3 Lessons from Moog applied to Hydrasynth

This video it's about a patch by Moog that I try reproduce in Hydrasynth. This patch is designed by Lisa Bella Donna specially for the Moog Grandmother. Although I have the Grandmother for a long time now I have never tried the patches before since, I must confess, I was not into how Modular Generative patches sounds like.
But by trying it patch it in the Moog, I have not only learned a lot about modular, but also discover how fun is to play on such a patch. Them a question came into my mind, can I apply the lessons learned to any synth?
Join me on my attempt to create a patch to ASM Hydrasynth with the lessons learned from Lisa Bella Donna and Moog.
This video has more advanced techniques, but I am trying to explain it from the perspective of someone that is learning by doing. This video is long, so use the chapters to navigate to your points of interest. I hope you have fun watching, it was fun to make it.
00:00 - Start
00:56 - Part 1 - The Moog Patch
01:43 - Lesson 1
02:12 - Lesson 2
03:33 - Lesson 3
07:03 - Part 2 - Applying the lessons
07:28 - The basis for the patch
09:17 - Setting up the Filters and AMP
10:23 - Envelopes and LFOs
12:09 - The MOD Matrix
13:39 - A work around
15:31 - The final touch
16:21 - How does it sounds
17:10 - Conclusion
19:09 - Patches side by side

[@PhilW222]

The Hydra in many ways is like a modular (or at least semi-modular) but with the advantages of polyphony, poly AT, savable presets, etc. An awesome beast of a synth!

[@wernerhaider2338]

I love my Hydra too. Fantastic synth!

[@toddkitta]

Loved your video. Your attention to detail and approach to learning and discovery was refreshing! Nice work!

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Thank you for the incentive, comments like yours gives me energy to make more of these ☺️

[@1VperOctave]

Great analysis and dissection of the original patch, and a very thoughtful excercise in recreating something similar in a very different synth.

[@camphabenero]

This is gold! While not my favorite sound, I really like your process to map the design decisions and method to patch the hydra.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

I’m with you there. Always thought LBD sound scape is not my cup of tea, but she is a synth Guru for many reasons. Some valid lessons there that I’ve been using after going through this video’s research

[@chrisa2657]

Beautiful patch and I really appreciate the way you explained it! I'll be using what you taught me as I learn how to make my own generative patches! Thanks ❤

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Thanks for your feedback, I make the videos with good intentions but it’s only when I get your responses I can know for real if you could really make use of it. So it makes me really satisfied to know it can be interesting and useful for someone! Thanks for sharing

[@jamesdefrancesco7765]

Wow, nice job. Will be trying this!

[@jakedooom]

Yes… it’s definitely a useful exercise. You can learn a lot about synthesis, patch creation and atmosphere by seeing how a patch on one synth, inspires a patch on another and encourages you create the new patch in a very “directed” and deliberate way, learning new techniques as you go.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

I also thought that we always say on videos like these, you can do these techniques in any synth. So I wanted to put it to a test that one can actually do so and show the struggles and achievements. I’ve learned a lot on doing it that’s for sure.

[@stephenanthonythomas3533]

Well done!

[@ilyandilymusic]

Great video! Although it gets pretty technical, you have a great way of explaining what you are doing. Would love to see more patch creation and design videos from you in the future!

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Thanks! Do you what know was fun for me? I’ve started thinking how hard it was for me to learn from advanced KZbin videos and I started creating content for beginners, believing I could somehow come up with a didactic explanation. But these videos with de more technical stuff had the best response. More than that, the community started to teach me things on how to improve these patches. My conclusion was that our community is very clever, engaged and curious. This made me to try harder to catch up with you guys.

[@ilyandilymusic]

@@ShaperSoundChannel I feel the same way. You may feel that the advanced synthesis tutorials would be far more niche than it is. But as a community we are HUNGRY for advanced stuff. There is no shortage of beginner tutorials on KZbin. I think your channel is in a great position to take on the advanced stuff.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

@@ilyandilymusic thanks for the feedback, always adjusting and trying to keep it interesting. Cheers!

[@aopaul]

Thank you so much for this video. The ability to interpret the patching of one synth and applying it to another is such an important skill. I just saw that cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy is using a Hydrasynth Explorer on their new tour. I’m suspecting he has done exactly this… translated patches from other larger synths onto the more portable Explorer.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

I also saw an interview with Jordan Rudes from Dream Theater showing off his Hydrasynth. It’s a lot of possibilities.

[@GrootsieTheDog]

Master Moog: I shall teach you how to modulate young Grasshopper. Grasshopper Hydra: Master, I have accomplished the task. And I have saved it & did it without cables. Master Moog: Clearly the student has surpassed the master.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

😝 Master Bella Donna

[@ibelieveinsound]

smashed that like buttons How does it sounds? It sounds great. Nice work. Sound Design is a whole ass universe!

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Thanks a LOT Hunter, this universe of the sound design intrigues me as much as you! Cool to take part in this community!

