How Textures Tell a Story

Some instruments ache by themselves. You play a note and you hear a struggle and a loneliness. The SOMA Lyra-8 synthesizer is such an instrument to me. A single note from it has a lot of sounds and noises around it that make me feel like „it has seen things“. Its Klangfarbe, its timbre, is rich yet tainted, even in its brightest moments. In this video, I reflect on how "broken by design" timbres affect composition in electronic music.
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[@Hainbach]

Check out my new album SYN-KET STUDIEN - hainbach.bandcamp.com/album/syn-ket-studien

[@NicleT]

There’s some instruments like this where the interaction is not of control, but rather a dialogue. The Lyra is the most eloquent example of this. I don’t feel I play the Lyra, we instead play together. Fascinating instrument!

[@Hainbach]

Perfectly put!

[@oliviermoreau6224]

Eloquent, that's the word!

[@cheetofingers456]

@@xdraygul5169 I bet you're fun at parties

[@hahaihaveahandlenow]

@@xdraygul5169 By what I've seen of the elektron monomachine, it seems pretty untamed and alive, and using it has been described as a dialogue. You might want to look into it.

[@VarionJimmy]

I totally agree. The first time I tried a miniKorg 700 I got that feeling. I got struck with the feeling that it was alive. So I’m sure that I would love a Lyra. Hope I get at chance to try one some day.

[@genericname2284]

Thank you for this incredible and inspiring video Hainbach! Fun fact: every Lyra-8 is sent to the frontline to experience this unfathomable horrors of war before being shipped out. This is what causes the weeping and melancholic textures that it produces. Or as you say… it sounds like it has seen things.

[@SidJ8300]

Well said

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

I built one, from one of the board sets, they offered. Made my own custom wood case and wood knobs for it, to make it more unique, like its sound. I also built my own Benjolin, and use them during space sets, in my Grateful Dead tribute bands. Life is better with Hainbach, and all of you, in it, to share the fun of playing these things 😀 Music is life! 🎶❤☮

[@MrDancer893]

Atmospheric, chillin', deep... Feels like you hear the lecture about the trip to the world of musical experiments at home with a cup of tea. It's an autumn outside...and you don't want to leave this warm armchair... Thank you!

[@kooljules]

I love when an instrument “serenades the hell hounds “ 😂 👍🏼

[@Noise-Conductor]

I love the mellow distorted vibe of the sound texture. Perfect for Autumn & Winter music.

[@tonverfall_studio]

"rich, yet tainted" - awesome description. This is one reason I love the Alesis Micron. You can make it sound so BROKEN.

[@bricelory9534]

Truly beautiful video! It feels like a spacious exploration of an idea rather than a tech demo or unveiling a synth, and I love it. Just a reflective space to join you in your world of how you hear and approach music. And I love that kind of experience - we get to both understand why/how you make music more clearly, and we get to learn to listen differently than we are used to within our own interaction with music. It's beautiful, thank you for sharing! ❤️

[@chevere4209]

Absolutely love these video’s. Reminds me that the best ideas are quite often the accidents found while just enjoying sound. I find it much more achievable while “playing” as appose to trying.

[@pzedozmusic]

I love the way you explore ways to create new music. For me, it is an inspiration, helping me to keep going with my music making…, so thank you. 😊

[@deez9508]

Hainbach strikes again with subtle sprinkles of genius. The timbre of the microphone used for narration adds such a cool vibe to this video. Feels like watching an electronics instructional video from the 70’s. Can’t wait to check out the new album!

[@pamdemonia]

I love my Lyra so very much, and love listening to how other people have made theirs sing. Thanks for this!

[@loopinnerthe]

Workman vs Tool. The output from the workshop will always represent the skill and imagination of the workman coloured by their use of available tools. Touching video Hainbach thank you for making it.

[@Jefflantern483]

Yes the music in the vid are very chill & yes had a few of your tunes played at a cabin that I rented for a week , a few weeks back & was ever relaxing too! Your tunes sounded fantastic at camp! 🙂🙂🔊🔊

[@mikemorrisonmusic]

One of the channels I most look forward to seeing new episodes from every week. November '22 edit: Damn it, now I have to have this synth.

[@seekingnibbana4]

loved the style of this video, one of my favorites in a long time, thanks Hainbach!

[@ehule]

Wonderful video and beautiful sentiments about the Lyra 8! It unearths deep emotions and contains such power and fragility. To me it is like a manifestation of dark matter with knobs that allows you to touch time and space. It's by far one of my favorite electronic instruments and combined with the Cosmos it can take you anywhere. Thanks for always producing inspiring content!

