome in This Guy's Lego Basement Remodel
  83. Incredible Bodypaint Art - This Chameleon is Two Woman
  84. Awesome Airstream Renovation of a 1976 Ambassador
  85. Iggy Azalea - Trouble ft. Jennifer Hudson
  86. FourFiveSeconds - Rihanna, Kanye and Paul
  87. Mr. Probz Waves Remix
  88. Detroit Versus Everybody - Music Video
  89. NFL Bad Lip Reading 2015
  90. Maroon 5 - Sugar Music Video
  91. Electric Sixer Polarized Sunglasses Review
  92. NVIDIA Quadro K4200 Review
  93. JBL EON206P Portable PA Review
  94. Panasonic AJ-PX270 Professional HD Camcorder Review
  95. Man Turns His House Into Indoor Cat Playland and Our Hearts Explode
  96. Monica Heldal - Boy From The North acoustic
  97. Boris FX BCC 9 Review 2014
  98. Between Two Ferns with Zach and Brad Pitt
  99. Danny Macaskill...Always Awesome
  100. The Jezabels - All You Need

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