[@martincarbow5491]

Awesome, great idea and great realization. And so inspiring… …I actually just downloaded Lisa Bella Donna's Grandmother patchbook to try your approach on my Matriarch (probably a lot easier than on the Hydrasynth, but still some things to think about). Thanks a lot!

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

You got it! Going trough this mental exercise to have to understand to be able to immediately apply helped me a lot to really understand what she was doing in terms of sound design. As a fun fact I've watched an interview with her after doing this video and she spelled with all words some of her "tricks" with envelopes and amplitude modulation that confirmed to me some of the concepts or "lessons" we could learn from her patch collection. Have fun with her collection and share your insights ! (oooo matriarch... is on my wish list)

[@martincarbow5491]

@@ShaperSoundChannel Thanks for taking the time to answer. I forgot to mention that you did a really fine tutorial here, clear and easy to understand, eye-opening and helpful! I'll let you know how that idea works on the Matriarch, mate.

[@NicolasMelis]

well done !

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Thanks Nicolas, I also enjoy your content!

[@nsjx]

Hello, Thanks for sharing. I will use your clear instruction to build this on my Explorer. I appreciate that you made each dial setting clear at the bottom of the screen. I want to make this patch version of yours and see what modifications the new OS additions brings to it. There are some neat tricks which can be done by the extensive trigger options in Hydra and it would be worth it to play with voice source modulation. One wouldn't want things too wild and messy so it may take some balancing to arrive at a pleasant usable variation of the original idea

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Yes, please share your ideas and results! Sometimes it feels that these discussions are what matters, the initial patch is just the inspiration.

[@nsjx]

@@ShaperSoundChannel Agreed. I will try this in the coming weekend and post here.

[@nsjx]

Hi there, I sat and made notes of both the original and your version and I have programmed a patch in my Explorer following nearly exactly your ice instructions. Did you see in the vid where you cganged LFO4 source to LFO4+?? Did you leave it unipolar in your saved version? Now I have begun patching a new version based on yours and the original. This will take me about a week to figure out, partly because of the fantastic weather ha ha... and parlty because I usually have limited time as it is during the week BUT it may just be that I'll have a version sooner. I think your OSC2 to VCA workaround is definitely och timbrally speaking, but when I play arp chords and seq I get timing issues because of the modulations. I have to play exactly in time with the arp pattern for the seq to SOUND good, i mean. It may be the swing at full that makes it difficult. I will also switch to Down order on mine and move back to MW for filter AND when I was playing with this I wanted slightly more Res and slightly lower Cutoff on F1, and I used the MW to affect cutoff in a Negative direction (because the held arp slowly Raises the cutoff iirc so being able to drop the cutoff w MW duribg the evolution of the held arp sounded cool to me. I think since the Hydra uses a digital RM that *maybe* using one of the vast amount of wavetables (PWed or Other) would sound way better on the Hydra.. Just a thought. Also the new 2.0 OS gives us a Bit-reducer on each OSC. This is really cool and can give some nice edge to certain waveforms. Oh... I will also slow my arp to 1/8 div... because I like the ringing out of the gated arp note. Let me know if you have any thoughts based on all this. I'll get back to it and post. I also downloaded and read the manual for GM and this has helped me understand how it is using its voltage.

[@nsjx]

Also you can balance how much each audio source is fed to either filter way down in the last page of Hydra's mixer menu.. So you can send OSC1 to hp and the rest thru LP filter.. try changing the filter architecture if needed

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

@@nsjx I’m not sure if I follow you 100% but I love your suggestions. I felt the same with tempo and how you play the patch, but I believe this was also the case in the Moog patch. How ever many of you when evolving on the initial path, have added fun macros and routings for live performances. It is really cool to hear how everyone one adapts the patches for their way of playing and their sonorous taste. I must confess this was the first video I tried to post something more advanced, and this generated very interesting discussions here in the channel, but I was trying to make it more simple in a way. But I see how much our community appreciates the details, so I will be deep diving on rounding the edges of the patches as much as I can as well. Thanks for trying and sharing your experiences.

[@forton615]

I have been missing the audio rate oscillator inputs in the mod matrix too, I think the reason they left it out was that you can do most of the audio rate modulation in the mutants. Still wish it was an option though.

[@lyh1]

That is where GAS start, when you found they cant sound close. But most of the time simple patch can sound close enough between synth.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Agree, I think if we use basic modulation it is possible to make two synths sound close enough , and if that is the goal of your sound design (see my video on Radiohead patch) than it is possible. But I wanted now to apply the same techniques from Lisa Bella Donna onto another synth and… well it works.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

But her patch has some sort of vowel sounds to it that mine don’t… so this is probably do to my work around there

[@memphissmith8936]

I have both the Matriarch and the Hydra. Matriarch sounds better but you have way more usable options with the Hydra.

[@ingostromitzky497]

Thank you for the video, very interesting. But that comes to the question. Why should I do that, I don’t play Guitar on a Violin… Play it together like you did at the end of the video. Why did you choose the Hydrasynth for this Video?