[@spoonify8137]

This video has a feeling that nothing else on this platform has, I love it

[@RandomAcidLIVE]

Never before have I heard a single instrument play for the first time, and felt such powerful emotion. I have to have one.

[@DarkTapes]

so many pleasing and devasting tones. Tenori is such a nice classic and sounded lovely with tape. I think Lyra 8 could live nicely in my jaminarium, a little more thanks to your detailed report and demo on this organismic machine!

[@Gin-toki]

Beautiful melancholia. I love the textures this can procude. It's really mesmerising to listen to.

[@caelansimms]

Seeing this makes me remember of the 30 minute improv jams you used to do, love it. So many complex moods within a single instrument is always a fantastic thing to discover.

[@djknat]

this was a different video for you, Hainbach. I enjoyed it more than a lot of the in-depth descriptive videos of synthesizers. you've been almost infatuated and calm in a lot of videos, but this entire video almost tells a story. I liked it a lot. it was like a astrophysicist or an oceanographer was doing a synth review.

[@davidburke8838]

Beautiful demonstration of the Lyra-8. I was fortunate enough to get one of these rare instruments and I "get lost" every time I sit down with it. This is indeed an instrument, in the classical sense, with it's own organic voice; and while capable of agonizing, pained lamentations, it most often produces tones that both are rich with beauty and at the same time, melancholy. I see that I also am in the latter group.

[@m.g.kroger]

The more I listen to your sounds the more I open my mind, in progress with developing a deeper taste and an adventurous approach toward beauty.

[@dyztanz6188]

I have the same set up, but I also run the Pulsar-23 through the Cosmos. It's a kind of meditation when you turn these beautiful instruments on. Each session brings something wonderful.

[@nozzlegoblin1]

Brilliant choice of words! Very poetic.

[@michaelkonomos]

I own a Lyra 8 and really found this inspirational, especially the idea of filtering it.

[@SlaserX]

Beautiful. This is such a mood

[@DamienWise]

The Soma Labs Lyra-8 synthesiser is such a beautiful instrument. I adore my one for its expressiveness, and I love how you make yours sing.

[@Psionetics]

Your narration skills really shine in this one!

[@peterdonofrio1038]

Beautiful as always and love to see an Alesis Ineko out in the wild 💕 One of my favorite pedals

[@ringsystemmusic]

My only experience with the LYRA-8 is with the excellent free VST recreation of it LIRA-8. And you’re very right about the sense of melancholy it presents. Glad you finally got your hands on one, I can’t think of a more deserving musician!

[@bricelory9534]

Thank you for sharing about LIRA-8. I got it immediately afterward and lost a half hour in aggressive and melancholic drones. Amazing!

[@ThisIsDownstate]

good shout, this plugin is fun

[@ogasi1798]

i doubt the sw represents the hw in a truthful manner

[@bricelory9534]

@@ogasi1798 it does a pretty good job emulating it. Considering it's a piece of pay-what-you-will software, it's a hard thing to expect it to be a perfect emulation of the $700ish synth. But it also has a feature or two that the hardware version doesn't, including chromatic quantization, which makes it a lot easier to use in less microtonal situations. And obviously, it has the same issues most emulations have in the fact that manual modulation is trickier/less organic (though of course, it has the added benefit of being very easy to modulate with software lfo's, etc.) As a passion project of a niche synth, it really is quite good, as far as I can tell.

[@andropolonsky]

Can you share that vst?..here or any other place?….lyra is perfect..only very heavy..in bucks and kilos..)

[@electricdawn2258]

Love this video! I have been fascinated by the Lyra-8 for some time now. Unfortunately I just don't have the money for it right now... But someday... yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you.

[@volatilescheme]

Thanks, beautiful narration and sounds

[@jasonpowers7023]

Getting me even more excited about my Lyra 8. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow!

[@edwardfletcher7790]

It's fascinating watching the different ways you use your technology....

[@Nemorosus]

That was incredible! Love the way you make the Lyra / Cosmos sound. Makes me want to buy both..

[@Nemorosus]

@@istvantoth7431 awesome, congrats! I am still hoping that the Cosmos will appear second-hand somewhere. But I doubt it. I'd have to sell the only polysynth I own, to be able to buy the Lyra/Cosmos. Which I kinda want to do, but it's probably not a wise choice haha.

[@h2o1969]

Nice vid. I really liked your discussion on how some instruments show up with a sense of a soul that has lived a life and bears the scars, and other instruments have an innocents about them. It's interesting how you can paint some scars on the innocent with effects, but it's hard to cover up the scars that are there permanently.

