Korg Forums

[loopman]

Hello, I'm undecided which one to buy : what is your opinion on the comparison between these two machines?

let's leave the obvious difference in the number of keys, it's not important for me

Wave sequencing vs Wavemorhing synthesis
No AT vs PolyAT
is the ASM Hydrasynth still the winner?

[Mr_SamDoogie]

I can imagine there is something about both of these synth that can do something going beyond what would pique someones interest for some feedback I'm not sure or clear cause lets be honest they both brand new.

I would like to hear clear modulations , arpeggio's without the sound get muffled or aliasing I'm thinking single sound to breath while working in a daw and while doing idea's straight up recording on the synth like the wavestate demoed to do obviously working with sequences or pattern is a pro.
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[burningbusch]

On paper, the Hydra looks great. Excellent interface, PolyAT. etc. I wish I was in more in love with the sound. Overall, from the demos I've listened to it sounds harsher, more clangorous, less musical than I'd like. Obviously, what is considered musical varies from person to person. I would say Korg's decades-long expertise in creating samples is one of the primary reasons the Wavestate sounds great.

Additionally, I prefer wave sequencing to wavetable scanning because the wavetable is rigid while the wave sequence is completely user-configurable. Also, arps are limited while sequences are limitless (or nearly so).

A good demo of the Hydra's sounds here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ypKUdWRd9s&t=438s

Busch.
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[HardSync]

OK, so I own a Hydra. First off, I agree that a lot of the demos don't do it proper justice. The Hydra is a monster, and lots of people said it had no balls or bass. But it really does. Many of the factory patches aren't particularly usable, at least to my taste in a musical sense -- I suppose they're meant as examples of what can be done. But just as many of the factory patches are fantastic, beautifully designed sounds. The presets are all over the place though. Some are too quiet, others too loud. I am constantly adjusting the volume on the Hydra.

The Hydrasynth is perfectly capable of emulating analog style sounds, but most of the presets highlight its true digital nature, i.e. harsh, sometimes cold, odd FM timbres that often wavemorph into grating sonic territories. IMO, the Hydra is a synth that works best when blended with other synths, particularly analog or VA (e.g. Radias and Hydra are lovely together). The Hydra is incredibly flexible and its UI is one of the very best I've ever used. It is NOT a sample based synth. The waveforms are all single cycle waves. I'll just say that if you are not interested in creating your own patches, the Hydrasynth is not for you. Not at the moment, anyway. And the absolutely biggest drawback of the Hydrasynth is a lack of variety in the single-cycle waves -- too many of them are far too similar to each other. And yes, many are harsh indeed, but those can be tamed with filtering.

The Wavestate is entirely different type of synth, being sample-based with tons of pristine samples at the ready. There's a similarity with crossfading waves in the Wavestate to wavemorphing on the Hydra, but it's not the same thing. I own three Wavestations (two EXs and one A/D), and they still sound amazing and lush. The Hydra can sort of emulate a rhythmic wavesequence using step LFOs, but it's not nearly as fun or clean as a Wavestation or even close to the new Wavestate's capabilities. As for the Wavestate's UI, I think Dan P. and team did a really great job with that too. It's not as clean as the Hydra's, but the Wavestate's UI does a lot more and is just as intuitive for the most part.

Obviously, the Hydra's poly AT and ribbon controller outshine the Wavestate's keybed. But I can't help but think about pairing up a Hydra and Wavestate together, in part for the Hydrasynth's poly AT, but also for sound of the two together. My Wavestations sound great with the Hydra, so I know that the Wavestate will too.

As an aside, if ASM decide to add more waveforms to the Hydra, I think it's possible that some previously-made patches will no longer sound the same. Should be fine with custom wavetables, but if a patch is programmed to pick specific waveforms in Wave mode, either by a step LFO or a macro control, mod wheel, etc., then wave choices will be different than what they were originally. That could be annoying. Whereas the Wavestate wouldn't have that problem, as far as I can tell. Dunno if any of that makes sense... it's just a quirk of the Hydra's design and how it uses various values to cycle through its 212 waves, while also based on the starting waveform. In some cases the value range is -128 to 128. In the case of step LFOs, it's +/- 64. There's more to it, like LFO depth amount, etc. But yeah, I'm not sure how the Hydra would handle new waveforms in the future.

But as for which synth is the winner? That's subjective. I think the Wavestate is more capable of producing timbres that will appeal to a much larger user base than the Hydra does. I'm also biased, in that I think the Wavestation is one of the greatest digital synths of all time. Forced to make a choice between the Hydrasynth and Wavestate, I would choose a Wavestate in a heartbeat. I'd rather not have to choose, so I can have both. :)