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Good questions 😝. The hole point is like I said, in many channels you hear I will do this patch in this synth but you can reproduce this technique in any synth. So I wanted to take some of my own medicine. If I explore a patch in the Moog can I use the same technique in any synth? To your second question, why on Hydrasynth: one of the main reasons is that this one of the most flexible synths I have, theoretically the most flexible, so I also wanted to test this.

[@ingostromitzky497]

@@ShaperSoundChannel Yes, and with the 2.0 Update it‘s a Killersynth.

[@Bouwput]

HS being the sort of swiss army knife of sound design it makes perfectly sense to analyse a sound you like and recreate it. Training exercise, ear-finger coordination 😁 I like vids featuring Moogs. It reassures me that purchasing a HS was one of the best decisions I made.

[@flourfree2K]

No... generative means something else. You DO NOT TOUCH the machine and it generates music from your patch. WITHOUT HUMAN INTERACTION.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Good one, notes taken.

[@flourfree2K]

@@ShaperSoundChannel By the way, sequencers are welcome. Better if the patch can randomly reset the step. And/Or, the clock can be randomized. And/Or, the pitch output can be mixed with a Sampled and Held Noise and then the mix can be (optionally) quantized.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

@@flourfree2K you mean resetting LFO or the arp sequence? Yes I want to star experimenting with SH and random value modulation, but this is a good idea to use it on reset as well, cool!

[@flourfree2K]

@@ShaperSoundChannel I mean step reset on the sequencer, if any (the Korg SQ-1 doesn't have a reset in, but the BEHRINGER Clocked Sequential Control Module 1027 has it - and its price is very affordable, about 115€). Anyway, you can apply randomicity to the clock input and/or to the pitch output. Even on a simple Korg SQ-1, if you already happen to have this gear. Otherwise, I'd go for the aforementioned module, which has 3 x 8 step channels and a reset input as well.

[@nsjx]

I was thinking the same but I thought he said it "sounded" generative" because of the LFO mod adding pitch changes combined w long Env stages... but you are exactly right, a generative patch lives (and breathes) completely on its own

[@Heavy_Distortion]

I would take Moog Grandmother any day over Hydrasynth. Sound is everything.

[@nsjx]

Well, that all depends on what Sound the composer/artist is looking for in their piece of music. The Hydrasynth does what it does wonderfully... as does the MG or the Sub37 which is the Moog I have here. 'Sound's good' often depends on Many factors concerning how the parts are Mixed as well and what Roles they play in an arrangement.

[@Heavy_Distortion]

@@nsjx MG and Sub37 sound awful. Grandmother and Matriarch sound phenomenal.

[@nsjx]

@@Heavy_Distortion weird, my dyslexia got the best of me. that should be GM and Sub37. awful huh? ok bud 👍

[@JohnHafner]

5 Wires vs 1001 hours of menu diving.... Lol, both are really cool synths tho.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

Hahaha good take on the user interface side of things. I also think companies did not revolutionize much on how we interact with these machines. They are almost as they were when they were invented. Maybe this is part o the charm, synth enthusiasts like the complexity, and like to talk about it, but I work with usability and tend to agree that despite fun colors and a good signal path overview in the ASM… it is complicated!

[@nsjx]

i think we have come leaps and bounds since the first digitals and with synthesizers of yesteryear of which i own a few, it was knob-per-function (they could get away with that). The Hydra, and a few others offer invisible modular patching by way of quick button combos. The Hydra is super-fast to program IF speed is what you need, but I feel rather that these boards are more for those who enjoying patching up complex and evolving digital sounds and textures (like me with most modern wavetable or wave-sequencing synths). 1001 hrs is of diving is def not the Hydra. One thing that drew me to the hydrasynth was the story of its creation and how the idea evolved and featured several new ideas for digital synthesis. I also love the mini-menu system under the fabulous user interface. It is obvious that the main designers are synthesizer enthusiasts with experience and love for patching. But yes, some digitals are a nightmare to get anywhere fast.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

@@nsjx agreed, ASM did quite s good job on the interface mimicking the signal path, with quick access to the sub menus via one click on the signal path map. But yes, it is partly a product success because of all its possibilities or features. And you need an interface to access all this features. But the commercial success tells the story, we synth people kind of like the challenge, the difficulty. That is why channels like this exist and we comment, discuss and engage so much in our discussions, it is due to the complexity and possibilities. Synth philosophy 🤣. Love to find people to discuss these things🤙

[@suehunt622]

for a sound guy you need to get another job. the music volume is good but your narrative is so quiet. if you insist on making videos then put more effort in.

[@ShaperSoundChannel]

What a kind feedback 🤣, by the way I don’t earn a penny for my videos, so this is not my job, I am learning by doing . But that is a good question, I am using Netflix normalization following some other KZbin recommendations. I have been gradually increasing the volume since by comparison I’ve noticed the overall volume was low. Does anyone know what are the standard normalization for KZbin?

[@suehunt622]

@@ShaperSoundChannel I hope you get it all right. Your content is great. I shall keep watching and learning. Take care.