[@Hainbach]

Yeah I agree with you. Thank you for this comment, it’s well observed

[@kimmy_future4265]

absolutely beautiful video! i so wish i could afford to get a Lyra 8!

[@ghouling1111]

Omg.. I just stumbled onto this video and I need this instrument one day!! I'm new to music production so I have no clue how to use them but I LOVE the sounds soooo much..

[@joshroolf1966]

I love how mythopoetically eloquent you are about audio in general and hardware in particular. I can hear the tale of Orpheus echoing in the Lyra, or the work of Tubel Kane hammering each note for the goddesses of melody and harmony...:: Good job whomever engineered you!!!😂 That's some fine art and subtle science, crikey..::: Its tambre reminds me, "it's the silence between the notes that makes the music", with the lurking dissonance and fading and entropy. I'm happy you seem to have a dialogue with your devices, and listen to their suggestions; they deserve to live with you. All my metaphors seem to run together in music, thank you for provoking them this morning!🌤🌱💛

[@ThisIsDownstate]

My life is so bleak right now, I think if I played this I'd break down every time two notes blur together to make that beautiful, eerie, lost sound. It's a machine that feels like it is alive to me. I played this in the synth shop for an hour a while ago and totally fell in love with it.

[@aracnide5051]

What a beautiful video!

[@TheClash115]

I really appreciate the amount of work and care that you put into each one of your videos. This channel just keeps getting better over time.

[@martinpohl2747]

What a nice pair! The Cosmos and the Lyra. Although the Lyra in its purity is beautiful, and also has a delay built in, its so interesting to combine with external effects - it must sound nice with the Mircrocosm pedal too. Cool video!

[@nebulance4289]

It is strange, but the Lyra-8 is what got me into synthesizers. I wanted one so very badly because I had saw a demo where it wailed like an electric guitar (I had just come off my doctor telling me I could not play guitar). I wanted one but the price was steep, and so I did a lot of research before eventually diying a drone synth inspired by the Lyra, which led me to your channel :) Very glad you got a hold of this truely wonderfully broken synth.

[@HugoPlaVentas]

hey what synth did you built? i'm in a similar spot

[@sunlinkable]

I'm curious at well

[@nebulance4289]

@@HugoPlaVentas i DIYed it entirely from protoboard, using MFOS oscillator schematics and a PT2399 delay. I do know now Soma will sell you PCBs and some ICs for a lyra for like 100 bucks plus taxes and shipping, would be a lot easier then what I did.

[@HugoPlaVentas]

@@nebulance4289 woow i'll love to see It.✨

[@martingoldmannmusic]

Hainbach playing the Beast - about time :)

[@christiand8243]

Thanks for the video, it's (Lyra 8) really an interesting instrument! 💯💯💯

[@carbonvibes]

Amazing sounds as always, the Nagra recorder produces such a beautiful silky sound. Really wish they were a bit more affordable 🤑. Thanks for sharing!

[@shookmusic]

This is so nice Hainbach! ❤🙅🏻

[@EclipseAtDusk]

The Drone Rainger feels like a much more simplified version of this, thanks to the interplay of the two droneosscilators & the delay, it’s delightfully fun, and one of my favorite “pedal” purchases ever - I’ve honestly only ever used it as an instrument unto itself, tbh

[@blankspace0000]

"serenade the hellhounds" really struck me. Great way of putting it

[@reggiep75]

I could imagine sitting in a tent in the pouring rain and this writing the soundtrack for it. 😊

[@TheNimasan]

Cosmos was without the shadow of a doubt my fav piece of gear of the whole superbooth! Soma is a genius company. Everything vlad touches turns into gold man i love this ppl sooooo much!

[@chriswareham]

I somehow missed this video when you posted it, and only came across it when I was searching for Lyra 8 videos as I tried to decide if I should buy one. I have now bought one, and it's the most amazing instrument I've ever used. I basically have my little Tascam multitracker recording the entire time I'm messing around with the Lyra so that I can capture those transient moments of brilliance. I can then sample them for later use, although looping what is often a constantly evolving sound is tough!

[@soulflower8687]

Your best video IMHO

[@pawnotdaw4559]

Nice. Loved that last track

[@the_glove]

It’s nice to have instruments like these when you need to practice trumpet and you like to isolate a note but not get bored as fuck

[@Nicole-pt4bx]

of course you have a tenori on ;v; love love love both the Lyra and the Tenori!

[@compucorder64]

The Lyra-8 reminds of the sound of some of the Gamelan metallophones, with all their overtones. Especially, when they aren't perfectly maintained, and ring, rattle and buzz a bit. A pure character instrument, and definitely an instrument more than a synthesizer. It's not a synthetic sound either, it sounds alive.

