Hydrasynth

[ElVincente]

This is where arturia got minifreak right imo, I'd dream of having a hydrasynth Virtual instrument which would serve as an editor for the hardware synth too...

[Liero]

Hot take: Outside of analog, hardware digital synthesizers are mostly quite far behind their software counterparts in terms of sound and effects quality. This is coming from an ex dawless enthusiast who bought a bunch of them and started actually comparing to the newest on the software side. Hydrasynth is (imo) overrated and overhyped. So is modal engineering. So is KORG and Roland in the 2020's for that matter.

An exception from my experience: The Elektron Digitone is a truly unique FM synth that can't be replicated in native software (I tried like hell, their synth algorithm is just not your usual FM, esp. the feedback).

Funny, I was GASing hard for a Digitone when it first launched and I started watching all the demos to see if I could mirror what was happening using software. Digitone’s is a subset of Native Instruments’s FM8, so that’s what I used. I was able to get nearly identical results from it, though I was able to go places the Digitone couldn’t. My GAS for the Digitone was instantly extinguished.

A "subset" of FM8 - what does that even mean?

Just compared the two now and even a single sine operator feedback sounds totally different between the two, with Digitone sounding clearly smoother, less harsh, less shrill.

I can believe that with patches that have very low amounts of FM depth, many FM synths can sound similar, but as soon as you start pushing them to their limits the differences are laid bare, and this is precisely the area in which the Digitone stands out.

I'm not an Elektron fanboy, their USB implementation is buggy and has way too much latency and creates way too much CPU usage on the host computer (which completely defeats the purpose of external hardware processing). But IMO the Digitone does sound different in a "better" sort of way to most other FM synthesizers. The two filters also go a long way in differentiating it from others, making it almost like an FM/subtractive hybrid synth.

[zerocrossing]

Hot take: Outside of analog, hardware digital synthesizers are mostly quite far behind their software counterparts in terms of sound and effects quality. This is coming from an ex dawless enthusiast who bought a bunch of them and started actually comparing to the newest on the software side. Hydrasynth is (imo) overrated and overhyped. So is modal engineering. So is KORG and Roland in the 2020's for that matter.

An exception from my experience: The Elektron Digitone is a truly unique FM synth that can't be replicated in native software (I tried like hell, their synth algorithm is just not your usual FM, esp. the feedback).

Funny, I was GASing hard for a Digitone when it first launched and I started watching all the demos to see if I could mirror what was happening using software. Digitone’s is a subset of Native Instruments’s FM8, so that’s what I used. I was able to get nearly identical results from it, though I was able to go places the Digitone couldn’t. My GAS for the Digitone was instantly extinguished.

A "subset" of FM8 - what does that even mean?

Seems self evident. All the functions of Digitone are represented in FM8, plus FM8 has more.

Just compared the two now and even a single sine operator feedback sounds totally different between the two, with Digitone sounding clearly smoother, less harsh, less shrill.

I didn’t have a Digitone in front of me, so I had to just follow the demonstration. My results were good, so what can I say? Since then I’ve used FM8 a lot, and I don’t find it to be shrill or harsh, at least no more than any other FM. I’ve abandoned it since obtaining a polyphonic aftertouch keyboard (NI mostly refuses to acknowledge it exists), so I’ve been using other software like Synclavier V, DX-7 V, Blue 2, Zebra 2 Nemesis or F’em. Oh, and lately Cypher 2.

So, my point is that the Digitone sounds great, but not worth the desktop space or analog inputs. Yeah, I know that you can funnel it via USB/Overbridge, but I stopped doing that with my Analog Four and RYTM because of the excessive latency. I don’t really think that any hardware FM is worth it, except maybe the Synclavier Regen, but I’m not going to drop $2500 on that.