[@localhost4460]

I've got a Lyra-4 and it's made me cry multiple times. Nothing has ever sounded more beautiful.

[@sunlinkable]

Woaw! Didn't know this one existed, I would rather have this small one than it's bigger brother!

[@localhost4460]

@@sunlinkable I'm going to attempt to build Lyra-8 in a few months (everything ordered). I think the Lyra-4 delay is slightly different? I'm not entirely sure. All i know is that the Lyra-4 can make the sound of the end of the universe (headphones vibrate off your head).

[@grumomusic]

The narration and the choice of words /script is sublime. If you ever burn out from the music thing, you'd be a better English teacher than 99% of English teachers.

[@Hainbach]

Thank you so much! This is a new style of video for me and I did not know hownit would be received

[@gatorgoforth3097]

I recently played the Lyra 8 with my feet and oud with my hands into Zoom CDR 70. Had people perplexed and whisked away to mystical places with the all the tones and textures and freedom from western equal temperament.

[@techslfink9722]

The sound of this insis an acquired taste - and I love it. Looks like it has a mind of its own though, so I imagine it is hard to control.

[@matthewtunnicliffe201]

I enjoyed this video. I've wanted a Lyra 8 for a while but have always thought that it's a lot for me to spend on a more experimental piece that could be difficult to use in my music. Having said that, from videos I've seen (including this) I think it's a beautiful sounding instrument, and I could sample it to death on my Polyend Tracker and use it in music that way. There's certainly something about it that I can imagine getting lost in.

[@MikkelGrumBovin]

The Lyra is the best thing that happened in synth´s for the last 25 years ! Nothing comes close !!!

[@Frozen_Smoke1972]

I've just got a Lyra. So, so lovely to play.

[@dariusmorgan8302]

I'm finding my 'Make Noise Easel' is similar. It urges & beckons & pulls...it nearly commands me to follow, not what I may have been considering, but the subtle pushes into places unconsidered & unconscious

[@michaelkonomos]

Yes! The Lyra!

[@richardgriffithsmusic]

*geese Great video as always. Very interested in this paired with the Cosmos. Also, the Solar 42.

[@tylerk.rauman988]

It certainly has seen things we people wouldn't believe. These are the sounds of attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion and C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. You should name your Lyra-8 after the late, great, Rutger Hauer :)

[@id.unknown1283]

I have to agree with you on the take of glitchy synths are limiting but beautiful. My whole set up is a modular desktop format (think eurorack but in various sized pedal housings) desktop set up with some very strange modules that are raw and glitchy.

[@bricelory9534]

Also, I hope your holiday was enjoyable and restful! It is a beautiful setting...were you back in the Black Forest?

[@sodiumlights]

superb.

[@lokologico]

Amazing, I love the Lyra, it’s the strangest and most fun synth in my collection. For those that don’t have a Tenori, check out Xynthesizr on the iPad ,,

[@christianbachmann8206]

Having been a long time on the Lyra 8 wagon I can highly recommend to buy a filter like the vermona lancet filter and then just use an eventide pitchfactor after it. Best decision ever. Still I am not sure who is controlling whom. And that’s another beauty in the process

[@erlannderrantem6972]

It would be interesting to see the bubbly, cheerful synth fight the achiness and melancholy of the lyra in one song

[@Hainbach]

Ah yeah, that would be a cool contrast.

[@therealdohos2607]

cool now i have a 6mm deep slit on the torso because the synth just open the video with no fade in nothing but distortion and feedback to the roof. my cat took of and cut me open like a cheeze wrapper

[@Vergarecords]

I have been on the fence about the Lyra 8 for a while. On the one hand, i love the sounds it can make, on the other, I know that incorporating it into a mix of other synthesizers would be a real challenge.

[@sonickitchen]

Well worth the effort. You may have to do some in- DAW tuning and eq but adds life and genuine emotion to almost any track

[@MahlenMorris]

The Lyra -8 is what taught me the importance of TRS cables for proper conveyance of bass. I usually start by leaning hard on voices 1 & 2, which are pitched the lowest; it's usually not serenading the hellhounds so much as possessed by them, howling and baying with unsated bloodlust. So it's interesting for me to see this diametrically different way of playing it.

[@Screenshot1015]

Very happy I own a Lyra. There simply isn’t anything else like it. If you’re considering one, just do it. Also, I find the trick to getting the most out of it is to avoid the traditional settings and tuning oscillators/etc. try your best to make it sound bad, use extreme and weird settings. It simply never ceases to amaze and surprise me.

[@ThMntnst]

Ahhh the textures. I adore them. Not being that good "at music" in general, I hide that way too often in texture-creation rather than anything else. There's moments I disconnect/ mute a chain in my hardwaresetup and discover the painful truth of the music falling apart completely. Still, to me the feeling of timbral richness is worth the hastle to even start something.

[@ndf3]

As a listener, some of my favorite music is pure noise/sound collage. It has value, whether it's sound art or you just having a good ass time.

[@ThMntnst]

@@ndf3 Personally, I did Noise-"Music" 10 years ago and found my way to musically more harmonic sounds by adding to the structural repertoire. Still, if this is what one aimed for, textural richness stays a key-part of the redefined musical image.

[@daviHuggMonster]

that synth is definitely unique, seen it in some other parts on the i net :)

[@Countermate]

Can I get anything similar in VST format?

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

hainbach in proper narrator mode. next step: some voice acting x narrator job for BBC or cinema?

[@Hessencemusic]

This is an example of an instrument that is more than a standard music instrument. Not for everyone, off course. Now it’s on hype again and there will be more and more people buying it for just a good picture or a single drone. But I’m agree with you that there is so much more than the hype.

[@tommclean9208]

how do you spell the instrument at 4:30?

[@assis9009]

Omg you have a tenori on. I dream about this gear since i was a teen

[@destroyerofcitysduck5937]

One way of adding some grit is to set a sample and hold as fast as possible and use it to control the pitch ever so slightly. That way it sounds a bit like an old wax cylinder or a broken tape machine.

[@waltmodul7948]

The thenori- on. Is my master midi controler since 2012. And now lives together with a make noise Strega. The first on who loves those strange instruments on a tenori-on

[@musiqtee]

Lovely…! Just wondering; The metal oven grate, was that for grounding / shielding, or just convenient for carrying the connected items around? 😅👍

[@Hainbach]

Convenient! That is one of the first advices I give to everyone living in crammed conditions / with kids - put your synths on a plate. Lowers the "now I need to repatch everything" threshold. Else would not have recorded that much on holidays in a small cabin with two kids

[@edrift3d]

I so love this instrument and desperately want one, but the cost is a bit steep for a one use machine. :(

[@compucorder64]

To a lesser extent, I feel some of the same about my beloved Elektron Digitone. Jogging House too makes good use of those glassy fine sand like textures. Waves folded over, and the feedback pushing in to swept noise. And sometimes that fragility can be warmed just enough by printing it to tape, like your Nagra, or Jogging House's Revox. But, it sounds as though even though it's less flexible than the Digitone, it doesn't need so much of that processing. KMRU is another artist that uses these to express beautiful emotions of longing, maybe even nostalgia and homesickness, and lost youth. These tones have parallels I think, in the extended techniques, like piercing bowed harmonics of 20th century instrumental music. Which again, some people hate. They hear rusty gates blowing in the wind and hate it, I do hear it somewhat the same, but I love it. Reminds me of being a child, safe in my concrete house on the South-West coast of Ireland while the big bad atlantic storms tried to blow my house down.

[@Hainbach]

Beautifully put!

[@thebkstank2095]

Me: sounds interesting. Heinbach: it wants to go dark places and serenade the hellhounds. Me: holy shit.

[@gilberth_]

"To make something that feel's happy with it is hard". I would add: to make something with it is hard, especially because the Lyra is hard to even talk to. Despite making 5 amateur semi-improvised tracks with it (and with another instrument), I finally sold mine. Too much struggle, which is not what the instrument (nor I) want. It also has some "flaws" that I could not overcome : - no level control for the external input, so you have to constantly tune at least 3 knobs (two on the Lyra, master level on the other instruments) - switches for modulation do not allow for a continuous transition from 0 to some (relatively high) level - so you get a jump when you switch the modulation on OR you get unwanted modulation rather than 0. - the sensors did not work for me (or in an unpredictable way) : I had to moister my fingers to get it work, every minute or so. I miss the double analog echo that can be modulated by the double lfo [Edit: 06-10-2022: edited the text for clarity (?) ; also since then I bought a modular Lyra8-FX (I do not regret it!)

[@arkadymarto9440]

Very nice scapes!respect

[@letmefeelthevibes]

What a treat, thanks. I do love this instrument. What would you think of pairing it with a Perkons HD-01?

[@Hainbach]

Oh my that would bring the house down. Industrial heaven

[@thesadwolf]

I'm imagining Werner Herzog narrating over some those shots. "Earth, for some a bastion of hope and beauty born from the mother's flower of the universe. But to me, it is fire and daggers. Always ready to spank the baby's bottom of consciousness back into the dark abyss, non-existence, we call death."